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La Cucaracha
Carmen Dragon (trans. Rhea)
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General Info
Year: 1990
Duration: c. 7:25
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Unknown
Cost: Score and Parts - Unknown
Instrumentation
(Needed - please join the WRP if you can help.)
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
Within La Cucaracha we hear Carmen Dragon's various professional experiences put into musical form. Throughout his setting of La Cucaracha, Dragon makes use of traditional Mexican folk songs. He provides the listener with several statements of the well-known melody. With each new statement Dragon makes use of the different timbres that only a wind band can provide.
- Program Note from Appalachian State University Symphony Band concert program, 16 February 2016
La Cucaracha (Spanish: "The Cockroach") is a traditional Spanish folk corrido that became popular in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. The song's earliest lyrics, from which its name is derived, concern a cockroach that has lost one of its six legs and is struggling to walk with the remaining five. The cockroach's uneven, five-legged gait is imitated by the song's original 5/4 meter, formed by removing one upbeat (corresponding to the missing sixth leg) from the second half of a 6/4 measure.
The origins of La Cucaracha are obscure. The refrain's lyrics make no explicit reference to historical events; it is difficult if not impossible therefore to date. Because verses are improvised according to the needs of the moment, however, they often enable a rough estimate of their age by mentioning contemporary social or political conditions. Earliest references are to the Spanish Reconquista of 1492, but the majority of the lyrics stem from the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920. Perhaps the most famous are these:
La Cucaracha, la cucaracha,
Ya no puede caminar,
Porque no tiene, porque le falta
Marihuana que fumar.
- Program Note from Wikipedia
Commercial Discography
- Audio CD: Hebron High School Wind Symphony (Andy Sealy, conductor) - 2012
Media
State Ratings
None discovered thus far.
Performances
To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project
- Tomball (Tx.) High School Memorial Wind Symphony (Andy Easton, conductor) – 7 February 2019
- Appalachian State University (Boone, N.C.) Symphony Band (Kevin Gray Richardson, conductor) – 16 February 2016
- Hebron High School (Carrollton, Tx.) Wind Symphony (Andy Sealy, conductor) – 17 December 2010 (2010 Midwest Clinic)
Works for Winds by This Composer
- America the Beautiful (as arranger) (1963)
- The Battle Hymn of the Republic (as arranger)
- I Am an American
- La Cucaracha (adapt. Rhea)
- Tournament of Roses March
- The Yellow Rose of Texas (as arranger) (adapt. Rogers)
Resources
- Carmen Dragon website Access 20 February 2016
- La Cucaracha, Wikipedia Accessed 20 February 2016