Music: Cuban Attache

Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.

—Andrew Fletcher, 1703.

In the politically violent land of Cuba there is often some doubt as to who, exactly, is writing the laws. But there is never any doubt as to who is the chief songwriter in that melodious land. He is Ernesto Lecuona. He wrote the famed, romantic air which outsiders could scarcely be blamed for supposing was the Cuban National Anthem—Siboney.* He wrote Canto Karabali (Jungle Drums), Andalucia (The Breeze and I), La Comparsa, Say Si Si, Maria La O, and a host of other...