José Manuel Jiménez Berroa (7 December 1851 – 15 January 1917) was a Cuban

Cubans

Cubans or Cuban people are the inhabitants or citizens of Cuba. Cuba is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...

 pianist and composer.

Life

José Manuel Jiménez was born in Trinidad, Cuba

Trinidad, Cuba

-External links:* , Online travel guide to Trinidad* , Selected photos of Trinidad* , Photos of Trinidad...

, Las Villas province into a musical family. He was the son of Maria Andrea Berroa and violinist Jose Julian Jiménez

Jose Julian Jiménez

Jose Julian Jiménez was a Cuban violinist and composer. He was born into a musical family and was brother-in-law to composer Catalina Berroa and father of cellist Nicasio and pianist Lico Jiménez...

 and was baptized in 1852 at the Parochial Church of the Santísima Trinidad. Jiménez studied music as a child with his father and his aunt, Cuban musician and composer Catalina Berroa

Catalina Berroa

Catalina Berroa Ojea was a Cuban pianist, music teacher and composer. She was born in Trinidad, Las Villas, and studied with local teachers to master several instruments. She operated a music academy in Trinidad where she taught students including her nephew, pianist and composer Lico Jimenez. She...

, and at the age of 15 was hired as an accompanist for a concert at Palacio Brunet by visiting German violinist Karl Werner

Karl Werner

Karl Werner was an Austrian theologian.-Works:In the second half of nineteenth century, he published monographs related to the doctrines of the great doctors of the medieval and 16th century scholastic. The monographs addressed the thought of, among others, Roger Bacon, St. Bonaventure, St...

. At the recommendation of Werner, Jiménez traveled to Europe in 1867, where he studied piano with the Carl Armbrust in Hamburg, Carl Reinecke

Carl Reinecke

Carl Heinrich Carsten Reinecke was a German composer, conductor, and pianist.-Biography:Reinecke was born in Altona, Hamburg, Germany; until 1864 the town was under Danish rule. He studied with his father, Johann Peter Rudolph Reinecke, a music teacher...

 and Ignaz Moscheles

Ignaz Moscheles

Ignaz Moscheles was a Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso, whose career after his early years was based initially in London, and later at Leipzig, where he succeeded his friend and sometime pupil Felix Mendelssohn as head of the Conservatoire.-Sources:Much of what we know about Moscheles's life...

 at the Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

 Conservatory and in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 with Antoine Marmontel.

After completing his studies, Jiménez toured as a concert pianist. With his father and brother Nicasio Jiménez

Nicasio Jiménez

Nicasio Jiménez was a Cuban violin-cellist. He was the son of violinist Jose Julian Jiménez and brother of pianist and composer Lico Jiménez. His sisters Inés and Arcadia Jiménez were singers.-Life:...

, he formed one of the first all black ensembles, billed as "Das Negertrio", and successfully toured in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, the Americas

Americas

The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

 and in Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

 as a soloist and with the ensemble, playing mostly 19th-century Romantic

Romantic music

Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....

 compositions.

Although successful in Europe, Jiménez found his music was less accepted in Cuba. He toured the island and worked for a while as a music teacher in Trinidad, but in 1890 returned to Germany and settled in Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, where he became active at the Weimar

Weimar

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

 court. He was befriended by Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

, and became a director of the Hamburg Conservatory of Music. He was the first Cuban composer to work with the lied

Lied

is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...

form. Jiménez married a German woman in 1899, Emma Filter, and had children Manuela, Adolfo and Andrea. He died in Hamburg.

Works

Selected works include:

• Elegía
• Solitude
• Valse Caprise
• Rhapsodia Cubana
• Murmullo del céfiro
• Polonesa
• Aragonesa
• Infiel
• Sufrimiento
• Crepúsculo
• Five Songs for soprano or mezzo-soprano (1900)