La Noche de los Mayas

Composed by: Revueltas
Composed: 1939
Duration: about 30 minutes

Movements:

Noche de los Mayas (Night of the Mayas): Molto sostenuto
Noche de jaranas (Night of Merrymakers): Scherzo
Noche de Yucátan (Night of Yucátan): Andante espressivo —
Noche de encantamiento (Night of Enchantment): Tema y variaciones

Orchestration: 2 flutes (both doubling piccolos), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets (both doubling E-flat clarinets), bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (xylophone, tenor drum, field drum, bass drum, log drum, Indian drum, tom-tom, bongos, congas, woodblocks, tam-tam, güiro, metal rattle, conch shell or shofar), piano, and strings

The first movement [Noche de los Mayas — Night of the Mayas] sets the atmosphere for the entire composition and can be understood as a broad prelude. The second movement, Noche de jaranas [Night of Merrymakers], depicts a village festival using the form of a scherzo. The third movement, Noche de Yucatán [Night of Yucátan], contains what in the film was the love music, describing the idyll of a Mayan girl and a Mexican engineer. This is followed without interruption by the fourth movement, Noche de encantamiento [Night of Enchantment]. This is in the form of a theme with four variations and concludes with a finale that captures, with extraordinary sensitivity, the atmosphere that still prevails today in the magical rites that continue to be practiced in what survives of the Mayan culture — a culture doomed to disappear under the pressure of modern civilization.

— José Yves Limantour, taken from the program note about his arrangement of Revueltas’s La Noche de los Mayas