Danzón No. 2

• Márquez composed his second Danzón for orchestra in 1994.¹ 
• Márquez’s series of Danzones for orchestra all borrow melodic and rhythmic idioms from 20^th-century popular music.²

“The idea of writing the Danzón No. 2 originated in 1993 during a trip to Malinalco with the painter Andrés Fonseca and the dancer Irene Martínez, both of whom are experts in salon dances with a special passion for the danzón, which they were able to transmit to me from the beginning, and also during later trips to Veracruz and visits to the Colonia Salón in Mexico City. From these experiences onward, I started to learn the danzón’s rhythms, its form, its melodic outline, and to listen to the old recordings by Acerina and his Danzonera Orchestra. 

I was fascinated and I started to understand that the apparent lightness of the danzón is only like a visiting card for a type of music full of sensuality and qualitative seriousness, a genre which old Mexican people continue to dance with a touch of nostalgia and a jubilant escape towards their own emotional world; we can fortunately still see this in the embrace between music and dance that occurs in the State of Veracruz and in the dance parlors of Mexico City.”

Arturo Márquez³

1. Ricardo Miranda Pérez, “Márquez Arturo,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 5, 2021,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000044202.
2. Ibid.
3. Quoted in John Henken, “Danzón No. 2: Arturo Márquez,” The Hollywood Bowl, accessed August 5, 2021, https://www.hollywoodbowl.com/musicdb/pieces/1501/danzon-no-2.