José Ignacio Quintón (February 1, 1881 – December 19, 1925) was a Puerto Rican

pianist A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...

and composer of

danzas DHL Global Forwarding, formerly known as DHL Danzas Air & Ocean, is a division of Deutsche Post DHL providing air and ocean freight forwarding services. It also plans and undertakes major logistics projects under the brand name DHL Industrial P ...

Early years

Quintón was born in

Caguas, Puerto Rico Caguas (, ) is a Caguas barrio-pueblo, city and Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality in central eastern Puerto Rico. Located in the eponymous Caguas Valley between the Sierra de Cayey and Sierra de Luquillo of the Cordillera Central (Puer ...

, into a musically talented family. His father, a

Frenchman French people () are a nation primarily located in Western Europe that share a common French culture, history, and language, identified with the country of France. The French people, especially the native speakers of langues d'oïl from nort ...

by the name of Juan Bautista Quintón y Luzón, was a graduate of the Conservatory of Music of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. The elder Quintón was also a composer and

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...

who became his son's first music teacher. When Quintón was two years old his family moved to the town of Coamo. In Coamo, he took piano lessons with Ernesto del Castillo. In 1890, when he was nine years old, he performed his first concert. When he was only eleven years old he accompanied the famed Cuban violinist Claudio Brindis de Salas Garrido on the

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

in a concert and was highly acclaimed by him. Quintón continued to study music and was the director of his school's band. During his spare time he gave piano and

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

lessons.Centro Musical Criollo José Ignacio Quintón
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/ref> By 1917, Quintón had taught himself to read English. This enabled him to read and study English language music books and magazines of the time thus becoming informed of the styles and compositions of

Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...

and other composers.

Danzas

The first danzas that Quintón composed were ''Confía'' (''Trust''), ''Mi estrella'' (''My Star'') and ''Amor imposible'' (''Impossible Love''). He received many awards and the recognition of his fellow musicians for the compositions ''Cuarteto para instrumentos de cuerdas'' (''Quartet for string instruments''), ''Variaciones sobre un tema de Hummel'' (''Variations on a theme of Hummel'') and many others. He also wrote ''Misa de Requiem'' as a tribute to the late composer of danzas Ángel Mislan. His greatest composition was the danza ''El Coquí''. In this danza he was able to simulate the sound of the

coquí Coquí is a common name for several species of small frogs in the genus ''Eleutherodactylus'' native to Puerto Rico. They are Onomatopoeia, onomatopoeically named for the very loud mating call which the males of two species, the common coqui an ...

, a tiny frog with a unique call found in Puerto Rico.

Legacy

José Ignacio Quintón died on December 19, 1925, in the town of Coamo where he is buried. The town of Coamo has honored his memory by naming one of its principal avenues after him and by conserving the house in which he lived as a historical landmark. The José I. Quintón Academy of Music is located in Coamo. The , a museum is located in Caguas.

References

External links

Cuatro 40 Ediciones
{{DEFAULTSORT:Quinton, Jose Ignacio 1881 births 1925 deaths 20th-century Puerto Rican musicians Puerto Rican composers Puerto Rican male composers People from Caguas, Puerto Rico 20th-century American male musicians

Early years

Danzas

Legacy

See also

References

External links