Alfonso Leng Haygus (11 February 1884 – 11 November 1974) was a post-romantic composer of

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" al ...

. He was born in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

. He wrote the first important symphonic work in Chilean tradition, "La Muerte de Alcino", a

symphonic poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term ''T ...

inspired by the novel of

Pedro Prado Pedro Prado Calvo (8 October 1886 – 31 January 1952) was a Chilean writer and architect. He won the Chilean National Prize for Literature in 1949. Biography Prado was born to parents Absalón Prado Marín and Laura Calvo on October 8, 1886. H ...

. He composed many art songs in different languages and important piano pieces, like the five "Doloras" (1914), which he later orchestrated and are normally played in concerts in Chile and Latin America. He won the National Art Prize in 1957. Leng was also an accomplished

dentist A dentist, also known as a dental surgeon, is a health care professional who specializes in dentistry (the diagnosis, prevention, management, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the oral cavity and other aspects of the craniofacial c ...

in Santiago.

Nicolas Slonimsky Nicolas Slonimsky ( – December 25, 1995), born Nikolai Leonidovich Slonimskiy (russian: Никола́й Леони́дович Сло́нимский), was a Russian-born American conductor, author, pianist, composer and lexicographer. ...

, ''Writings on Music'' (

Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...

, 2004), , vol. 3, p.2
Excerpts available
As a dentist, he was the main founder of the dentistry faculty of the

University of Chile The University of Chile ( es, Universidad de Chile) is a public research university in Santiago, Chile. It was founded on November 19, 1842, and inaugurated on September 17, 1843.

, and he was eventually elected as the first dean. Leng was the nephew of composer Carmela Mackenna.

References

1884 births 1974 deaths Chilean classical composers Chilean male composers Chilean dentists Musicians from Santiago University of Chile faculty Chilean people of Chinese descent 20th-century Chilean musicians 20th-century classical composers 20th-century male musicians Male classical composers 20th-century dentists 20th-century Chilean male artists {{Chile-composer-stub