Goetz in Santiago De Cuba
When Esteban Salas y Castro, choirmaster in the Cathedral of Santiago de Cuba, died in 1803, the election of the new Maestro de Capilla was an extraordinary event. It had been a foregone conclusion that Francisco José Hierrezuelo, long-time assistant of Salas, would be elected. Came the day, and Hierrezuelo spotted a certain well-qualified German priest in the choir. Blind with rage, and fearing the bishop had planned a conspiracy to thwart him, Hierrezuelo refused to take the examination, picked up his pen and wrote infuriated letters. The bishop persuaded the German, none other than Goetz, to renounce his candidacy, but Hierrezuelo had so offended the bishop and the town council by his irate letters that, despite grovelling apologies, he got only a minor position in the chapel. He was never to become maestro. The competent and hard-working Juan París was appointed, and Goetz moved on to Havana, where his arrival also had remarkable consequences.
Read more about this topic: Juan Nepomucino Goetz
Famous quotes containing the word cuba:
“Education is a necessity, it helps to understand life. Like that compagnero in Cuba who talked about politics, back when they were on strike. He knew many things, that hijo de puta, and he unraveled the most confusing situations in a marvelous way. You could see each point in front of you on the line of his reasoning like rinsed laundry set up to dry; he explained things to you so clearly that you could grasp it like a good hunk of bread with your hand.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)