CubaPLUS Magazine

It is considered to be the most melodious and sweet song that identifies Cubans and calls us to express our love for the homeland, wherever we are.

Composer Eduardo Saborit Pérez (Campechuela, May 14, 1911-Havana, March 5, 1963) planted that feeling in us when he gave us &Cuba, how beautiful is Cuba", after the advent of the Cuban Revolution. Patriotic and full of profound lyricism, it is a creation that almost everyone likes.

It also leads us to reaffirm that the sap of Cuban popular music was born in children of humble origin, people who fought hard  to cultivate it, either from the dedicated study as was the case of Saborit or from self-taught experience.

Eduardo Saborit, as a boy of simple origin, was able to study the pentagram with his father, a musician by trade and director of the municipal band of his hometown, and with other teachers who at that time taught classical and popular music in local Campechuela.

He first learned to play the flute, but had to change the wind instrument due to the aftermath of severe typhus suffered in adolescence. He then chose the guitar, to continue in what he loved and his choice was a wise decision, since the instrument became inseparable to him.

With it he was able to later offer classical music concerts and formed a group of peasant genres that he directed. He lived indistinctly, from 1935 in Niquero, Manzanillo, Camagüey and Santa Clara. As a consequence of the political activity he also carried out as a Marxist militant.

From Santa Clara he went  to the Cuban capital, with radio station Cadena Azul, and quickly begins to gain recognition for his performances and compositions.

After 1959, he dedicated his life and work to the process of change that the country was experiencing. He composed several hymns that responded to important events of the stage such as the Literacy Campaign.

He died early, at the age of 52, victim of a heart attack. Other works of his: &Get to know Cuba first and abroad later", &Wake up, Come, girl, Come", &El guarapo y la melcocha", &The Guayabera", &The horse and the saddle", &Touch it with lemon", &Without a flag" and &Charity".