1868–1894 · Mexico
Juventino Rosas was a Mexican composer and violinist who lived from 1868 to 1894. He earned a living from music from childhood, was largely self-taught, and wrote the waltz Sobre las olas, a piece that travelled far beyond Mexico. Piano sheet music for this waltz is available on the site.
José Juventino Policarpo Rosas Cadenas was born on 25 January 1868 into a poor family in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. Today a town in that state bears his name.
He began earning money from music at the age of seven. He took on any work that involved sound: he rang church bells and played the violin in the street. His father taught him the violin. He seized every chance to improve, and once even composed a waltz in exchange for a pair of shoes.
Rosas later settled in Mexico City, where as a young man he lived in the Tepito district and served at the church of San Sebastián as a bell-ringer, violinist and singer. He soon became a known musician and composer in the capital: as a boy of twelve he played the violin in a dance-band orchestra, one of the most popular in the city.
He accompanied the well-known singer Ángela Peralta. He also belonged to the group of the Aguirre brothers and to that of the Elvira brothers, which he left after his father and elder brother died in a brawl at a festivity.
Rosas's best-known work is the waltz Sobre las olas, in English Over the Waves. The waltz was originally called Junto al manantial, meaning "By the Spring". It was printed in Mexico City by the firms Wagner y Levien and Nagel Sucesores.
After the waltz's success, President Díaz gave the composer a piano, which he sold to settle his debts. He also let the firm Wagner & Levien have the rights to Sobre las olas for 45 pesos.
In 1891 Rosas worked in the state of Michoacán, and in 1892 and 1893 he lived near Monterrey. He joined a symphony orchestra and a wind band that toured abroad.
Rosas died on 9 July 1894 in Cuba, at Surgidero de Batabanó, of spinal myelitis. He was 26 years old.
Rosas was first buried in the cemetery at Batabanó. Fifteen years on, in 1909, his remains were returned to Mexico. The journalist Miguel Necochea and the Society of Mexican Composers arranged it, while Mexicans living on the island paid the costs.
At Veracruz the remains were received by the composers Miguel Lerdo de Tejada and Ernesto Elorduy. One carriage of the train was turned into a funeral chapel, and the melody of the waltz was heard all along the route. In Mexico City the remains lay at the Teatro del Conservatorio so that people could pay their respects; he was then buried in the Civil Pantheon and in December 1939 moved to the Rotunda of Illustrious Persons.
Rosas is regarded as one of the best-known Mexican authors of salon music. Among Mexican composers of that kind he has the most editions published abroad and the most recordings; the earliest of these appeared in 1898. Some of his pieces were also printed in Leipzig.
Besides waltzes he wrote polkas, mazurkas and danzas. Still, he is best known for Sobre las olas, which is still enjoyed as a classic waltz and has also turned up in New Orleans jazz and Tejano music. In the United States it is associated with fairs and trapeze artists.
The site offers sheet music for the waltz Sobre las olas, arranged for solo piano, at the Intermediate+ level.