Las Mañanitas
The Mexican dawn song for birthdays and saints' days, also sung to the Virgin of Guadalupe on her day, 12 December, for 2 to 4 singers, in Spanish: two verses as printed in 1921, each followed by the refrain "Despierta, mi bien, despierta". The alto sings close under the tune, and the tenor and bass fill in the chords.
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The first verse
Words: traditional MexicanTune: traditional Mexican
Estas son las mañanitas Que cantaba el rey David,A las muchachas bonitas Se las cantamos aquí.
About Las Mañanitas
Las Mañanitas is the Mexican dawn serenade: "Despierta, mi bien, despierta", wake up, my dear, wake up. In his memoirs of 1904 Antonio García Cubas tells how, outside a house, las mañanitas were sung as day came near, and soon the windows opened; his book prints the tune with our second verse and the start of our refrain, their earliest known printing. Writing of the Guadalupe fiesta in 1929, Anita Brenner called the mañanitas the "prerogative of the Mother, and prerogative, too, of sweethearts and budding maidens on birthday mornings." Our tune is read from Albert Friedenthal's printing of 1913, moved from his A major to G, and our words from El laúd hispano-americano (Los Angeles, 1921), the earliest printing of our first verse that we have found. The four parts are our own: two verses, each followed by the refrain, in Spanish, for 2 to 4 singers.
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