El Cimarrón (Henze)

El Cimarrón
Scenic vocal music by Hans Werner Henze
The composer in 1960
Textby Hans Magnus Enzensberger
LanguageGerman
Based onoral autobiography of Esteban Montejo to Miguel Barnet
Performed1970 (1970): Berlin
Scoring
  • baritone
  • guitar
  • flute
  • percussion

El Cimarrón (The Runaway Slave) is a scenic vocal composition by the German composer Hans Werner Henze, written when the composer lived in Cuba in 1969–1970. It is subtitled Biographie des geflohenen Sklaven Esteban Montejo (Biography of the runaway slave Esteban Montejo), and the libretto by Hans Magnus Enzensberger is based on the oral autobiography related in 1963 to Miguel Barnet by Montejo, who was also a veteran of the Cuban War of Independence (1895–98).