Waltz by Enrique Mora – (1876-1913)
When you hear the word “Waltz” what first comes to your mind?
For many perhaps is the name Johann Strauss, but in the late 1800s’ many new composers in Mexico were composing their own waltzes. Mesmerized by this new style of music imported from the Austrian dance halls to the elegant dance halls of an affluent Mexican society at the turn of the 20th. century, Enrique Mora wrote his most famous Mexican waltz “Alejandra.”
Inspired by the graceful melody, I resolved to name the protagonist of my debut novel, A Song In My Heart, Alejandra Stanford. With modernity life as it is today, bold and open, there was something nostalgic and alluring about that period in history, the early 1900s’, when life was simpler, men and women enjoyed to dance, if only to be with each other, and music was central to their daily lives. In the next book in the trilogy, A Symphony of Rivals, Alejandra Stanford Morrison takes readers on a new journey in the 1930s’ Europe. To listen to the waltz click on Alejandra by Enrique Mora.