His contradanzas came to me just as he wrote them, only one page each. Of course the composer, following a common 19th Century practice, extended them with improvisations when performing them live for dancing and listening pleasure, in dance halls or in concert. So, for some of them, I undertook reworkings, variations and improvisations, not even attempting to reconstruct the historical style, but instead freely through my fantasy.

I had the honor and the pleasure to present this program in Havana, invited by the Institute of Cuban Music and with the support of the Cuban Embassy in Rome, where I gave the premiere within the Cuban Culture Festival organized by the Italian Latin-American Institute.

On these and other occasions, primarily the 'Musica/Realtà' Festival in Milan, I included in the program some dances by Ignacio Cervantes (1847-1905) and a collection of popular Cuban songs - Hasta Siempre Comandante among these - which I reworked into piano and piano/voice versions.