Sensemayá is a composition for orchestra by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, which is based on the poem of the same title by the Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén.
Guillén's poem evokes a ritual Afro-Caribbean chant performed while killing a snake: Canto para matar una culebra :¡Mayombe-bombe-mayombé!
:¡Mayombe-bombe-mayombé!The poem "Sensemayá" is based on Afro-Cuban religious cults, preserved in the cabildos, self-organized social clubs for the African slaves.
Other brass join in to play the theme, growing louder and more emphatic, but rigorously yoked to the underlying rhythm.
Eventually the horns blast as loudly as they can, with obsessive trills on the low clarinets far underneath, and the strings enter with the slashing second theme.