Siempre En Mi Corazón (Always In My Heart) was composed by Ernesto Lecuona (1896-1963) in 1942 and featured in the film "Always In My Heart." It was nominated for an Academy Award for best song in 1943 but lost to "White Christmas." This lovely song is performed either as a rhumba or a ballad. Notable vocal performances which can be found on Youtube are by Plácido Domingo (my favorite) at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1VLs_C64tg , Dean Martin (both as rhumbas) and Jerry Vale and Kitty Kallen (both as ballads). Also, catch the piano solo performance by the composer at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gZRoW97bBs.
Aside from its great beauty, the song is of real musical interest. It has a 32-bar ABAC structure, but unlike most ABAC songs, the two A sections only repeat the first four measures. The thematic structure is very tight (think Beethoven's Fifth), based on a rhythmic motive of six eighth notes followed by a long note. Each of the four sections begins with three instances of this motive; the C section uses it four times! Interest is generated by the use of different harmonies beneath these motives in the B and C sections. It is hard to find another popular tune with as much thematic repetition, let alone one that works as well.
Lecuona, a famous composer in his native Cuba, wrote many compositions. His songs include "Siboney," "Malagueña," and "The Breeze and I."
The chord chart for this song more or less follows the lead sheet in the "Latin Fake Book" published by Hal Leonard. It works well with the
Latin - Cuba: Bolero style at 95 bpm.
Siempre En Mi Corazon - Ernesto Lecuona
Also note: this chart would benefit from being able to use tacets rather than NCs ("no chord" markings). I'm glad that such a feature is being considered in Niki's poll of possible new features for iReal Pro.