Playing Lecuona is, on its surface, an idiosyncratic and tightly, even myopically focused documentary on the Cuban composer and pianist Ernesto Lecuona. But by going narrow, this movie also goes deep.

Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws. —Andrew Fletcher, 1703. In the politically violent land of Cuba there is often some doubt as to who, exactly, is writing the laws.

Chinese pianist Yuan Sheng was one of the three dozen or so performers at this summer's International Keyboard Institute and Festival at Mannes College in New York. For his eclectic recital, he ...