Who Let this Guy Cook?

Alberto Ginastera's Danzas Argentinas do really pack heat!

Ginastera by Annemarie Heinrich - Annemarie Heinrich, Centro Editor de América Latina, Buenos Aires: 1982., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72911520

As I did write about Latin American classical music before, it is good for me to do so again, this time going down south to Argentina with the music of Alberto Ginastera. When one thinks about the country, one either thinks of tango or football —I mean they have Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi for crying out loud! Anyhow, if I devoted more time to write about Argentinian culture, I would absolutely enjoy researching and sharing what I find. As a composer, he incorporated folk elements of Argentine music into his compositions, akin to his older Hungarian contemporary, Béla Bartók. He was not afraid to embrace aspects of modernism sweeping 20th century music and his works received critical acclaim. His music is nationalistic in character, with two periods of his creative output divided between “objective” and “subjective” takes before ending with “Neo-Expressionism”. As an example of the man’s music, the choice today is his Danzas argentinas, Op. 2 composed in 1937. Here are the dances:

1. Danza del viejo boyero (Dance of the old herdsman)

2. Danza de la moza donosa (Dance of the graceful girl)

3. Danza del gaucho matrero (Dance of the outlaw cowboy)

The first dance starts off right away with conflicting tonalities. The left hand plays solely black keys whereas the right hand just does the white keys, experimenting already with bitonality and not minding the strong dissonances between the hands, especially as the melody is played in tone clusters. The second dance is the most lyrical and is the emotional center of the set. While less dissonant than the dance preceding it, the tension and climax of the dance is so dissonant brought by more tone clusters. It is also the slowest of the three, showing the graceful character of a girl. The last dance just shows plain aggression in exciting fashion. If the dissonances of the first dance weren’t enough, Ginastera pushed them further with more clusters and clashing chords —in root position of all and that breaks the rules of voice leading! He absolutely wanted the pianist to fly off the seat of his pants!

Here is Juan Floristán performing the set:

For more about the man’s life and works, you can view the New World Encyclopedia’s entry of him here.