Alberto Ginastera (1916 - 1983)

Complete Piano and Organ Music


Performer:
Fernando Viani - piano, organ



The Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera is widely regarded as one of the most important and original South American composers of the 20th century. CD 1 of this 2-CD set of the complete works for organ and piano focuses on early works, many of which use folk-based elements without merely transcribing traditional tunes, and with increasing sophistication. The large-scale piano works featured on CD 2 include Sonata No. 1, Op. 22 (1952), one of the composer’s most popular works, and the Sonata No. 3 (1982), Ginastera’s last work, described by the soloist on this recording as a ‘single grand and violent impulse, with no time to catch its breath, like a dance to try and escape from death’. Variazioni e Toccata for organ is a highly virtuosic work, comprising twelve variations and a toccata based on a fragment of a fifth-century Easter hymn.

For a composer like Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983), whose piano works were such a significant part of his output, it's fascinating to have the opportunity to trace his development through a chronological survey of his complete music for keyboard. Ginastera destroyed most of his juvenilia, but even his Piezas infantiles, written when he was 18 (and which he withdrew from his catalog, but which are recorded here), show a sure command of form and material. His first published piano work, Danzas Argentinas, Op. 2, reveals a composer who has come into his own, with a distinctive and powerful voice. The movements are based on popular dance forms, but don't use preexisting folk material. They are bursting with rhythmic energy and harmonic abandon and display many of the characteristics of Ginastera's early nationalistic style - rhythmically driven movements in triple time charged with momentum through the use of hemiolas and changing meters, alternating with incredibly sensual and languid slow movements. Suite de Danzas Criollas (1946) is perhaps the most striking example of his piano music from this period. It retains the vitality and languor of his earlier works, but exhibits an increasingly technical sophistication - one of its high points is a lyrical, chromatically luscious canon in 11/8. The First Piano Sonata (1952) is deservedly one of the composer's most popular works. The folk elements are still present, but have been absorbed into a more abstract and complex but still sensuously appealing tonal language. In the 1960s Ginastera began to adopt a more international, modernist style in most of his music, but the Second (1981) and Third (1982) sonatas break no new ground. They are stylistically similar to the First Sonata, and while their material lacks its high dramatic profile, they are attractive pieces. The organ work Variazioni e Toccata sopra "Aurora lucis rutilat" (1980), which is recorded here for the first time, again displays Ginastera's rhythmic vitality and his gift for creating moments of limpid serenity.
Argentinean pianist and organist Fernando Viani plays as though he had this music in his blood. He is fully equipped to handle the music's outrageously virtuosic demands. The way he tears through the fast movements is thrilling, generating the kind of visceral charge the composer must have had in mind, and he is equally effective in bringing out the lyric poetry of the slow movements. Naxos' sound is clean and nicely reverberant in the organ pieces.



Tracklist:

CD 1
Danzas argentinas, Op. 2
No. 1. Danza del viejo boyero 01:27
No. 2. Danza de la moza donosa 03:40
No. 3. Danza del gaucho matrero 03:04
3 piezas, Op. 6
No. 1. Cuyana 03:38
No. 2. Nortena 04:16
No. 3. Criolla 04:06
Malambo, Op. 7 02:45
12 Preludios americanos, Op. 12
No. 1. Para los acentos 00:34
No. 2. Triste 01:24
No. 3. Danza criolla 01:23
No. 4. Vidala 01:11
No. 5. En el 1er. modo pentafono menor 01:30
No. 6. Homenaje a Roberto Garcia Morillo 00:45
No. 7. Para las octavas 00:30
No. 8. Homenaje a Juan Jose Castro 00:48
No. 9. Homenaje a Aaron Copland 00:55
No. 10. Pastoral 01:51
No. 11. Homenaje a Heitor Villa - Lobos 00:54
No. 12. En el 1er. modo pentafono mayor 02:17
Suite de danzas criollas, Op. 15 (2nd version)
I. Adagietto pianissimo 02:05
II. Allegro rustico 00:41
III. Allegretto cantabile 01:33
IV. Calmo e poetico 02:02
V. Scherzando - Coda: Presto ed energico 02:30
Rondo sobre temas infantiles argentinos, Op. 19 03:12
Danzas argentinas para los ninos
No. 1. Moderato: Para Alex 01:19
No. 2. Paisaje: Para Georgina 01:10
Piezas infantiles I
No. 1. Preludio 00:59
No. 2. Osito bailando 00:43
No. 3. Arrullo 01:26
No. 4. Soldaditos 01:18
Piezas infantiles II
No. 1. Anton Pirulero 00:54
No. 2. Arrorro 02:32
No. 3. Chacarerita 00:40
No. 4. Arroz con leche 00:51
Milonga 02:35
Pequena danza 01:45
Domenico Zipoli - Organ Toccata (arr. A. Ginastera for piano) 07:23


CD 2
Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 22
I. Allegro marcato 04:04
II. Presto misterioso 02:35
III. Adagio molto appassionato 05:37
IV. Ruvido ed ostinato 02:46
Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 53
I. Allegramente 03:54
II. Adagio sereno - Scorrevole - Ripresa dell' Adagio 05:24
III. Ostinato aymara 03:35
Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 54 04:51
Toccata, Villancico y Fuga, Op. 18
Toccata 04:12
Villancico 03:13
Fuga 06:59
Variazioni e Toccata sopra Aurora lucis rutilat, Op. 52
Variation 1: Maestoso 01:34
Variation 2: Tempo giusto 00:41
Variation 3: Impetuoso, l'istesso tempo 00:57
Variation 4: Vivacissimo 00:40
Variation 5: L'istesso tempo 00:42
Variation 6: L'istesso tempo 01:02
Variation 7: Sereno 01:52
Variation 8: Estatico 01:24
Variation 9: Quasi allegretto 01:08
Variation 10: Pastorale 01:22
Variation 11: Andantino poetico 01:27
Variation 12: Lento 01:38
Toccata - Finale: Tema 06:49



MORE INFO:
naxos.com (http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.557911-12
allmusic.com (http://wc03.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=43:152512~T2
arkivmusic.com (http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=151705
cduniverse.com (http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7402606&style=classical