Composer of the Fortnight : Alberto Ginastera

I have often felt that Ginastera´s reputation suffers from the fact that he was Argentinian. By that I mean, people expect him and all South Americans to create colourfol ´exotic´ fairly harmless music, and little else. They don´t expect any great intellectually rigorous music, because that can only come from Europe. For the same reason I have often felt that had Borges been French, or Russian, or German, his status as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century would be beyond doubt, and that when a South American writer doesn´t indulge in magic realism, people are not interested, in fact they are quite disappointed.

I am not saying that Ginastera didn´t create wonderfully colourful music, he did, he was a dazzling orchestrator, but there is more to him than that.

When you consider that his Opus 1 was a half hour plus full orchestral score written by a teenager as far away from the centres of musical culture as you can get, in its daring, confidence, and execution, it´s a remarkable achievement.

Ginastera´s influences Bartok, Stravinsky and Ravel, are never far from the surface, but he made them his own as he progressed, and he had a very personal way of using serialism.

There´s nothing I don´t like of Ginastera´s, some works are of a higher order than others, his Piano Concertos for example, but the thing I don´t understand is the almost total absence of his operas in the catalogue. The only one I know well is Bomarzo, which I think is a wonderful work on all levels, but to the best of my knowledge there has only ever been one recording of this work, made in 1968 and released in a 3 LP CBS box. I don´t even know if this work has made its way on to CD.

Of his first opera Don Rodrigo, I have only heard the finale as sung by Placido Domingo in 1966, whch made his name as a young singer, and of his third Beatrix Cenci I haven´t heard a note.

I have often thought any of these would be an ideal candidate for our own Wexford Festival but alas the people who decide these things don´t agree. 

Naxos have done a great job in making most of Ginastera´s output easily available, I would recommend most of it to anybody who doesn´t know his music.