If your image of Argentine music is of wild, primitively noisy malambo-like dances, the kind of pieces that make a blatantly easy appeal to the gallery, this excellent disc by that country's only full-time chamber orchestra comes as a timely corrective. For, with little exception, the mood here is predominantly melancholy and nostalgic, though the musical language has substantially developed in the 40 years between the earliest and latest works here – the Quichuan lament (the Quichuas being an Indian tribe once part of the Inca empire) written by Luis Gianneo in 1923 and the threnody by Juan Carlos Zorzi on the death of his distinguished teacher Gilardo Gilardi. The former's repetitions, simple as they are, are imbued with pathos; the latter, more advanced harmonically, conveys an intense desolation.
Chronologically between these came works by two composers more familiar in this country – Ginastera, probably Argentina's greatest musician, and Guastavino, best known for his songs. Ginastera wrote his Impressions of the Puna (the bleak cold expanses of the high Andes) at the age of 18: the first two pieces are a lament evoking the quena (the wooden recorder-like Andean flute) – though the long flute cadenzas here far transcend the technique of that native instrument – and a meditative song-like movement; the third is an engaging light dance with a flute solo over pizzicato strings, and with a slow middle section. Claudio Barile is clearly a very fine flautist.
The greater part of this disc is devoted to Guastavino (who, unaccountably, is not mentioned in Gerard Behague's otherwise splendidly comprehensive book on Latin American music; Prentice Hall: 1979). His style is romantically expressive, his harmony traditional, and his three cantilenas here are, inevitably, quietly lyrical. Perhaps the most memorable is the warm-hearted ''La casa''; ''Juanita'' is a character study of charm; only ''El ceibo'' (a Sumac tree with brilliant red flowers) slips into a salon flavour; the lively finale is rhythmically intriguing. His ''Jeromita Linares'' (another character portrait), well written as it is, again approaches the light music field, particularly in the sentimental cantilena of the middle section.
It would be difficult to praise too highly this 14-piece string group who (like the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, of which they sound a worthy rival) play without a conductor. Their performances are of beautiful tone, impeccable ensemble, sensitive and full of refinement; and fortunately the recorded quality is first-rate too. A cordial recommendation: outstandingly fine playing of a repertoire few of us know.'