Such is our unfamiliarity with this area of the repertoire that Argo seem content to lump together as ''Music of Latin America'' works from the very different cultural backgrounds of Cuba, Mexico and Argentina; can you imagine music by, say, Bartok, Respighi and Satie being marketed together as ''Music from Europe''? Be that as it may, however, the disc is valuable in filling gaps in the current catalogue (all the previous versions of the savagely violent Sensemaya have been deleted, Copland's own performance of his Danzon cubano is conspicuously substandard, and the only other work now available is the Ginastera ballet suite); and it also has the merit of showing off the very striking skills of the New World Symphony, a training orchestra of young musicians about to enter the profession. There are also some surprising inter-relationships: for instance, Chavez's Second Symphony (based on repetitious Indian melodies and rhythms and employing platoons of native percussion) has a second section that bears a curious resemblance to Copland's usual folky style. The latter is represented here by the entertaining pastiche that has been called ''An American in Cuba''; but it is from two other composers that the authentic Cuban voice is heard.
Amadeo Roldan's most famous work, the ballet La Rebambaramba (1926/7) about Havana low life in 1830, relies on very heavily accented Afro-Cuban rhythms; his Ritmica V is for percussion only. From exactly the same time and background come the three Cuban dances by Garcia Caturla (a pupil of Nadia Boulanger who, as a magistrate, was assassinated by a criminal he was about to try), but these reveal a far greater subtlety of harmony and instrumentation, particularly in the second movement. Sophistication of nationalist material is to be found in the dances from Ginastera's ballet Estancia, depicting a day on an Argentinian ranch: the virtuosic final malambo is frenetically exciting, but the peaceful ''Dance of the wheat'' is hauntingly lovely. Far more 'civilized' and elegant than nearly all these works, however, is the ingenious, sensitively written and attractive symphonic study of the Argentine tango by Piazzolla, another Boulanger pupil: it would be a knock-out at the Proms. Altogether a highly recommendable disc, brilliantly recorded with demonstration quality.'