Alberto Ginastera

Pampeana No. 2, Rhapsody for Cello & Piano, Op. 21 (1950)

The Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera (Buenos Aires, April 11, 1916 – Geneva,

June 25, 1983) dedicated his life not only to his compositions, but also to music education

and cultural funding, as well as the establishment of a South American identity in classical

music. He was the founder of the Conservatorio de Música y Arte Escénico in La Plata

and the founding Director of the Centro Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios Musicales

maintained by the Rockefeller Foundation. His compositions were well received in his

home country since a very young age - granting him his first composition prize at age

nineteen - but it was the performances of his works in the United States that brought him

to stardom and reinforced his position as one of the most important twentieth-century

composers of the Americas.

Ginastera's style is deeply based on the traditional music of Argentina and the

gauchesco tradition of the Pampas region. It utilizes a system of codes created by

Argentinian composers in the late nineteenth century that include folk melodies,

appropriation of folk-dance rhythms and techniques that emulate the sonorities of the

Argentinian guitar. His works are usually divided in three different phases, which are

described by the composer in his own catalogue. The first one, 'objective nationalism,'

spans his compositions from 1934 to 1947 and makes use of direct references to the

national elements and is predominantly tonal. The second, 'subjective nationalism,' goes

from 1947 to 1957 and, as the name suggests, makes use of those national elements in

a more subliminal way, now within a more complex tonal and even polytonal setting.

Finally, the third phase encompasses the works from 1958 to 1983, when Ginastera

embraces experimental techniques allied with what is now more of an inspirational

background of nationalism.

Pampeana No.2 was composed in 1950 and was dedicated to cellist Aurora Nátola,

who would later become Ginastera's second wife and for whom he also wrote two cello

concertos and other chamber pieces. The piece is a good example of the subjective

period; the name Pampeana, which refers to the Pampas region in Argentina, is used by

the composers in two other occasions (No.1 for violin and piano and No.3 for orchestra),

but although the three rhapsodic works strongly evoke the landscape and sounds of the

region, the effect is achieved without any direct quote of specific folk songs or dances.

The declamatory opening alludes to traditional gaucho singing competitions and elements

of the traditional malambo dance are present in the energetic triplets with irregular

accents, but it all serves a purpose of painting a somewhat abstract picture of the idyllic

background, rather than serving as cultural appropriation.

Gaspar Cassadó

Suite (1926)

Preludio – Fantasia, Sardana, Intermezzo e Danza Finale

The composer and violoncellist Gaspar Cassadó (5 October 1897 – 24 December

1966) was part of a very musical family; his father was a church organist and composer

and ran a piano shop with his mother, and his brother was a talented violinist. When he

was six years old, Cassadó performed in a recital at the conservatory of Barcelona. In the

audience was the cellist Pau Casals who, convinced of the young musician's talent,

invited him to become his pupil. Two years later, Cassadó moved to Paris to study with

the legendary musician at the Paris Conservatory under a scholarship awarded to him by

the city of Barcelona. Aside from studying his own instrument, Cassadó also dedicated

himself to the study of composition with Manuel de Falla and Maurice Ravel. He became

a somewhat prolific composer, writing many pieces for the cello, in many of which the

influence of these two great composers can be clearly noticed.

The Suite was composed around the same period as his Cello Concerto and Piano

Trio in 1926. The idea of composing a suite for solo cello comes from the great admiration

that Cassadó maintained for his mentor's dedication to the "revival" of J.S. Bach's Six

Suites for solo cello. Like Bach's, Cassadó's piece utilises dance forms preceded by a

prelude but, in this case, the dances represented are folkloric dances from Catalonia, the

composer’s homeland. Although the suite is nowadays considered as part of the main

repertoire for the cello, Cassadó himself never recorded the piece and it remained

somewhat unknown to the general public until the second half of the twentieth century,

when the Hungarian cellist Janos Starker brought it back to light and made it one of his

staple acts in live performances.

The Preludio - Fantasia resembles a Zarabanda with strong impulses on the second

beat of the measure. It is composed, as the name suggests, in an improvisatory manner

and follows an ABA form. The influence of Ravel can be heard in the main theme, which

quotes the flute solo from Daphnes et Chloé, but the rhythmic patterns reference yet

another piece: Zoltan Kodaly's Sonata for Solo Cello. The second movement is a Sardana

- a lively ground dance where dancers interlace arms and perform a choreography to the

sound of a combla (a traditional wind band). The harmonics at the beginning of the

movement imitate a small flute called flaviol, used to call the dancer to perform in the

middle of the town square. Finally, the last movement comes in the form of a Jota - a fast

paced dance that became very popular in the Spanish colonies in South America. In here,

Cassadó emulates traditional sonorities of Spanish music, such as the rhythm and

percussive sound of castanets, guitar arpeggios and flamenco harmonies.