LATIN- AMERICAN ORCHESTRAL WORKS NORA CHASTAIN VIOLIN WÜRTTEMBERGISCHE PHILHARMONIE REUTLINGEN GABRIEL CASTAGNA Alberto Williams Fiesta Criolla premiere recordings Astor Piazzolla (1921 – 1992) 1 Milongón festivo (date uncertain) 5:59 Arranged 2009 for large orchestra, without bandoneón, by Gabriel Castagna Allegro vivace – Milonga lenta – Allegro vivace Manuel Gómez Carrillo (1883 – 1968) Fiesta criolla (1941) 7:11 Panorama inspirado en motivos santiagueños Symphonic Suite Orchestration by the composer of a work for solo piano (1934) 2 I Alegría. Allegro vivo – [ ] – Vivo 1:58 3 II Canción triste. Andante – Armonioso – Più animato 2:24 4 III El amor en los pañuelos. Vivo. Aire de zamba – Energico 1:11 5 IV Siempre alegría. Allegro vivo – Final 1:36 3 Juan José Castro (1895 – 1968) 6 Arrabal (1934) 9:26 First movement of Sinfonía Argentina Allegro marcato – Tranquillo, poco meno – Tempo I – Poco meno – Tempo I – Lento – Tempo I – Molto tranquillo – Come prima – Molto meno – Tempo I Manuel Gómez Carrillo 7 Rapsodia santiagueña (1922) 11:49 Orchestration by the composer of Rapsodia Argentina for solo piano (1920) Largo – Andante – Più mosso. Misterioso – Tempo rubato – Più mosso (Aire de zamba) – Tempo di vals – Con brio. Zapateado – Con fuoco – Lento (molto meno mosso). Canción popular – Mosso – Presto 4 Theodoro Valcárcel Caballero (1896 – 1942) Concierto indio (1940)* 18:47 Arrangement for violin and orchestra of Suite indígena for violin and piano (1930) 8 I Allegro festivo – Vivo 2:50 9 II Cantabile 4:50 10 III In senso populare – Cadenza – Lento – Allegretto – Allegro giocoso – Tempo I – Cadenza – A tempo 4:25 11 IV Danzante, assai agitato – Sostenuto (quasi Largo) – A tempo – Cadenza – Vivace – Agitato – Amoroso – Andante 6:40 Francisco Mignone (1897 – 1986) 12 Congada (1921) 4:53 Dansa afrobrasileira from O contratador de diamantes Allegretto danzante – Poco più – Più mosso – Assai vivo – Presto 5 Guillermo Uribe Holguín (1880 – 1971) Tres Danzas (1926, revised 1940) 8:05 13 I Joropo. Allegretto 2:16 14 II Pasillo. Andante – Più mosso – Tempo I 3:01 15 III Bambuco. Vivo 2:47 Alberto Williams (1862 – 1952) 16 Primera obertura de concierto (1889) 10:15 TT 77:10 Nora Chastain violin* Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen Teruyoshi Shirata concert master Gabriel Castagna 6 Fiesta Criolla: Latin-American Orchestral Works The music on the present disc provides the Schola Cantorum in Paris during the 1920s, a vivid overview of the rise of diverse as did the Colombian composer Guillermo compositional styles, all with distinctive Uribe Holguín before him, in 1907. Although national characteristics, in four South Manuel Gómez Carrillo never studied in France, American countries during the early to mid- his music received significant early exposure twentieth century. In addition to their creative in Paris as a result of the commitment to it applications of elements borrowed from, or shown by two renowned pianists who were inspired by, folk music and dances from their based there; one of them, Ricardo Viñes, also native countries, our selected composers promoted the music of the Peruvian composer from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru all Theodoro Valcárcel Caballero at the Salle owed an immense debt to French and Italian Pleyel in Paris. In contrast to these French influences absorbed during their first-hand connections, Valcárcel Caballero and the experiences of studying at prestigious Brazilian composer Francisco Mignone both conservatories in (for example) Paris and Milan studied in Milan: Valcárcel Caballero’s Italian in the early stages of their careers. Alberto sojourn was prematurely truncated by the First Williams won a scholarship to study at the World War, but Mignone’s somewhat later spell Paris Conservatoire in 1882, and his early works at the Milan Conservatory proved to be both were both performed and published in the sustained and fruitful. French capital. When he returned to Argentina, he founded his own conservatory in Buenos Piazzolla: Milongón festivo Aires as a direct result of the inspirational As late as the 1950s, Paris remained a highly educational methods he had experienced in desirable destination for the Argentinean Europe. By the 1920s, Argentinean composers composer and bandoneón virtuoso Astor were routinely travelling to Paris for their Piazzolla (1921 – 1992), who had the musical studies, a trend also demonstrated by opportunity to study with Nadia Boulanger their counterparts from the United States. Juan at the Fontainebleau American Conservatoire José Castro took lessons from Vincent d’Indy at following the succès-de-scandale of 7 his Sinfonía Buenos Aires, which (at the of arrangements of folk melodies he had suggestion of Castro) had been entered for – collected in Northern Argentina. His Rapsodia and duly won – the Sevitzky Prize in 1953. santiagueña was named after Santiago del Boulanger dissuaded Piazzolla from pursuing Estero, where he was born and worked until his desire to compose further large-scale his eventual move to Buenos Aires in 1943. The symphonic works, sensing that his unique piece was first performed in solo-piano form talent lay in his astonishingly fertile creative in September 1920 at the Society Sarmiento response to the tango idiom. Following de Tucumán (where the local university had Piazzolla’s return to Argentina, thus was born sponsored his folk project). The piano piece the exciting style of tango nuevo, in which was championed by the French pianist the tango met headlong such modernist Maurice Dumesnil, who took it to Paris where influences as the ostinato-driven music of it was performed in orchestral form at the Stravinsky, Bartók, and jazz. Piazzolla’s little- Conservatoire in February 1924 under the known Milongón festivo, originally scored baton of Francis Casadesus; the concert for piano, three bandoneón, electric guitar, also included Alberto Williams’s Poema de and orchestra and taking its title from a las campanas (Poem of the Bells), and was Uruguayan dance, was rescued from oblivion organised by the Maison de l’Amérique latine of by Piazzolla’s long-term collaborator José the Académie nationale des Beaux-Arts. Bragato, who copied out the full orchestral score in 1990 and gave it to his friend, Gómez Carrillo: Fiesta criolla the bandoneón player Juan José Mosalini Gómez Carrillo’s Fiesta criolla (Creole Party) (who first recorded it in a version for solo also began life as a set of piano pieces, and bandoneón, guitar, and orchestra). was first performed in this guise in 1934 by the composer’s daughter Inés; it, too, proudly Gómez Carrillo: Rapsodia santiagueña indicated its local source of inspiration in As well as a composer, educationalist, and the subtitle Panorama inspirado en motivos (in later life) the leading light of a vocal santiagueños. The orchestrated version was ensemble formed from his large musical first performed in 1941. family, Manuel Gómez Carrillo (1883 – 1968) was important as an ethnomusicologist Castro: Arrabal who, in 1920 and 1923, published two books Alongside his composing career, Juan José 8 Castro (1895 – 1968) enjoyed a reputation impressionism, this sometimes resulted in a as a distinguished conductor, and in 1933 relatively simple modal style of composition, he became director of the revered Teatro and some of the music by Theodoro Valcárcel Colón in his native Buenos Aires, having Caballero (1896 – 1942) is conceptually similar already served as the venue’s ballet to the manner in which, in northern Europe, conductor. International awareness of composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams Castro’s compositions began when the evocatively combined modal folksongs with Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet conducted Debussyan elements. This comparison is the Allegro, lento e vivace at the Festival of particularly plausible in the case of Valcárcel the International Society for Contemporary Caballero’s highly tuneful violin concerto Music in England in 1931. The orchestral Concierto indio, based largely on modal piece Arrabal, its title referring to the poor melodies and completed in 1940, shortly immigrant districts of Buenos Aires, in which before the composer’s early death. the tango was famously born, is the first movement of Castro’s Sinfonía Argentina Mignone: Congada (1934), and combines dance elements In Brazil, national music and dance genres with impressionistic orchestral timbres were far more heavily influenced by and a harmonic idiom of considerable African and Cuban styles than in the more sophistication; at the climax, the pounding Eurocentric climate of Argentina. Congada by off-beat tutti chords (marked con rudezza Francisco Mignone (1897 – 1986) is subtitled and tutta forza) thrillingly merge folk-dance Dansa afrobrasileira, and was one of the first rhythm with modernist dissonance. of his orchestral pieces to demonstrate these more exotic elements at a time when his Valcárcel Caballero: Concierto indio spell in Milan had more generally imbued his Nationalist musicians in Peru during the compositional voice with a strong Italianate 1920s were keen to explore the country’s flavour. (Mignone’s flautist father was an pre-Hispanic indigenous traditions which, like Italian immigrant.) Congada was a popular many folk musics worldwide, were heavily orchestral extract from the three-act opera reliant on pentatonic (five-note) scales. O contratador de diamantes (The Diamond When composers combined Andean musical Contractor), which Mignone composed in Italy elements with the influence of French in 1921 and which was