Alberto Ginastera - Panambí; Estancia (Gisele Ben-Dor)

Information

Composer: Alberto Ginastera

• (01-17) Panambí
• (18-29) Estancia

Luis Gueta, narrator / bass-baritone
London Symphony Orchestra
Gisele Ben-Dor, conductor

Date: 1998/2006
Label: Naxos
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.557582

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Review

A superb reissue of Ginastera’s colourful and lively early ballets

It was a characteristically bold step by the 21-year-old Ginastera to make his Op 1 an ambitiously scored orchestral ballet rather than a modest suite or chamber piece. Of course, he had written such works – mostly withdrawn and destroyed – but the one-act choreographic legend Panambí (1935-37) was several strides forward and as impressive a compositional debut as any.

Drawn from an Amerindian tribal legend, the plot concerns the love of Guirahu for the chief’s daughter, Panambí, and the machinations of the local sorcerer, who also desires her. A battle between good and evil plays out across a single night, opening with wonderful, impressionistic moonlight and ending with a radiant hymn to the dawn. In between, the expertly scored music is largely restrained, though with some electrifying episodes along the way.

Panambí betrays Ginastera’s formative influences clearly, The Rite of Spring and Ravel in particular. The vividly achieved, primitivist atmosphere (not unlike the music of Revueltas) necessary for the story is absent from his follow-up ballet, Estancia (1941). Some of the latter’s music is so well known, thanks to the popular Suite, that it may surprise that this recording of the whole was a premiere. Absent, too, is the self-consciousness of Panambí as a public statement; in Estancia one can hear Ginastera relax as he whips up a greater storm.

Gisèle Ben-Dor and the LSO are splendid throughout, sounding as impressive as they did to Lionel Salter eight years ago. In Panambí they are superior to the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra’s premiere version for Largo (nla; their version of the Estancia Suite was mediocre but they include the wordless choral parts in Panambí). Luis Gaeta makes a splendid soloist in Estancia. Recommended.

-- Guy Rickards, Gramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 10 / SOUND QUALITY: 10
MusicWeb International  BARGAIN OF THE MONTH
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/feb99/ginastera.htm
http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/n/nxs57582b.php
https://www.naxos.com/reviews/reviewslist.asp?catalogueid=8.557582&languageid=EN
https://www.amazon.com/Panambi-Estancia-GINASTERA/dp/B000IY063E

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Alberto Ginastera (April 11, 1916 – June 25, 1983) was an Argentine composer of classical music. He is considered one of the most important 20th-century classical composers of the Americas. Many of Ginastera's works were inspired by the Gauchesco tradition. His early nationalistic works often integrate Argentine folk themes, while works in the later periods incorporate traditional elements in increasingly abstracted forms. Ginastera held a number of teaching posts. Among his notable students were Ástor Piazzolla (who studied with him in 1941), Alcides Lanza, Waldo de los Ríos, Jacqueline Nova and Rafael Aponte-Ledée.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Ginastera

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Gisele Ben-Dor (April 26, 1955) is an American Israeli orchestra conductor of Uruguayan origin. Ben-Dor was born in Uruguay and immigrated to Israel in 1973. She graduated from the Rubin Academy of Music, Tel Aviv University and the Yale School of Music, also studying with Mendi Rodan in Jerusalem. As an active guest conductor and music director worldwide, Ben-Dor is a champion of Latin American music – notably the works of Ginastera, Villa-Lobos, Revueltas, Piazzolla, and Luis Bacalov – and is widely regarded as one of the world's finest and most dedicated exponents of this repertoire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gisele_Ben-Dor
http://www.giseleben-dor.com/

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