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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
You'll notice that there is an alternative recording of these two full ballets. If you want them buy this one because this is the Naxos reissue of the original Conifer recording. You can bet, therefore, that it's a whole lot cheaper.
These recordings are the only ones of the complete ballets and, therefore, represent premiere recordings. They were praised by critics when originally released by Conifer and I've no reason to contradict them with excellent sonics (though the bass sounds sometimes drown detail in places), and fine performances of two rarely heard works.
The ballets themselves are from Alberto Ginastera's early "objective nationalist" period. They do, however, sound quite different. Panambi is based on the legends of native indians and sounds more than a little derivative of Ravel and Debussy with a little of the expressionism in Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin thrown in. It is still an amazing debut work however, full of excellent music superbly orchestrated, as ever, by Ginastera.
Estancia is a better known work - at least in suite form. Ginastera's style had developed considerably in the five years that had intervened between the two works. He was familiar with Copland's work and Estancia bears more than a passing similarity to Rodeo. It is a more substantial piece than that with the added punch of Bartok and de Falla's influence.
Both works are more familiar as concert suites but there is no weak music throughout the complete ballets. This recording is, therefore, extremely welcome. Ginastera was a major composer and is possibly still undervalued possibly because of his latin American background - maybe classical listeners have a European bias.
The music is often rhythmically dynamic and exciting with wonderfully contrasting mysterious slow music - rather like Bartok's night music. Indeed if you like Bartok's most rhythmically charged work you'll find these two excellent ballets to be an absolute treat.
This gets five stars and deserves double that!
These recordings are the only ones of the complete ballets and, therefore, represent premiere recordings. They were praised by critics when originally released by Conifer and I've no reason to contradict them with excellent sonics (though the bass sounds sometimes drown detail in places), and fine performances of two rarely heard works.
The ballets themselves are from Alberto Ginastera's early "objective nationalist" period. They do, however, sound quite different. Panambi is based on the legends of native indians and sounds more than a little derivative of Ravel and Debussy with a little of the expressionism in Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin thrown in. It is still an amazing debut work however, full of excellent music superbly orchestrated, as ever, by Ginastera.
Estancia is a better known work - at least in suite form. Ginastera's style had developed considerably in the five years that had intervened between the two works. He was familiar with Copland's work and Estancia bears more than a passing similarity to Rodeo. It is a more substantial piece than that with the added punch of Bartok and de Falla's influence.
Both works are more familiar as concert suites but there is no weak music throughout the complete ballets. This recording is, therefore, extremely welcome. Ginastera was a major composer and is possibly still undervalued possibly because of his latin American background - maybe classical listeners have a European bias.
The music is often rhythmically dynamic and exciting with wonderfully contrasting mysterious slow music - rather like Bartok's night music. Indeed if you like Bartok's most rhythmically charged work you'll find these two excellent ballets to be an absolute treat.
This gets five stars and deserves double that!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
37 of 38 people found the following review helpful
Explosive sounds from Argentina
14 Dec 2006
Format:Audio CD
Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) ranks with Carlos Chavez, Heitor Villa-Lobos and Silvestre Revueltas as one of the best known (and most revered) Latin American composers. A native of Argentina, Ginastera was a "nationalist" composer who made use of his country's folk music and rhythms in many his works.
This newest addition to Naxos's LATIN AMERICAN CLASSICS series highlights two of Ginastera's earliest works, the ballets PANAMBI and ESTANCIA.
PANAMBI, Ginestera's opus 1 which was written in 1937, is based on the supernatural tales of the Guarani Indians from northern Argentina.
Brimming with suspenseful, dreamlike melodies and contrasting hard-hitting rhythms and audacious percussion, PANAMBI, something of a pagan pageant, can be easily considered the Argentinean version of THE RITE OF SPRING. In fact, I have never heard a "Stravinsky-influenced" piece sound more like Stravinsky than this. Indeed, this is not negative; Ginastera's intrinsic originality and Latin sentiment shine throughout PANAMBI even though Stravinsky's presence ever looms in the background.
More original (but no less exciting) is Ginastera's music from the ballet ESTANCIA written in 1941. Set on the vast, lonely Argentinean plains (the pampas), ESTANCIA a nostalgic glorification of the gaucho (cowboy) and of his difficult yet vigorous life.
The music of ESTANCIA is laden with Argentinean folk melodies and aesthetics, and even includes a part for bass-baritone. Like PANAMBI, there are slow, gloomy sections that seem to evoke the sprawling vastness of the pampas, but there are also moments of scintillating, percussive energy suggesting the work and play of the gauchos.
Unlike many of works from Ginastera's later period, PANAMBI and ESTANCIA avoid the severe atonality and aloofness of, for example, his two PIANO CONCERTOS (also available on Naxos).
While both pieces from the present disc can certainly be classified as "modernist," they retain a welcome accessibility that won't be a turn-off to people who usually eschew such music. Any fan of early Stravinsky or Prokofiev would relish these recordings.
And what recordings they are! Both ballets are impeccably recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra under the dynamic baton of the Uruguayan conductor Gisele Ben-Dor. Additionally, the bass-baritone Luis Gaeta is perfect in his turn as the narrator/soloist in ESTANCIA. His richly authoritative "Latin" tone adds authenticity and class to an already classy disc.
Another winning point for this recording is that the complete music from both ballets is presented; these are not just excerpts. (In fact, this CD features a world-premiere recording of the complete ESTANCIA music!)
All in all, this Naxos album is easily recommended.
This newest addition to Naxos's LATIN AMERICAN CLASSICS series highlights two of Ginastera's earliest works, the ballets PANAMBI and ESTANCIA.
PANAMBI, Ginestera's opus 1 which was written in 1937, is based on the supernatural tales of the Guarani Indians from northern Argentina.
Brimming with suspenseful, dreamlike melodies and contrasting hard-hitting rhythms and audacious percussion, PANAMBI, something of a pagan pageant, can be easily considered the Argentinean version of THE RITE OF SPRING. In fact, I have never heard a "Stravinsky-influenced" piece sound more like Stravinsky than this. Indeed, this is not negative; Ginastera's intrinsic originality and Latin sentiment shine throughout PANAMBI even though Stravinsky's presence ever looms in the background.
More original (but no less exciting) is Ginastera's music from the ballet ESTANCIA written in 1941. Set on the vast, lonely Argentinean plains (the pampas), ESTANCIA a nostalgic glorification of the gaucho (cowboy) and of his difficult yet vigorous life.
The music of ESTANCIA is laden with Argentinean folk melodies and aesthetics, and even includes a part for bass-baritone. Like PANAMBI, there are slow, gloomy sections that seem to evoke the sprawling vastness of the pampas, but there are also moments of scintillating, percussive energy suggesting the work and play of the gauchos.
Unlike many of works from Ginastera's later period, PANAMBI and ESTANCIA avoid the severe atonality and aloofness of, for example, his two PIANO CONCERTOS (also available on Naxos).
While both pieces from the present disc can certainly be classified as "modernist," they retain a welcome accessibility that won't be a turn-off to people who usually eschew such music. Any fan of early Stravinsky or Prokofiev would relish these recordings.
And what recordings they are! Both ballets are impeccably recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra under the dynamic baton of the Uruguayan conductor Gisele Ben-Dor. Additionally, the bass-baritone Luis Gaeta is perfect in his turn as the narrator/soloist in ESTANCIA. His richly authoritative "Latin" tone adds authenticity and class to an already classy disc.
Another winning point for this recording is that the complete music from both ballets is presented; these are not just excerpts. (In fact, this CD features a world-premiere recording of the complete ESTANCIA music!)
All in all, this Naxos album is easily recommended.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Entrancing
2 Jun 2008
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
I first heard Ginastera's music on an Arthur Fiedler LP from the '70's of a dance from Estancia. So it was with great curiosity that I acquired this CD of two complete ballets by Ginastera. Panambi is the longer of the two. It features long evocative solos for individual instruments, along with bracing sound pictures for the entire orchestra. It doesn't move along briskly, but is content with creating the various atmospheres the composer intended. Estancia is a different kettle of fish. It is vigorous and breathtakingly orchestrated, with a small evocative part for narrator/singer. It is disappointing that the text of the narration is not included in the album notes. The performances are very exciting, and one is very much aware of what a virtuoso ensemble the London Symphony is. Unfortunately, the sound engineering has a constricted dynamic range that prevents the full colors of the orchestration from being appreciated. Nevertheless, for the premiere recording of the complete Estancia, this is a necessary purchase.
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