Classical Music | Music for Fortepiano

Recorded on 04/14/2010, uploaded on 07/07/2010

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Pampeana No. 2 for Cello and Piano, Op. 21 (1950)      Alberto Ginastera

Alberto Ginastera gave the name Pampeana-relating to the Argentine pampas-to three rhapsodic works which evoke his country's low-lying plains without quoting specific folk songs or dances. Although the third is a large-scale orchestral work, the first two are more compact pieces for violin (No. 1) or cello (No. 2) and piano.

Ginastera subtitles his Pampeanafor cello and piano a "rhapsody," and one hears in it the musical portrait of the great plains of Argentina in a series of tightly-woven vignettes. 

Written for cellist Aurora Natola, Ginastera's future second wife, the second Pampeana begins with a cello proclamation related to the declamations in gaucho singing competitions. The piano, initially restricted to sharp, intermittent chords, launches a vigorous folk rhythm and engages the cello in a brief dance, but soon the cello spins off into its own cadenza, full of double stops and pizzicato. The piano spends a couple of bars trying to lure the cello back to the dance floor, but the cello answers with low growls. Soon, the two instruments unite in a slow, nocturnal meditation.  Eventually the instruments fall into a final, frenzied dance with hints of the malambo, a male-only tango-like Argentinian dance.    Michael Cansfield

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.