SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Ginastera, Piazzolla and Revueltas: Carel Kraayenhof (bandoneon), London Symphony Orchestra, Kristjan Järvi, Barbican Hall, London, 20.1.2009 (BBr)

Alberto Ginastera: Dances from Estancia, op.8a (1941)
Astor Piazzolla: Aconcagua - Concerto for Bandoneòn (1979)
Silvestre Revueltas: La Noche de los Mayas (1939)


On the day of the inauguration of the 44^th President of the USA, the LSO gave us a sparkling concert of music from South America, Argentina in the first half and Mexico in the second. And what a show it was!

Alberto Ginastera is probably the only name which comes to mind if one is asked to name an Argentinian composer. A few might think of Astor Piazzolla, but as the father of Tango nuevo the word composer might not spring to most minds. This latter idea is incorrect for Piazzolla was every bit the composer as his teacher – Ginastera.

Ginastera was a prolific composer and his output consists of concertos, much solo piano music, three string quartets and other chamber pieces, two early ballets and three operas, one of which, Bomarzo, prompted a conductor, who is no longer with us, to say to me, whilst severely in his cups, “that’s an opera I want to do – it’s full of naked women!” What he failed to mention was that it was also full of good music! Estancia is the second of his ballets, written to a commission from Lincoln Kirstein for the Ballet Caravan, which disbanded the following year and never produced the piece. It wasn’t staged until 1952, but this suite had already been performed. The plot concerns a city boy who has to prove himself on the ranch in order to get the girl. The music is colourful and generally rhythmic – but with a gentle dance for the land workers. Järvi directed a performance full of punch and excitement, but with superb restraint in the delicate Danza del Trigo (Dance of the Wheat).

Astor Piazzolla was Ginastera’s first private pupil, in 1941, and twelve years later he entered his Buenos Aires Symphony in a composition conpetition and won a grant which enabled him to study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Piazzolla told the story that he showed the renowned teacher his mountain of scores – Symphonies, Sonatas, what–have–you – and she pronounced that

“It's very well written.” After a long while she said: “Here you are like Stravinsky, like Bartók, like Ravel, but you know what happens? I can't find Piazzolla in this.” And she began to investigate my private life…I was very ashamed to tell her that I was a tango musician. Finally I said, “I play in a night club.” I didn't want to say cabaret. And she answered, “Night club, mais oui, but that is a cabaret, isn't it?” “Yes,” I answered, and thought, “I'll hit this woman in the head with a radio....” It wasn't easy to lie to her. I didn't want to tell her that I was a bandoneòn player, because I thought, “Then she will throw me from the fourth floor.” Finally, I confessed and she asked me to play some bars of a tango of my own. She suddenly opened her eyes, took my hand and told me: “You idiot, that's Piazzolla!” And I took all the music I composed, ten years of my life, and sent it to hell in two seconds.

And we may be grateful for what Boulanger had realised about Piazzolla, for, aside from inventing Tango nuevo, Piazzolla created a fusion of tango and classical procedures whilst working within the style of tango. There is a saying that “a true gentleman is one who can play the accordian, but doesn’t!” I mention this because the bandoneòn is a squeeze box and Astor was a gentleman, but he did play, and what a performer he was. Standing with his right foot on a chair or box, resting the instrument on his thigh, he would play with the minimum of movement and exuding sex with every note he played – it was easy to how the women in the audience were swept away by him.

This Concerto is in the usual three movements, and is scored for an orchestra of strings, timpani, one percussionist, piano and harp. It is a truly delightful piece, with a beautiful slow movement. This was a pretty good performance, but perhaps a few less strings would have helped with the balance for, in places, the soloist wasn’t as clear as he should have been. But the accompaniment was well disciplined and had a real feel of tango at times. As an encore Kraayenhof and the orchestra played a little piece of his own which led, rather nicely, into Astor’s magnificent Adios nonino (1959), a memorial for his father (nonino being a pet name for the man). It contains one of the greatest tunes of the 20^th century and we were treated to a splendid arrangement of it.

If Piazzolla is unknown to you then you have missed one of the treats of the later 20^th century. Go to You Tube and hear the Quinteto Tango Nuevo, featuring the magnificent violinist Fernando Suarez Paz, playing Adios nonino and get yourself hooked! I had the great pleasure to meet Astor at the time of his Britsh debut in 1986 and here’s a marvellous bit of trivia for you - I am the only person alive who witnessed Yvar Mikhashoff introducing Astor Piazzolla to Conlon Nancarrow. You couldn’t make that up!

After the interval, Revueltas. Silvestre Revueltas was a Mexican musician who was born around midnight at the turn of the 19^th and 20^th centuries. He was a violinist and in 1929 Carlos Chavez invited him to become assistant conductor of the National Symphony Orcestra of Mexico. Surprisingly, considering his body of work, it was only in 1935, when he relinquished the conducting post, that he began to compose seriously. He wrote six film scores, two ballets and several orchestral works, of which Sensemayá is the best known. When I was a student I looked Revueltas up in a  music dictionary and discovered that he had died from alcoholism and an irregualr life – at 18 that sounded like a good and artistic thing to do! He actually died from pneumonia which was complicated by his alcoholism. He was only 40 years old.

La Noche de los Mayas is a four movement suite, compiled by the conductor Jose Limantour (who also recorded the work), from the music Revueltas wrote for the film of the same name. If the seven percussionists in the Ginastera gave the audience a fright then the 12 assembled on stage for this work must have had them quaking in their seats! This work really is a percussionists wet dream! Playing for close to three quarters of an hour it is full of brillianrt colour, disonant brass statements, delightful, down home Americana (some might say he was influenced by Copland in the second movement but as the American had only created El Salón México, premiered by the Mexico Symphony Orchestra under Chavez in 1937, and Billy the Kid was about a year old, it seems unlikely that his populist style was sufficiently known to have influenced Revueltas), sweeping string tunes and is a real riot of sound. The twelve percussionists, plus timpanist and a conch shell played by one of the horn section, come into their own in the finale which starts with a long, and I mean long, cadenza for the section alone and the whole movement is driven by this insanity of percussion. It’s a fabulous and fascinating suite, but the extra players must preclude regular performances. Perhaps one of our music colleges could take it up for they have the time and the players to mount such a work.

Järvi and the LSO went wild with this and gave a truly overwhelming account of the work. The many tom-toms, bongos, congas, shakers and gourd added to the vividly nationalistic feel of the music. This was rowdy and wonderful and certainly pleased the well filled Barbican Hall.

In my cynicism I must admit that with concert promoters crying shy of modern works I wouldn’t have thought such a show possible, so it was a sheer delight to come to this concert and hear these works given with such verve and in such carefully prepared performances. Outstanding stuff. What a shame the LSO didn’t record it for their own label.

Bob Briggs