Popol Vuh / Cantata para América mágica

Born in Buenos Aires with roots tracing back to Italy and Catalonia, Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) was accustomed to splitting his work into three parts corresponding to his three creative stages: objective nationalism, subjective nationalism and neo-expresionism. We could add one more chapter, written in the last years of his life, when he pulled all these strands together with the pre-Columbian world as nexus.

This precisely is the period of his most ambitious work, ‘Popol Vuh’, which opens this latest CD in the Fundación BBVA-NEOS Collection. A composition in eight parts, of which he had only just completed the seven on this disc when death overtook him, in Geneva. A precocious artist, Ginastera had composed his first works by age fifteen, with indigenist influences already apparent. His next inspiration came from Bartok, though in his case laying greater emphasis on chromatism and working with altogether freer structures. This led to a fascination with the twelve-tone method, where he took his cue from the expressionist ideas of Alban Berg. All this is there to be heard in Cantata para América Mágica, written in 1960. Themed around a series of texts from before the Conquista, this work resounds with over fifty instrumental elements, some conventional and others native to Latin America, a quarter of which belong to the percussion section. A procession of contrasts, it provides the perfect showcase for a dramatic soprano, as Rayanne Dupuis fully demonstrates.

Performances by:
WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln
Rayanne Dupuis, soprano
Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo
Ensemble S
Schlagzeugensemble der Musikhochschule Köln

Conductor:
Stefan Asbury

Contents:

CD Audio
Popol Vuh op. 44 (1975–1983)

The Creation of the Mayan World
1. The Everlasting Night (06:35)
2. The Birth of the Earth (04:30)
3. Nature Wakes (04:55)
4. The Cry of Creation (00:40)
5. The Grand Rain (02:43)
6. The Magic Ceremony of Indian Corn (02:39)
7. The Sun, the Moon, the Stars (03:14)

Cantata para América Mágica op. 27 (1960)
8. Prelude and Song of Dawn (04:56)
9. Nocturne and Love Song (03:59)
10. Song for the Warriors’ Departure (02:08)
11. Fantastic Interlude (03:51)
12. Song of Agony and Desolation (05:36)
13. Song of Prophecy (03:49)

Total time: 49:46