heitor villa-lobos: brazil's foremost composer, wrote at least a thousand works of uneven quality in which the folkloric eleemnt is often intermingled with neo-classical elements, most especially those associated with one of his favorite composers, js bach. his best work was concerto for guitar and small orchestra (originally a one-movement fantasia) but the great spanish composer andre segovia convinced him to turn it into a full-fledged concerto with a cadenza between the second and third movements. villa-lobos composed five piano concertos (all in four movements) - two for his own instrument (cello) and a concerto each for harp and harmonica.
algberto ginastera composed works firmly based on the folk music of his native argentina until about 1954...as his style evolved to include newer approaches (serialism, indeterminancy,a nd the use of textual masses) the folkloric element faded. the first piano concerto (1961) was commissioned by the serge koussevitsky foundation and dedicated to serge and natalie k. (first performed in washington dc) it requires a large orchestra, including, as do most of his concertos, a battery of percussion instruments played by five performers. (he also has a second piano concerto 1972) the first movemetn of that one consists of thirty-two variations on the dissonant orchestal chord beethoven introduced in the finale of his ninth symphony just prior to the startling baritone recitative. the chord contains all seven tones of the d harmonic minor scale. a theme from near the end of chopin's b flat minor sonata appears in the finale.
carlos chavez was mexico's best-known and most influential composer. he was also a gifted conductor who helped to found the mexican syphony orchestra in 1928. in the same year he became director of the national conservatory of music in mexico. chavez gave the people of mexico their first exposure to modern music, while simultaneously exposed the rest of the world to the music of mexico. he was a cosmopolitan musician, but he built his style upon the native mexican and spanish elements of his culture. he befriended aaron copeland and introduced mexican music to the american composer on a first hand basis. chavez's piano concerto (1938-40) illustrates the composer's highly developed sense of rhythm and his effective use of the orchestra, often in hard-driving percussive ways. his writing for orchestra is as virtuosic as that for the soloist and the two interact on an equal level.
(got this from roeder's 'a history of the piano concerto.')
Topic: mexican piano music