Customer Reviews

Ginastera: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2

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The two works presented here, Ginastera's two piano concertos, are unfortunately rarely heard pieces. However, Dora de Marinis brings them both off with a style that sounds like Ginaster himself was playing it. The First Concerto was composed around the same time as the First Sonata for piano, and has many of the same characteristics. The Second Concerto is a wonderful, varied composition. The first movement is a huge set of 32 variations on a theme of Beethoven (but you wont recognize it). The second movement is a Scherzo for the left hand alone. Then there is a slow, Quasi una fantasia movement, and finally the cadenza and the highly virtuosic prestissimo finale. The First Concerto was a favorite of Jorge Bolet, and one can easily see why!. I would only recommend this CD if you are familiar with Ginastera's writing -- the big chords, (There are some huge clusters in this piece), the barbaric, pounding rhythms, and the later, quasi-pointillistic style (especially in the orchestration), and if you have no problem with the modern repertoire.

In listening to these excellent performances I began to wonder if there were a sort of Argentine school of music making, which has remained elusive. (And I am not talking about Argerich's peculiar qualities) For surely Ginastera was world-famous, yet was striving for some sense of particular expression. . The performance here brings out a unique quality which is very appropriate, but hard to identify. Not so much in terms of piano playing itself, but in terms of idiom. The pianist in this recording who is apparently very well known in Argentina is world class by any standard. Yet the reading seems very personal, and one wonders if it isn't a representation of some more elusive national identity. She plays these works with no sense of sound effects, but as if it were a linguistic trope all its own. The result is extremely musical reading of both works. I really loved it, and I can't say that about a lot of these Naxos productions.