Customer Reviews

Sensemaya - Music Of Silvestre Revueltas

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Silvestre Revueltas was an enfant terrible of 20th century music in Mexico (compare his compositions to those of the more conservative Carlos Chavez). His works are highly appealing to the contemporary ear by virtue of their intense rhythmicity, creative orchestration and dark undertones which are often counterbalanced by brilliant Mexican motifs. After listening to this enlightening selection of some Revueltas' finest works for full orchestra and chamber ensemble, I wondered what other masterworks might have been composed by one who died too young. Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic musicians really do justice to these innovative pieces. Highly recommended!

This year marks the centennial for Silvestre Revueltas, who was born on the very last day of the 19th century. When alcoholism took his life three months before his 41st birthday, it also deprived the world of the full blossoming of a remarkable talent. He left a short worklist, nearly all of it written in that most woeful of decades, the Thirties. The half dozen works on this CD reflect the gritty reality of the time--undoubtedly even grittier in Mexico than in the U.S. Based on an Afro-Cuban legend about the killing of a snake, Sensemaya is his most famous piece. For me, its pounding rhythms and brash colors are so primal, so physical, they beg to be choreographed. Were the piece longer than its seven minutes, it could stand comparison with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The longest work here come from one of his seven film scores, La noche de los mayas, which brilliantly showcases his talent for incorporating Mexican street music in work of the highest art. In Ventanas, quiet interludes punctuate a brassy tuba-led "window" on Mexican street life. To my mind, Revueltas' Ocho por radio is a far more evocative depiction of the existential "radio" than Stockhausen's static-bloated radio works. Both the Homage to Lorca and the Two Short Pieces exhibit the composer's skill with the neo-classical tools of the day: a skill which enabled him to wring maximum emotional content from the sparest means. At the risk of raising stereotypes, the quality that most struck me about Revueltas' music is its "machismo." In truth, however, it abounds with virility, a quality for all genders and--let us hope--for all times. ~ Larry Kohl

MUSIC OF SILVESTRE REVUELTAS is one of those CDs that, once in the library, is a disc that enjoys frequent hearings. This is music of deep convictions by a composer who seemed on the brink of entering the highest echelon of 20th Century composers when he died from alcoholism in 1940 (at age 41!). He brought the sounds, pulsations, exotic rhythms, and folk music from Mexico to the classical concert stage in a way that is as important as what Stravinsky did for the Russian idiom, Copeland did for the American idiom, and Bartok is for the Hungarian idiom.

This superb CD includes a fine overview of Revueltas' output. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the L.A. Philharmonic's New Music Ensemble in both large and small works. The 'La Noche de los Mayas, suite for orchestra' is as lush and gorgeous a work for orchestra as anything he wrote. But it is in 'Homenaje a Federico García Lorca for Chamber Orchestra' that the complexity and the drama of Revueltas' compositional powers are clearly evident. Also included are the now standard 'Sensemayá', 'Ocho por Radio', 'Ventanas' and two 'Little Serious Pieces'.

The performances are clear, transparent, full of bite and energy and very much in line with the quality of sound and interpretation we've come to expect form Salonen and his forces. In Salonen, Revueltas has found a solid supporter and we can only hope there will be many more recordings of this sensual and exciting music! Highly recommended. Grady Harp, October 05

The Mexican expressionist composer Silvestre Revueltas, now well known for his incessant rhythms, wanted to change the state of authentic, Mexican-based classical music, from nationalistic folk-based sounds, to his more urgent and dissonant style of expressionism.

Revueltas' most famous work, Sensamaya, based on the poem Song to kill a snake, is evocative of his style. Constant rhythms, with authentic Hispanic percussion, and modern orchestrations, gritty melodies and harmonies, create an almost industrial sound. On this recording is the 1938 fully orchestrated version of near bombasticity. Two other works on this disk are also written for full orchestra: La Noche de los Mayas and Ventanas. La Noche de los Mayas is intended to evoke ancient Mexican tribal feelings from the Mayan culture. Almost in symphonic form, the four movements follow a classical structure, moderate first movement, scherzo, lyrical third movement, and a theme and variations for the final movement. The incredibly serene and melodic opening, with occasional majestic outbursts of brass and percussion, shows Revueltas' innate ability to combine Mexican culture with classical music. The scherzo second movement, subtitled Jaranas, is almost a classical Mariachi, with witty lightness; whereas the third movement, subtitled Yucatan, has a melancholy calm featuring lush strings, woodwind melodies, and folk-like elements. Extra-musical effects, extensive percussion, and variation technique, show Reveultas' capabilities of diverse compositional techniques as a 20th century modern composer. Interesting sounds and combinations make a very engaging conclusion. Much like Sensamaya, Ventanas is very rhythmical and industrious sounding, featuring in this case, the brass section and tuba solo. Angular melodies, sometimes folk sounding, other times classically based, and clashes of dissonance, along with perpetual motion (even during the subdued middle section), is evocative of expressionism and the influence of Stravinsky.

Three chamber works are also included on this CD: Ocho for Radio, Homage to Frederico Garcia Lorca, and Revueltas' set of two Little Serious Pieces. Each has a unique assortment of instruments and are in smaller proportions to the previously mentioned portions of the disk. Ocho for Radio is a musical answer to a mathematical equation. Featuring eight players, the music has so much going on, it nearly sounds Ivesian. The main idea prevails, however, including a mariachi trumpet and string section, along with two woodwinds and one percussionist. The Homage to Lorca, in three movements (Dance, Sorrow, and Sound) begins with familiar sounding Mexican ideas, with slightly humorous dissonances and motives, includes piano, piccolo, and tuba. The ambiguous sounds of the middle, give an uneasy feeling of impatient monotony, while the concluding movement is in a revelatory and joyous mood with occasional clashings of dissonance and jazzy inflections. The two Serious Little Pieces are charming miniatures: the first, a swift pointilistic whirlwind, the second, a slow waltz. Scored for wind quintet with baritone saxophone, a rustic sound is created.

I personally like to explore new music, and this all Revueltas CD seemed appropriate. The music is diverse, featuring classicism, Mexican folk attributes, expressionism, and tribal rhythms and modes, not to mention the diverse literary sources and instrumentations. The music is modern sounding with particular influences of Stravinsky, dissonance and polytonality are often used. The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Los Angeles New Music Group under Esa-Pekka Salonen play admirably on some rhythmically virtuosic music. Salonen elicits very different sounds from work to work, making the CD varied. After listening, I am personally not astounded by the compositions, nor put off, but satisfactorily interesting. Make sure you like the music before purchasing. In any case, if you are looking for different and new music, this is a quality CD with a good performance, although, you may want to compare other compilations under conductor Eduardo Mata.

I had never heard anything by Revueltas before I bought this CD, but with each playing I find myself increasingly moved by this amazing music, and more and more impressed by the incredible playing of the L.A.P.O.!

What fun music! Salonen's other discs are great, but this is like a breath of fresh air. Revueltas's music is highly entertaining and pleasant to listen to. The LAPO plays fantastically and the recording quality is excellent. Go ahead and buy this one, it won't disappoint!

Very different, dramatic music. The unique percussion instruments along with the full orchestra makes this recording fun to listen to. La Noche de los Mayas is a great piece worth listening to again and again. Great album!

If you do not know Revueltas's music, you should, and this disc might be just about the ideal place to start. His most famous works, such as Sensemayá, are notable for the elemental power and fire they unleash, but you also get some superb examples here of the quirky, darkly humorous and poetic side of this utterly original and masterly composer.

The latter is not the least exhibited in the two serious pieces, with their almost cartoonesque business and scathing humor, unpredictable tunes and eccentric scoring (the effective duet between piccolo flute and tuba being a case in point). The Homenaje a Federico García Lorca displays some of the same qualities, bizarre, mocking melodies and never quite doing what one would have expected. The more famous Ocho por radio is something altogether different, but is still generally quirky and humorous, with colorfully, syncopated and very Mexican melodies. The opening theme is played without much variation, but the shifting scoring and textures create an almost kaleidoscopic effect. The secondary theme uses a sunny melody with a hint of solemnity suddenly jumping back into the brighter, brasher textures of the first theme. This is overall a smiling, effectively constructed work of charm, humor and poetry.

Turning to the other side of the composer, the well-known Sensemayá receives a grimly determinate and smolderingly powerful performance. The work is, in effect, one extended orchestral crescendo towards an almost volcanic climax and Salonen draws some almost dizzyingly urgent and fervent playing from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Ventanas is written in much the same primitivistic style, exploiting faux, bizarrely twisted folk tunes clashing together like bobbing icebergs, darkly and violently. The surprise on this disc, however, was the extensive, stirring and evocative suite La Noche De Los Mayas, from a late film score; superbly scored, darkly atmospheric and dramatic, variegated but heaving with elemental power and culminating in a Sensemayá-like, percussion-heavy final section.

Throughout the performances are quite excellent, whether it is in the quirky chamber textures of the Homenaje or the frenzied, craggy power of Sensemayá; rhythmically incisive and with an - as far as I know - unmatched forward momentum. The sound is excellent, and this release is recommended with enthusiasm.

So yeah, Revueltas is not one of those big name 20th century composers like Stravinsky or Copland - especially when he's from Mexico - but you got to give him a chance. When I listened to his music, I was immersed with such sensation.

His music is one of a kind, with distinctive rhythm, exoticism, and Latin-American feel. His orchestration is one of the most colorful and fascinating things I have ever heard - things you may never get in traditional or even 20th century European Classical music. This is especially apparent in his two masterpieces: "Sensamaya" and "Night of the Mayas".

Unless you're some stubborn ultra-conservative person who enjoys Mozart more than Beethoven, and utterly denouce 20th century music, you definitely got to buy this album - a whole new world of Classical Music awaits! TRUST ME!!!!!

I will not claim any expertise on the music of Revueltas. The chances and coincidences of my record collecting life have landed a few of his compositions in my CD library, and the lasting memory is that I enjoyed it. But apparently not enough to explore his output in any systematic way. I happened on this disc conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen by chance; it is a fine collection of works and introduction to Revueltas and it sure makes me want to find the scores and hear more.

Judging from the disc, Revueltas' output seems to fall in two broad categories: first, what you might call "music primitivism", a style which seems to have been much in vogue in the 1920s and 1930s in the wake of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and which, as I remarked in my review of John Antilll's Corroboree (Villa Lobos: The Little Train of the Caipira / Antill: Corroboree / Ginastera: Estancia; Panambi) requires for the composer to muster very sophisticated orchestral resources, of rhythm and orchestration. For another example, see my review of Stokowksi's recording of Werner Josten's "Jungle" from 1928 (Jungle / Concerto Sacro I & II). And there are, of course, Villa Lobos' lush and fascinating "Amazonian" compositions: Villa-Lobos: Genesis / Erosao / Amazonas / Dawn in a Tropical Forest, Cinderella / Ugly Duckling / Uirapuru.

Sensemaya is Revueltas' most famous composition in that genre (or in any other). It was inspired by a poem by the Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén, evoking an African-Caribbean ritual chant sung while killing a snake. Revueltas' original setting, in 1937, was for chamber ensemble, but he re-orchestrated it a year later for a huge symphony orchestra. It is a great piece, brutal, primitive and heavily pulsed but also full of wonderful and ear-catching touches of subtle orchestral color. Some passages irresistibly evoke Stravinsky's rite (as the one starting at 2:54), but it is also the music of Varèse that comes to mind. I also remarked in my review of Antill that nothing sounds closer to the evocation of primitive rituals in music than the evocation of the modern world, the bustling city, the throbbing factory (of which Mossolov's Iron Foundries is one of the famous examples): both go for the din and the implacable pulse.

But Revueltas was not the man of only one composition. The same style and approach, and the same Varesian more than Stravinskian references, are much in evidence also, in Ventanas for large orchestra (1931), in the second movement, "Duelo" (not "duel" but "mourning") of the Homenajesa Federico Garcia Lorca (1936) and in the finale of La Noche De Los Mayas (1939); lasting 10 minutes, the latter is in fact longer than Sensemaya and could very well be played as an autonomous symphonic poem. These pieces are impressive in their brutality but also their sonic refinement. Duelo in particular unfolds a hushed, brooding atmosphere full of pent-up menace. These works must have tremendous impact in concert.

But there is also another side of Revueltas, which you can hear in Ocho por Radio (a chamber piece from 1933), in the second movement, "Noche de Jaranas", of La Noche De Los Mayas, in the first and last movements, "Baile" and "Son", of the Homenaje a Federico Garcia Lorca, or in the two Little Serious Pieces from 1938: more light-hearted, jesting and even sardonic, evoking Milhaud's Brazilian inspiration or, indeed, Villa Lobos at his lightest and liveliest.

But, in as in his lightest vein as much as in his forbidding primitivist compositions, whether he writes for a huge symphony orchestra or for a chamber ensemble, clearly Revueltas is a master orchestrator. Even the lighter Lorca pieces and the two Little Serious Pieces, which might appear as minor and negligible in view of the awesome primitivist compositions, are ear-catching and uplifting in their brash, brassy and sassy orchestration.

Did I speak of two categories in which to slot it the compositions of Revueltas? Add a third one: as with Villa Lobos, there is also a strong romantic vein in Revueltas and a sweeping lyricism, very much "American-epic" in style (with traces of the Mahlerian adagio), which likens Revueltas with a composer like Copland, patches of sentimentality included. Try the first and third movements of La Noche De Los Mayas,

A great collection then. Being a modest newcomer to the music of Revueltas, I'll make no pronouncement on the quality of the interpretations of Salonen. Hopefully I'll come back to that later, when I've heard more. But evidently, they have not hampered enjoyment.