Cinco canciones populares argentinas Op10 (1943)

Chacarera

Triste

Zamba

Arrorró

Gato

Many-sided and productive composer though he was, Alberto Ginastera is still best known in this country for his macho ballet Estancia, which was written at the begining of his career more than sixty years ago. It closest relation in vocal terms is not, in spite of its title, Las horas de una estancia – which avoids dance rhythms and concentrates on the poetry rather than the gaucho vitality of life on the Argentinian cattle ranch – but the Cinco canciones populares argentinas. Written just before Las horas in 1943 and dedicated to Ginastera’s composition teacher Carlos López Buchardo (who had pioneered the genre in his Cinco canciones argentinas al estilo popular in 1935) they are inspired by the same enthusiasm for Argentinian folk music as Estancia. They are not lacking in poetry: both Triste and the Arrorró lullaby, with their limpid piano writing and their expressive vocal lines, are touching examples of Ginastera’s lyrical sensitivity. Their purpose here, however, is to offset the three Creole dances, the lively ostinato rhythms of the Chacarere, the more graceful Zamba (which has nothing to do with the Brazilian samba) and the percussive zapateado of the Gato.