Malambo from Estancia

Having got so far from the centre of Europe, we might as well carry on westwards, and southwards, to Argentina. The earliest Argentinean music you are likely to hear in the concert hall - on this side of the Atlantic at least - is Ginastera’s Estancia, which was commissioned by Lincoln Kirstein for the American Ballet Caravan in 1941. Set on an estancia (or cattle ranch), the ballet is based on the way of life of the gauchos (or cowboys) who work in the wide open spaces of the Argentinean pampas (or plains). As the city-boy hero of the ballet finds, life on the estancia is hard and he stands no chance with the girl he falls in love with there unless he can prove himself as virile as the gauchos themselves. It is only at the end, in the final malambo, a traditional gaucho competitive dance, that he proves himself more than their equal in sustained and aggressively heel-stamping vitality.