Hello is anyone out there?
Sorry, we’ve been gone so long. We’re both in grad school and had to take breaks for a while to focus on less-fun writing.
But now…
And y’all, I don’t know any way to celebrate better than
PIECE: “DANZA FINAL (MALAMBO)” FROM DANZAS DEL BALLET ESTANCIA OP. 8
COMPOSER: ALBERTO GINASTERA
DATE: 1941
ERA/GENRE: 20TH CENTURY, NATIONALIST
GOOD FOR: PARTYING, DANCE-OFFS
Warning: I am going to use the word nationalist in this post. It is not …anything to do with our current orange menace…It’s about the movement in classical music where composers used the folk music of their own culture rather than feeling like they had to write something that sounded like the dominant trend of French/German/Italian classical music. It was very popular in the 20th century, and often associated with independence movements. Popular nationalist composers include Aaron Copland (U.S.A), Antonín Dvořák (Czech Republic), Charles Ives (U.S.A), Ralph Vaughan Williams (U.K), Edvard Grieg (Norway), Jean Sibelius (Finland), and Hector Villa-Lobos (Brazil) among others. And hey, those are all video links to their “nationalist” works if you want to go down a cool, folk-inspired, listening wormhole! Anyway, just needed to clarify that works we refer to as nationalist in classical music weren’t written point out how much other cultures suck, but rather to celebrate their own, usually under-represented, culture.
Now that that’s out of the way…
Alberto Ginastera (Hee-na-stair-a) was a 20th century, Argentinian composer born in 1916. He studied music at the conservatory in Buenos Aires and quickly gained popularity as a young composer, particularly for his two early ballet suites, Panambi and Estancia. While the country loved his music, Argentina was going through some stuff in the mid 20th century, and Ginastera was forced to leave in 1945.
Ginastera came to the United States and studied with Aaron Copland, which honestly makes so much sense because these guys had a lot of the same vibe going on. They’re both in our nationalist composers category, and Copland only began incorporating folk-music of the U.S. after being inspired by Carlos Chavez’s use of Latin American folksong. They were also both dedicated to the traditional forms of classical music so it was a great teaching partnership for this phase of their lives. In fact, the movement we’re studying today reminds me SO MUCH of the “Hoe-Down” from Copland’s Rodeo in both “plot” and musical content (remember kids, it’s RODEO not ro-day-o…only you can prevent elitism in classical music!) .
But when today’s featured piece came out, Ginastera was still just a virtuosic young guy in Argentina. We’re actually lucky to even HAVE Estancia since Ginastera later destroyed or withdrew most of his earlier works, calling them “immature” examples of his art.
Sigh.
I hate when composers do this.
You can hear that polyrhythm RIGHT at the beginning of this piece when the flute/piccolo loudly have a division of 2 big beats, the piano/oboe/strings are working with a strong division of 3 big beats. As an audience member this can make it a little hard to get into the groove, so I would encourage you to watch the conductor to help pick up the big beats, because this music is so fun if you can groove along and feel centered in the off-centeredness. If the musicians are all bobbing their heads, or doing AMAZING RHYTHMIC GROOVING like they do in that video, tap your foot in time for another lifehack to get into the groove of polyrhythmic music. Enjoy the ride, remember if you get off-beat that this music is supposed to be tricking dancers into messing up.
The melody is passed around to different parts of the orchestra and once you get to 2:24 in the above video you start hearing these dissonant rips in the horns, and those start to get passed around the orchestra as well. I can’t decide if those dissonances are gauchos wiping out or whoops from the crowd so listen for yourself and choose your own adventure/interpretation.
This one goes out to my music nerds out there: This piece features a blaring, dissonant, flat 2 that always makes me think of Respighi’s Pines of Rome and I wouldn’t even mention it except that it happens AT THE SAME TIMESTAMP in these videos which is just a strange enough coincidence for me to point out these awesome dissonant coincidences. Here’s the Respighi, and here’s that moment in the Ginastera. Probably means nothing, probably no connection at all except that flat-twos are generally ALARMING!
All that technical blather aside, this is a dance contest. I challenge you to groove the heck out during this piece, put on those gaucho pants, and stay up till dawn dancing with your friends.
Canon Fodder is partnering with Awesöme Orchestra to bring you content about their upcoming performances. Awesöme Orchestra Collective brings together Bay Area music lovers for orchestral adventures. They hold drop-in reading sessions that are open to all musicians and free for everybody in an informal setting. You can hear them perform “Danza final (Malambo)” from Danzas del ballet Estancia, Dvořák’s 9th symphony (The “New World Symphony”, whose melody gets floated around pop culture a lot and you may recognize as “Going Home,”) as well as premiering a brand new work by Aivi and Surasshu on Nov 10th, 2018 at 1pm at the Sports Basement, in Berkeley CA
*A lot of it is though…that’s why it’s the best!