Reviews for
GMCD 7211 - Huapango
MONCAYO: Huapongo. REVUELTAS: Ocho x Radio. Sensemaya. BLAS GALINDO: Sones
de Mariachh HALFFTER: Don lindo de Atmeria. CHAVEZ: Sinfonia India. Herrera de la
Fuente conducting Orquesta Sinfonica de Xalapa; Orquesta Sinfonica de Mineria'. 57:48.
Produced by Jonathan Wearn.
This disc is basically a reissue........ which, with the exception of the Halffter,
first appeared on Vox Cum Laude. That vinyl disc was enormously popular and successful,
particularly with classical radio stations, for reasons equally applicable now. This is
terrific music, excitingly played and brilliantly recorded. Anyone who missed out on it
the first time around need hesitate no longer. The music of Revueltas and Chavez, at the
very least, belongs in the collection of even a casual enthusiast, and the other pieces
are of uniformly high quality. This is a disc which is truly self-recommending.
David
Hurwitz
HUAPANGO Mexican Music Orquesta Sinfonica de Xalapa
and Orquesta Sinfonica de Mineria conducted by Herrera de la Fuente
Guild GMCD 7211 [58 mins] (PGW)
One of the greatest peculiarities of Britain's notorious musical insularity is the
neglect of the central and southern American repertoire, which doesn't take itself so
seriously as the usual symphony concert fare in this country. The keynote is energy and a
zest for life, and dance is never far away.
A brilliant South Bank Festival !VIVA! in
1989 gave enormous pleasure to those who attended and was a critical success, but
audiences were small and it was embarrassing to be covering one unforgettable concert at
which a huge orchestra and massive choir, who had flown in for this one event, far
outnumbered the scattered listeners. I have indelible memories of the Cuartetto
Latinamericano (have they ever come back again?) and of the conducting of Eduardo Mata,
shortly before his untimely accidental death.
These live performances recorded in 1981 & 1987 'with no equalisation or limiting
source' make for a good whistle-stop display of what we are missing. Moncayo's Huapango
is lively and joyful music, premiered in August 1941 conducted by Carlos Chavez,
whose Sinfonia India (1935) is one of Mexico's best known orchestral works, with
passages which relate to Copland's idiom. Four movements played without pause, Sinfonia
India consists of a dance in 'scrambled rhythms', a gentle intermezzo, a haunting slow
section and a dance-rondo finale, complete with the prescribed (optional!) stunning set of
exotic tribal instruments deer hooves, clay rattle, tlapanhuehuetl, teponaxtles
& a string of butterfly cocoons! Galindo was inspired by Jalisco on the
southern Pacific coast for his easy-going, sweet and sometimes a little sentimental Mariachi
Songs. Rodolfo Halffter (1900-1987), a pupil of Falla & uncle of the
avant-garde Christobal Halffter, is of a neo-classical bent, and Stravinsky comes to mind,
but definitely in Mexican dress.
But the chief reason to add this to your collection may be the inclusion of two works
by the short-lived Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940), far and away the most
individual of these composers, one whose originality is always in evidence. Here there is
the quirky, anarchic polytonal Eight times radio for an odd assortment of eight
instruments and Sensemaya for a huge orchestra with lots of Latin & Indian
instruments to reinforce the 'small army of percussion'.
It is high time for another !VIVA! festival
- now that South Bank Centre is no longer a forbidding palace of Classical Music, larger
audiences might more easily be persuaded to join the fun. Peter Grahame Woolf
SUMMARY
The keynote is energy and a zest for life, and dance is never far away. The chief
reason to add this to your collection is Revueltas, whose originality is evident in
the quirky, anarchic polytonal Eight times radio for an odd assortment of eight
instruments and Sensemaya for a huge orchestra with Latin & Indian instruments
to reinforce the 'small army of percussion'. PGW
Page revised 13.04.2001
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