Ginastera: Variaciones Concertantes — Spartanburg Philharmonic

by Chris Vaneman

If Augusta Holmès could easily be the protagonist of a (yet-unmade) dramatic movie, Alberto Ginastera might well have been a supporting character whose part in Evita didn’t quite make the final cut. But Ginastera was still the most important figure in Argentina’s musical world through the middle of the 20th Century, a politically engaged cultural leader who stood up bravely for democracy and artistic freedom, and a composer of colorful and engaging music of great virtuosity and appeal.

In the early years of the 20th Century Argentina was a country of immigrants from across Southern Europe, and Ginastera, the son of a Catalan and an Italian, was typical of the nation’s melting pot. The nascent cultural scene in Buenos Aires, the country’s capital, supported a few small music schools, and Ginastera joined the faculty of the Williams Conservatory as soon as he graduated from it.

Within a few years Ginastera had established himself among the country’s most accomplished musicians and most respected cultural figures. He was offered a generous sum to tour and study in America, but turned it down when he was asked to help establish a National Conservatory in Buenos Aires. In 1947 he finally did travel to America, where he became close to Aaron Copland; in 1952 he was fired for the first of two times as the Conservatory’s director by the popularist dictator Juan Perón, for opposing Perón’s plan to rename the institution after his recently-deceased wife, Evita. The succeeding government restored Ginastera to his post, but when Perón returned to power and then was followed by a right-wing dictatorship of equal corruption and brutality, the composer fled to Switzerland, where he lived his last years in exile.

The Variaciones Concertantes date to 1953, and like many of his best works display what he called a “subjective nationalism” – that is, they use elements adapted from Argentine traditions without incorporating folk music as such. They begin with a conspicuously Argentine gesture, as the harp plucks the same pitches as a gaucho strumming the open strings of a guitar, but it’s off to the races from that point, and in the midst of the full-technicolor cinematic journey that begins there a listener isn’t likely to take time to wonder which elements are “Argentine” and which ones just sound cool.

The theme is stated in an impassioned and expressive two-minute cello-and-harp duet, and in the 11 sections that follow, all between one and three minutes long, every section is featured alone or in combination. Listeners are treated to extensive solos from the viola, double bass, and clarinet, with the clarinet solo being of a virtuosity almost unprecedented in orchestral music (just try typing “Ginastera clarinet variation” into YouTube to get a sampling of the many video tutorials offering tips and tricks to the soloist).

In many theme-and-variation pieces the pleasure lies in tracing the theme as it’s transformed, but a listener who insists on that approach here is – it seems to me – going to miss out on the piece’s greatest joy. Sure, you could sit there going, “Okay, I think I heard the tune there! Or, wait a minute, was that actually the harmony being varied? Where am I again?” But Ginastera’s variations are so kaleidoscopic and colorful that you’ll do best just to treat it as a Disney World ride, hurtling you along from Tomorrowland to the Old West in seconds with the turn of a corner. Enjoy the ride!