"Conga began in my imagination as the visual image of an endless line of dead people dancing through the fires of hell. I gradually started hearing the music, and Dante's Paolo and Francesca da Rimini story soon became part of the scene."
Like the Mexico City subway line for which it is named, the composer calls this work a "short imaginary cyclical journey across fleeting urban landscapes."
Ocho Miniaturas is an inventive and satisfying synthesis of the 12-tone technique Cordero learned from Ernst Krenek with the rhythmic and melodic elements of his native Panama.
A feast of hemiola rhythms found in the son jarocho of Veracruz, Mexico. The motivic material is based on three son melodies, brilliantly scored. It is frequently performed with Moncayo's Huapango and Marquez's Danzón No. 2.
Like many of Halffter's works, La Madrugada has "attractive and colourful ideas expertly wrapped in some piquantly scored Neo-classicism." (MusicWeb International)
The Violin Concerto is considered by many to be Halffter's masterpiece.
"Angels begins with the ancient Earth opening its mouth and intoning a primal, indescribable "Aaaaaaaaaaaah." The sound comes from the depth of the orchestra, like a prelude to an Inca Das Rheingold ." --Mark Swed, The Los Angeles Times
A clepsydra is a water clock, one of the oldest time-measuring instruments. Of this beautiful, meditative work commissioned on the 300th anniversary of the discovery of the San Antonio River, Lavista writes: "I like to think that the river and music are both images of the rhythm of time."
Memories of a childhood in Cuba -- opening and closing with a depiction in the piccolo of the composer's father whistling on his return home in the piccolo -- are refracted through the families of the orchestra, coalescing into a dance in the second half.
A stirring Afro-Brazilian folk dance from the opera Malazarte. Paul Cook writes in American Record Guide that this "extraordinary colorful orchestral romp is already a classic."
Inspired by the Cuban danzón, Danzón no. 2 has become the most frequently performed Mexican work after Moncayo's Huapango. Paisajes shares this elegance, though in the darker hues of a memorial. In contrast, Conga del Fuego Nuevo is lighthearted, particularly in this spirited performance by the Simon Bolivar Youth Symphony conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.
Huapango is the concert music equivalent of Mexico's national anthem, capturing the lively duple/triple rhythmic interplay and the Mexican countryside.
Cinco canciones negras, popularized by the likes of Victoria de los Angeles, Montserrat Caballe and Federica von Stade, clothes the sensuous and sometimes political poems of the West Indies in masterful great Cuban poet Nicolas Guillen.
Cinco canciones negras for soprano and orchestra (12:00)
A rich, detailed triptych whose three movements visit Spanish music filtered through a Copland-like palette, medieval conductus, and Afro-Caribbean folk music.
The two full orchestra works here are concert suites derived from film scores. La Noche de los Mayas has become a popular concert-closer in recent years. Homenaje, one of Revueltas's greatest works, was written after the composer's stint in Spain, where he supported the Republican side against Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
La Noche de los Mayas for orchestra (36:00) Suite in four movements arranged by Jose Ives Limantour
