Sensemaya - Music Of Silvestre Revueltas
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Composer: Silvestre RevueltasConductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen
Performer: Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1999-03-02
Music Label: Sony
Soundtracks:
- Sensemayá
- Ocho por Radio
- La Noche de los Mayas: I
- La Noche de los Mayas: II
- La Noche de los Mayas: III
- La Noche de los Mayas: IV
- Homenaje a Federico GarcÃa Lorca for Chamber Orchestra: I
- Homenaje a Federico GarcÃa Lorca for Chamber Orchestra: II
- Homenaje a Federico GarcÃa Lorca for Chamber Orchestra: III
- Ventanas
- First Little Serious Piece
- Second Little Serious Piece
Music reviews of Sensemaya - Music Of Silvestre Revueltas
Music Review: A great introduction to the music of Revueltas
Rating: 5 Stars
I will not claim any expertise on the music of Revueltas. The chances and coincidences of my record collecting life have landed a few of his compositions in my CD library, and the lasting memory is that I enjoyed it. But apparently not enough to explore his output in any systematic way. I happened on this disc conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen by chance; it is a fine collection of works and introduction to Revueltas and it sure makes me want to find the scores and hear more.
Judging from the disc, Revueltas' output seems to fall in two broad categories: first, what you might call "music primitivism", a style which seems to have been much in vogue in the 1920s and 1930s in the wake of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and which, as I remarked in my review of John Antilll's Corroboree (Villa Lobos: The Little Train of the Caipira / Antill: Corroboree / Ginastera: Estancia; Panambi) requires for the composer to muster very sophisticated orchestral resources, of rhythm and orchestration. For another example, see my review of Stokowksi's recording of Werner Josten's "Jungle" from 1928 (Jungle / Concerto Sacro I & II). And there are, of course, Villa Lobos' lush and fascinating "Amazonian" compositions: Villa-Lobos: Genesis / Erosao / Amazonas / Dawn in a Tropical Forest, Cinderella / Ugly Duckling / Uirapuru.
Sensemaya is Revueltas' most famous composition in that genre (or in any other). It was inspired by a poem by the Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén, evoking an African-Caribbean ritual chant sung while killing a snake. Revueltas' original setting, in 1937, was for chamber ensemble, but he re-orchestrated it a year later for a huge symphony orchestra. It is a great piece, brutal, primitive and heavily pulsed but also full of wonderful and ear-catching touches of subtle orchestral color. Some passages irresistibly evoke Stravinsky's rite (as the one starting at 2:54), but it is also the music of Varèse that comes to mind. I also remarked in my review of Antill that nothing sounds closer to the evocation of primitive rituals in music than the evocation of the modern world, the bustling city, the throbbing factory (of which Mossolov's Iron Foundries is one of the famous examples): both go for the din and the implacable pulse.
But Revueltas was not the man of only one composition. The same style and approach, and the same Varesian more than Stravinskian references, are much in evidence also, in Ventanas for large orchestra (1931), in the second movement, "Duelo" (not "duel" but "mourning") of the Homenajesa Federico Garcia Lorca (1936) and in the finale of La Noche De Los Mayas (1939); lasting 10 minutes, the latter is in fact longer than Sensemaya and could very well be played as an autonomous symphonic poem. These pieces are impressive in their brutality but also their sonic refinement. Duelo in particular unfolds a hushed, brooding atmosphere full of pent-up menace. These works must have tremendous impact in concert.
But there is also another side of Revueltas, which you can hear in Ocho por Radio (a chamber piece from 1933), in the second movement, "Noche de Jaranas", of La Noche De Los Mayas, in the first and last movements, "Baile" and "Son", of the Homenaje a Federico Garcia Lorca, or in the two Little Serious Pieces from 1938: more light-hearted, jesting and even sardonic, evoking Milhaud's Brazilian inspiration or, indeed, Villa Lobos at his lightest and liveliest.
But, in as in his lightest vein as much as in his forbidding primitivist compositions, whether he writes for a huge symphony orchestra or for a chamber ensemble, clearly Revueltas is a master orchestrator. Even the lighter Lorca pieces and the two Little Serious Pieces, which might appear as minor and negligible in view of the awesome primitivist compositions, are ear-catching and uplifting in their brash, brassy and sassy orchestration.
Did I speak of two categories in which to slot it the compositions of Revueltas? Add a third one: as with Villa Lobos, there is also a strong romantic vein in Revueltas and a sweeping lyricism, very much "American-epic" in style (with traces of the Mahlerian adagio), which likens Revueltas with a composer like Copland, patches of sentimentality included. Try the first and third movements of La Noche De Los Mayas,
A great collection then. Being a modest newcomer to the music of Revueltas, I'll make no pronouncement on the quality of the interpretations of Salonen. Hopefully I'll come back to that later, when I've heard more. But evidently, they have not hampered enjoyment.
Description of Sensemaya - Music Of Silvestre Revueltas
All products are BRAND NEW and factory sealed. Fast shipping and 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.Tellingly, classical albums whose liner notes are translated into Spanish--in addition to the traditional English, French, and German--tend to be those that contain music by Spanish-speaking composers and ensembles. This distinction goes to the heart of the "discovery" of the music of composer Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940) during the mid-to-late 1990s, evidenced by a steady series of releases after decades of near silence. And silence does not suit Revueltas, who favored enthralling, brash, maximalist symphonic expression, and whose work will not sound entirely new to new audiences, even though his clout as a major cultural figure stops at the border of his native country, Mexico.
This sort of déjà entendu familiarity is generally the case with any composer who absorbs "folk" material (think Béla Bartók or, especially, Aaron Copland). To hear regional military horns bellow through Revueltas's large-scale Ventanas for Large Orchestra is to have dozens of western films flash through the mind's eye. And to hear subtle mariachi motifs inform the arrangement of the same composition, or in the countless set-piece segments of the highly varied Ocho por Radio, is to hear a thorough imagination at play. Revueltas understood foremost that simple themes magnified to an orchestral scale require additional detail to fill the space, and he achieves his goal with richly embroidered counterpoint, overlays of dissociated themes, and strong writing for single instruments, as with the woodwind patter in First Little Serious Piece. That said, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen's renderings seem a bit removed from Revueltas; he can unnecessarily reinforce the film-music-like quality of some of the material. This is lively, at times volatile, and often humorous music, and should be played as such. --Marc Weidenbaum
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