New Year Rodrigo Miloš Petrenko

When Europeans started streaming into Latin America in the 1500s, they brought with them a number of rich musical traditions. In the centuries to follow, these melted together with the equally rich traditions from the South American and African continents. What we today might perceive as a Latin American form of expression has spread back to Europe and other parts of the world.

The five composers whose music we are playing at our New Year’s concert come from three continents: George Gershwin from North America, Arturo Marquez from Mexico, Alberto Ginastera from Argentina, and Joaquin Rodrigo and Manuel de Falla from Spain. As if to underscore the wide prevalence of Latin-inspired music, this evening’s soloist, Miloš Karadaglic, comes from Montenegro.

In the winter of 1932, George Gershwin (1898-1937) was on a two-week holiday in Havana. Inspired by his stay there, he wrote during the following summer the orchestra piece Rumba, which was later given the title Cuban Overture. The piece received its world-premiere with the New York Philharmonic in the course of a Gershwin concert, at a sports stadium with over 17,000 spectators in August 1932, and was an immediate hit with audiences and critics alike.

Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-1999) wrote his Concerto for Guitar, Concerto d’Aranjuez, in 1939. The name Aranjuez is a reference to the Spanish Aranjuez Palace and its beautiful gardens, but the background for the atmospheric Adagio movement was a family secret for a long time. It has its origins in fond memories from the composer’s honeymoon and in the sorrow of losing the first child the couple was expecting.

Arturo Marquez (born 1950) has deep roots in Mexican music; his father was a Mariachi player and his grandfather a folk musician. Marquez was exposed to a rich musical spectrum, and continued to build on this when his family moved to Los Angeles. He reached a new, extended audience when the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra led by Gustavo Dudamel made Danzon No.2 one of its trademark pieces.

Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) was a central figure in Spanish music life in the early 1900s, and often used Spanish folk music in his compositions. The ballet The Three-Cornered Hat from 1919 is characterised by Andalusian music, and was commissioned by Serge Diaghilev for his legendary ballet company Les Ballets Russes, with costumes and scenography designed by Pablo Picasso.

The Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) was a central musical personality in his homeland. He is considered to be one of the most important classical composers in Latin America of the 1900s.