Letizia Calandra - Guastavino - Song Cycles (2020) [Official Digital Download]

Carlos Guastavino (Santa Fe, Argentina, 1912-2000) was very unusual among his contemporaries in being unafraid to “distance himself” from the modernist and avant-garde tendencies of his day. He resolutely followed his own path, leaving experimentation to others, creating a catalogue of over 500 intimate, autobiographical works harking back to the nineteenth century, many of them for voice and piano.

Guastavino’s songs bear witness to a masterful ability to pair voice and piano – a gift that led some to call him the “Schubert of the Pampas”. They also benefit from the fact that he chose to set the words of some of the leading poets working in Latin America at the time, including such luminaries as Rafael Alberti, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Pablo Neruda, Gabriela Mistral and Jorge Luis Borges. All in all, he was primarily recognised during his lifetime as a songwriter, creating works that stand as archetypes of a compositional idiom notable for both its rigour and its authenticity, as well as for its sheer craftsmanship and profound self-referential sincerity.

Deciding to record a selection of Guastavino therefore seems a pretty wise move, and the choice of performers makes that decision an even safer bet. The intelligence and artistic sensitivity of Cuban pianist Marcos Madrigal and Italian soprano Letizia Calandra, combined with the poetics of Guastavino, make for an album of wonderful warmth and sensuality. Listeners will lose all sense of time and place as, from the first track onwards, these songs conjure tranquillity and delight, sensations so necessary in our own turbulent times.

TRACKLIST

1. Letizia Calandra - Flores Argentinas: I. Cortadera, plumerito
2. Letizia Calandra - Flores Argentinas: II. el clavel del aire blanco
3. Letizia Calandra - Flores Argentinas: III. Campanilla ¿a dónde vas?
4. Letizia Calandra - Flores Argentinas: IV. el vinagrillo morado
5. Letizia Calandra - Flores Argentinas: V. ¡Que linda la madreselva!
6. Letizia Calandra - Flores Argentinas: VI. las flores del machachín
7. Letizia Calandra - Flores Argentinas: VII. las achiras coloradas
8. Letizia Calandra - Flores Argentinas: VIII. Jazmín del país. ¡Qué lindo!
9. Letizia Calandra - Flores Argentinas: IX. Aromito, flor de tusca
10. Letizia Calandra - Flores Argentinas: X. la flor del aguapé
11. Letizia Calandra - Flores Argentinas: XI. Ay, aljaba, flor de chilco
12. Letizia Calandra - Flores Argentinas: XII. Ceibo, ceibo zuiñandí
13. Letizia Calandra - Flores Argentinas: XIII. la rosa y el sauce
14. Letizia Calandra - Elegía para un gorrión
15. Letizia Calandra - Se equivocó la paloma
16. Letizia Calandra - Jardín de amores
17. Letizia Calandra - ¡a volar!
18. Letizia Calandra - Nana del niño malo
19. Letizia Calandra - La novia
20. Letizia Calandra - Geografía física
21. Letizia Calandra - ¡al puente de la golondrina!
22. Letizia Calandra - Elegía
23. Letizia Calandra - El sampedrino



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