Estancia (Ginastera)
Estancia op. 8 is a ballet by the Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera (1916–1983) in one act and five pictures. The four-movement ballet suite, first performed in 1943, is Ginastera's best-known work to this day.
Origin and premiere
The Ballet Estancia was commissioned in 1941 by the American impresario Lincoln Kirstein for the American Ballet Caravan troupe from Alberto Ginastera - whose official Opus 1 Panambì was already a ballet music. The choreographer was George Balanchine . However, the dance company was dissolved in 1942 before the piece could get to the performance planned in New York. The ballet itself therefore had its premiere on August 19, 1952 at the Teatro Colón , Buenos Aires . Performers were the Ballet y Orquesta Estable del Teatro Colón, conducted by Juan Emilio Martini and choreographed by Michel Borowski .
However, Ginastera had removed four dances from the work, which were given a triumphant premiere on May 12, 1943 in Buenos Aires as a concert suite by the Orquesta Estable del Teatro Colón under the direction of Ferrucio Calusio . While the ballet itself rarely appears on stage, the suite from Estancia has become one of Ginastera's most frequently performed works, and the last movement in particular, which is inspired by the Malambo dance of the Argentine gauchos , has become one of the most famous contributions to South American classical music as a whole.
Cast and duration of performance
The ballet music Estancia op.8 by Alberto Ginastera is composed as follows:
Baritone (singer and speaker), piccolo , 1 flute (also piccolo), 2 oboes , 2 clarinets , 2 bassoons , 4 horns , 2 trumpets , timpani , percussion (5 players: xylophone , triangle , tambourine , castanets , cymbals , peg drum , Bass drum , snare drum , tam-tam ), piano and strings .
The Suite op 8A uses the same line-up, dispensing with the vocal soloist.
The performance of the entire ballet is around 35 minutes, that of the suite around 12 minutes.
Plot and music
The original ballet composition has an act that is divided into five images:
Cuadro I (scene 1): El amanecer
- I Introducción y escena. Allegro - Andante
- II Pequeña danza I. Allegro - Meno mosso
Cuadro II (scene 2). La mañana
- III Danza del trigo. Tranquillo - [] - Tempo I ma un poco rubato
- IV Los trabajadores agrícolas. Tempo giusto
- V Los peones de hacienda. [] - Mosso e ruvido
- VI Los puebleros. []
Cuadro III (scene 3). La tarde
- VII Triste pampeano. Lento
- VIII La doma. Allegro molto
- IX Idilio crepuscular. adagio
Cuadro IV (scene 4). La noche
- X Nocturno. Lento - Più lento - Tempo I - Più lento, almost larguetto
Cuadro V (scene 5). El amanecer
- XI Escena. Andantino - Lento
- XII Danza final. Malambo. Allegro - Tempo di malambo
The concert suite has four movements and consists of the following parts:
- Los trabajadores agrícolas
- Danza del trigo
- Los peones de hacienda
- Danza final. Malambo
The plot of the ballet takes place on a country estate or cattle ranch ( estancia ) in the Argentine pampas, and tells the story of a young city dweller who is in love with the farmer's daughter. At first the love remains unrequited, since the girl considers the townspeople to be a booby compared to the intrepid gauchos. In the final scene, however, the hero wins the girl's heart after outdoing the gauchos in a traditional competition on their own territory.
In individual scenes, Ginastera has the baritone verses from the folk epic " El Gaucho Martín Fierro " by José Hernández sang or recited, which serve to create a basic mood, while the storyline of the epic has otherwise no reference to the ballet story.
Estancia follows the sequence of a single day in an arc shape: twilight, morning, afternoon, night and another dawn. Ginastera uses an orchestra of the usual size (albeit with extended drums), the music corresponds to the symmetry of the plot with a rodeo (“La doma”) and evening romance (“Idilio crepuscular”) as central events. The defining musical element is the malambo in 6/8 time, a competitive gaucho dance performed exclusively by men, on which six episodes of the entire score are based. The two dawn scenes use versions of the same Malambo-based material, while the central musical sequence forms a colorful mosaic of dances depicting activities of the rural population and visitors from the city.
In the concert suite, the first dance “Los trabadores agrícolas” (“The Farm Workers”) is characterized by pulsating rhythms, colored orchestration and bold harmonies. “Danza del Trigo” (“Wheat Dance”) gives a quasi-impressionistic impression of the vastness of the pampas in the morning sun. “Los Peones de hacienda” (“The cattle breeders”) combines drums and brass. "Danza final" presents the hero as a participant in a dance tournament with his victory over the gauchos. A syncopated Malambo rhythm is heightened to the point of frenzy, carried by a wide range of percussion instruments.
Individual evidence
literature
- Volker Tarnow: Alberto Ginastera and the Eldorado of music . Boosey & Hawkes, Berlin 2017, ISBN 9783793141648 , pp. 56-62, 207.