Popular passions, variations, and tangos.

• Author: Holston, Mark
• Position: Music Notes

Osvaldo Golijov La Pasion Segun San Marcos (Hanssler Classic CD 98.404)

An international cast of vocalists and musicians brings to life this ambitious, panoramic contemporary classical work by Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov. Recorded live at the European Music Festival in Stuttgart, Germany, this year, the hour-and-a-half program features Brazilian soprano Luciana Souza, Cuban singer and percussionist Reynaldo Gonzalez Fernandez, and Venezuela's Schola Cantorum de Caracas, led by Maria Guinand.

Born into an immigrant Russian family, Golijov grew up in La Plata and later lived in Israel and the U.S. He conceived The St. Mark Passion. as a way to explore what he calls "the miracle of faith" in Latin America. He began the project by asking himself how Bach might have composed such a work if he had lived in South America in the twentieth century. In familiarizing himself with Argentina's dominant religion, he was struck by the many paradoxes that haunt the church in Latin American nations--solidarity with the dispossessed on the one hand, support of repressive dictatorships on the other. Golijov also began with the premise that Jesus was a representative figure of the New World--a man of color.

Strands of traditional European classical forms wend through a soundscape ablaze with churning Afro-Cuban and Brazilian rhythms and overt references to other Latin American folk and popular styles. Sweeping orchestral textures reveal hints of the composer's Jewish cultural roots and keep the work in tune with its European classical lineage, while more avant-garde influenced writing, frequently articulated by vocalist Souza and short bursts of dissonant pianistics, affirm its modernist leanings.

Jesus "Chucho" Valdes Fantasia Cubana (Blue Note 7243 5 57189 2) Subtitled Variations on Classical Themes, this solo piano recital features the Havana-born virtuoso taking significant liberties with a number of well-known works by Debussy, Chopin, Ravel, and Cuba's greatest classical composer, Ernesto Lecuona. There's little doubt the technically adept and classically attuned fifty-nine-year-old musician could perform such famed compositions as Ravel's "Pavane for a Dead Princess" up to the most demanding concert-hall standards. But his whimsy-tinged mission here is one that holds more promise and ultimately delivers a higher quotient of enjoyment than just another perfunctory--if flawless--reading of such an intimately known repertoire.

Valdes challenges...