• Ginastera
   Variaciones concertantes, Op. 23
• Farrenc
  Symphony No. 3 in G minor, Op. 36

A study in contrasts as we celebrate two composers with a gift for unleashing the most ravishing sounds and colours from a symphony orchestra: Alberto Ginastera, a modern master from Argentina, and Louise Farrenc, a 19th century French woman finally emerging into the limelight.

One of Latin America’s most important 20th-century voices, Ginastera often employed the folk music tradition of his native Argentina in his works for the concert hall. Composed in 1953, the Variaciones concertantes is the exception to the rule, Ginastera himself noting ‘Instead of employing folklore material, an Argentinean atmosphere is obtained by the use of original melodies and rhythms’.

Here, Ginastera’s gifts as an orchestrator come into their own in a set of eleven richly characterised variations on a theme introduced by cello and harp. Ranging from a few seconds to several minutes, each variation spotlights one or more solo instruments to create a captivating, humour-laced concerto for orchestra.

Composed more than century earlier in 1847, Louise Farrenc’s Third Symphony carries itself with all the romantic fluidity of Schumann (who greatly admired her music), the poetic muscle of Beethoven and a vividly bold sense of lyrical drama all her own.

The three-movement Symphony boasts one surprise after another as it brilliantly exploits each section of the orchestra and moves from one emotion to another with a wonderfully involving sense of storytelling to conclude in a finale that packs a considerable punch hidden within music of balletically graceful lyricism.