Ginastera - String Quartets
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Label: Pentatone
Cat No: PTC5187412
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Release Date: 25th July 2025
Contents
Artists
Miro QuartetKiera Duffy (soprano)
Works
String Quartet no.1, op.20String Quartet no.2, op.26
String Quartet no.3, op.40
Artists
Miro QuartetKiera Duffy (soprano)
About
The Miró Quartet, celebrating their 30th anniversary, presents an album featuring the complete string quartets of Alberto Ginastera, one of the most influential Latin American composers of the 20th century. A master of vivid contrasts and emotional depth, Ginastera infused his music with the spirit of Argentine folk traditions, bold modernist language, and a profound sense of expression. These three quartets span the entirety of his creative development, tracing a fascinating journey across three distinct stylistic periods.
The first two quartets are considered undiscovered masterpieces, often performed live to great reception but rarely recorded in their entirety alongside the third. The vibrant rhythmic energy and folkloric colours of the First Quartet, the introspective lyricism of the Second, and the haunting intensity of the Third each reflect Ginastera’s unique fusion of influences, drawing from composers like Bartók and Stravinsky to create a sound full of emotional rawness and storytelling. Together, these quartets form a powerful cycle, showcasing Ginastera’s ability t o create distinct narratives within each piece, while also weaving them into a larger, cohesive musical story.
This is the Miró Quartet’s third album on PENTATONE, following the recording of Beethoven’s Complete String Quartets (2019) and Home (2024).
The first two quartets are considered undiscovered masterpieces, often performed live to great reception but rarely recorded in their entirety alongside the third. The vibrant rhythmic energy and folkloric colours of the First Quartet, the introspective lyricism of the Second, and the haunting intensity of the Third each reflect Ginastera’s unique fusion of influences, drawing from composers like Bartók and Stravinsky to create a sound full of emotional rawness and storytelling. Together, these quartets form a powerful cycle, showcasing Ginastera’s ability t o create distinct narratives within each piece, while also weaving them into a larger, cohesive musical story.
This is the Miró Quartet’s third album on PENTATONE, following the recording of Beethoven’s Complete String Quartets (2019) and Home (2024).
Sound/Video
Paused
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1String Quartet No 1 Op 20 I Allegro violento ed agitato
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2String Quartet No 1 Op 20 II Vivacissimo
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3String Quartet No 1 Op 20 III Calmo e poetico
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4String Quartet No 1 Op 20 IV Allegramente rustico
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5String Quartet No 2 Op 26 I Allegro rustico
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6String Quartet No 2 Op 26 II Adagio angoscioso
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7String Quartet No 2 Op 26 III Presto magico
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8String Quartet No 2 Op 26 IV Libero e rapsodico
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9String Quartet No 2 Op 26 V Furioso
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10String Quartet No 3 Op 40 I Contemplativo
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11String Quartet No 3 Op 40 II Fantastico
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12String Quartet No 3 Op 40 III Amoroso
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13String Quartet No 3 Op 40 IV Drammatico
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14String Quartet No 3 Op 40 V Di nuovo contemplativo
Europadisc Review
For many listeners, references to the music of Argentina conjure up the works of Astor Piazzolla, the master of tango whose output is a staple of ClassicFM and the more relaxed slots on Radio 3. But the composer who first really put Argentine art music on the map was Alberto Ginastera (1916–1983). Although only five years Piazzolla’s junior, Ginastera’s prodigious early musical development, fostered by a Guggenheim grant to study in the United States where he benefitted from the guidance of Aaron Copland, brought him to international attention by the early 1950s. Initially incorporating tangible national elements such as references to the gauchos of the pampas into his style (following Copland’s lead with such works as Rodeo and Billy the Kid), he nevertheless combined these facets with polytonality, non-functional parallel progressions and dissonance to create music that was at once engaging and challenging.
According to Ginastera himself, this early ‘objective nationalist’ phase (1934–48) gave way to a period of ‘subjective nationalism’ (1948–58) in which national elements were seamlessly subsumed into a more radical style without any overt references to folk culture. This in turn was followed from 1958 onwards by a period of ‘neo-expressionism’, which embraced the influence of the Second Viennese School and serialism together with increased attraction to mysterious, hallucinatory sonorities. A further phase of ‘final synthesis’ (1976–83) has since been suggested by some commentators.
Ginastera wrote in a huge variety of genres, a fact all the more remarkable given his demanding activities in establishing and bolstering several important Argentine musical institutions (during the course of which he twice fell foul of the Perón regime). Conveniently, his three string quartets belong respectively to each of the three periods he himself outlined. Although they have been recorded before, a new disc on the Pentatone label performed by the Miró Quartet (based in Austin, Texas) presents them in excellent, state-of-the art sound, and this high-profile release is a timely reminder of Ginastera’s position as one of the leading 20th-century composers from the Americas.
With the quartets presented chronologically, the disc opens with the String Quartet no.1, op.20, of 1958. The first movement opens arrestingly with a striking figure in octaves, before settling into a driving rhythm which eventually becomes more fractured as the upper instruments take flights of fancy. The compelling drive of this movement is urgently realised, with a spikiness that recalls Bartók at his most insistent. The Vivacissimo second movement is the first in a series of scherzos with strong suggestions of the fantastical, which gives way to a haunting slow movement marked Calmo e poetico that seems to hint at the wide nocturnal skies of the pampas, while the harmonies evoke the open strings of a guitar.
The closing Allegramente rustico is another obsessively driven movement with just enough dynamic and textural give-and-take to hold the interest. With the music of the work as a whole hovering between an underlying tonality of D minor/major, its final bars push to an exhilarating D major close. The Miró Quartet do this music superb justice, relishing its more radical side while bringing out all the vitality and evocativeness of the music.
Dating from 1958, and further revised in 1968, the five-movement Second Quartet is even more engrossing. The initial Allegro rustico opens with a head-motif that echoes the conclusion of the third movement in Anton Webern’s Five Pieces for String Quartet, leading to another rhythmically driven main section. Yet there’s also a complementary lyricism which hints at the influence of Alban Berg. A second movement marked Adagio agnoscioso (agnoscioso = ‘distressing’) brings further parallels with the 20th-century Viennese masters, and is an evocative set of variations based on the song ‘Triste el día sin sol’ from Ginastera’s Cinco canciones populares argentinas. At the work’s centre is a wonderfully mysterious Presto magico, while an intermezzo-like Libero e rapsodico precedes the final Furioso, whose airy voicing again suggests the fantastic. This is a terrific work, played with thorough commitment, and it clearly deserves to be a better-known part of the 20th-century quartet repertoire.
As does the Third Quartet (1973), which – following Arnold Schoenberg’s lead in his String Quartet no.2 – adds a soprano to the quartet forces. Four of the five movements set verses by Spanish poets Juan Ramón Jiménez, Federico García Lorca and Rafael Alberti, with subjects ranging from the power of music, sensual love, and visions of war to the deep nostalgia of Alberti’s concluding Ocaso (‘Sunset’).
Soprano Kiera Duffy conveys these different texts – sung and occasionally spoken – with a compelling immediacy helped by a forward balance, but also with great sensitivity to nuance. She is supported by wonderfully detailed playing from the Miró Quartet, who realise the varied textures of Ginastera’s ‘ever-changing universe of sound’ with phenomenal aplomb. Most radical in many ways is the only purely instrumental section, the Fantastico second movement, in which textures range from the elusive and pointillistic to the thrillingly edgy. Like the Second Quartet, this is a quartet (or, more accurately, quintet) which ought to occupy a prominent place in the chamber music canon. As with the other works on the disc, the performers bring the perfect combination of technical excellence and expressive involvement, and this is one of the most revelatory albums we’ve heard this year. For those looking to deepen their knowledge of 20th-century chamber music, this release is urgently recommended!
Reviews
it’s the third quartet that’s the real discovery here. ... Taking its cue from Schoenberg’s second quartet, it adds a solo soprano to the lineup, for passionate, dramatic settings of texts by three 20th-century Spanish poets: Juan Ramón Jiménez, Federico García Lorca and Rafael Alberti. ... there’s no denying that the effect is totally compelling. Andrew ClementsThe Guardian 25 July 2025
None of these works gets performed at all often in recitals in Europe, so this disc by the ever-adventurous Miró Quartet, based in Austin, Texas, is worth catching. ... In the otherworldly Quartet No 3 from 1973, a soprano sings settings of Spanish poems about sensual love, war and nostalgia. Kiera Duffy is the fine soprano and the playing of the Miró Quartet gives full value to the Latin American dance energy and exploratory fervour of Ginastera’s imagination.Financial Times
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