Popular passions, variations, and tangos

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 listeners with a provocative premise: How might these great composers alter their work to reflect the evolution that's taken place in style and technique over the past century? He answers the question emphatically, offering what he calls a "Chucho-ization" of these familiar classical masterworks. His variations are highly reverential interpretations, but on his own terms. Valdes takes advantage of his well-developed technical vocabulary as an artist steeped equally in jazz, Afro-Cuban, and European classical traditions. He explores the works by substituting dense and harmonically rich chords and injects dramatic tempo alternation as his enormous hands extract hitherto-unexplored nuances from such common themes as Debussy's "Reverie and Arabesque" arid Chopin's "Prelude in E Minor." Sometimes, he takes charge right up front and leaves no doubt about what's to come, as he does on Chopin's "Waltz in C Minor." Elsewhere, as in "Pavane," his intent is revealed more subtly. Perhaps the program's most revealing segment is the three versions of countryman Lecuona's "La comparsa," which he reshapes to reflect the manner in which Chopin might have adapted the lovely melody to fit the stylistic form of three of his signature works. Valdes's intuition and technical prowess impress mightily once again.

Toto la Momposina Pacanto

(World Village/Harmoni Mundi 470005) There was a particularly noble purpose behind this popular release by the Colombian folk music diva. "We want to offer this sound to our young people, who are anxiously seeking a sense of fraternity and a set of parameters," she writes of her Latin Grammy-nominated work, "which will allow them to create not only their own music, but their own manifestations of identity."

The program documents the culturally vibrant traditions of Colombia's most pure forms, including the vallenato, porno, and cumbia. On "Chambacu," Toto sings the plaintive theme accompanied only by a hand drum, while on such tracks as "Mile (El hombre borracho)" and "Reparala," she's accompanied by a full ensemble of percussion, bass, guitar, wind instruments, and vocal chores. "Asi lo grita," with its bamboo flutes and brisk rhythms, transports the listener to a rural festival where farm workers dance the night away. The forms employed are not unlike those that define traditional, African-rooted music elsewhere in the Caribbean basin, particularly Cuba. However, the Colombian variant has been less susceptible than some idioms to acculturation, and remains naturally effervescent in character. Pacanto retains all the attributes that have come to denote traditional Colombian music--contagious rhythmic energy, a joyful spirit, and unaffected presentation.