Ginastera : Popul Vuh (The Mayan Creation)

Here’s a terrific Ginastera collection. The Estancia and Panambi suites are drawn from Ben-Dor’s complete recording, also now on Naxos, and they are somewhat different from the composer’s own. So if you don’t have the complete versions but do have other recordings of these two suites, you really aren’t duplicating by getting this disc as well. The remaining works are all equally well-played, with the Suite de Danzas Criollas being very idiomatically orchestrated by Shimon Cohen.

This performance of Popul Vuh may not be quite as savage as Slatkin’s premiere recording on RCA, but that was far less interestingly coupled, and it’s difficult to take issue with any particular aspect of the performance generally. In this context the music seems all of a piece, and as a single-disc survey of Ginastera’s orchestral music it would be difficult to imagine a more attractive program than this one. Given the different orchestras, venues, and recording dates, the engineering is remarkably consistent. -- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

MP3 320 · 157 MB