Alberto Ginastera (1916–83) the foremost 20th century Argentinean composer began composing in 1930, but destroyed many of his early works. The one work to survive from this period was the ballet 'Panambi', which catapulted him to fame, and resulted in a commission for another ballet 'Estancia' based on rural Argentinean life. Aside from his stage and orchestral music, chamber music played a big role in his creative output. The string quartets span the various stages of his musical development, and …..
Brahms's string quartets are among the composer's most "difficult" works, and they take a bit of effort to get to terms with. It has been said that inside them there are symphonies struggling to emerge, and to some extent one does get the feeling that Brahms was less than fully comfortable with the medium, that it provided restrictions more than opportunities and that the music is too large-scale in feel for the intimacy of chamber music.
Over the course of time there have been many overlooked artists in classical music, because of their race and/or gender. It is important to acknowledge that we have not yet heard the whole story due to this sidelining of voices. Composers Joseph Boulogne Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, William Grant Still, Florence B. Price, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, and George Walker, have all contributed beautifully crafted works to the repertoire, but are not widely celebrated. Another contributing factor to this unfortunate reality is access to their manuscripts and recordings of their work which we believe would lead to greater awareness and programming of their incredible music.