David Cozy wrote:

>... anybody heard any of Revueltas's music?

Yes.  Anyone interested in Silvestre Revueltas should get the Catalyst
disc: "Night of the Mayas, Day of the Dead" (09026-62672-2).  It includes
Sensemaya and Homenaje a Federico Garcia Lorca (both played by the New
Philharmonic Orch, cond.  by Mata); Ocho X Radio, Toccata; Planos; and
Alcancias ('Piggy Banks;' these by the London Sinfonietta, conducted by
David Atherton).  Not least, the title La Noche de los Mayas, at 25
minuntes his longest composition, as far as I know (Orquesta Sinfonica
de Jalapa, cond Luis Herrera de la Fuente)

Revueltas has moments of poetry, eerie stillness and magic, but he can
also conjure savage, which is not to say inelegant, music; some of it's
to wake the dead.  Revueltas is firmly rooted in the Western tradition,
taking after Stravinsky, both the pagan and the neo-classical, and, I
gather, after Varese as well.  For all that, he is deeply Mexican, even
mariachi or folk-based.  In fact, in the title piece he reaches for the
lost Mayan past, and, one feels, with some success.  Always instrumentally
and melodically inventive, Revueltas creates colourful, eventful, rhythmic,
vibrant music which is anything but bland, and never predictable.

Born on December 31st, 1899, he was a child prodigy and went on to study
violin and composition in Chicago, later playing the instrument in San
Antonio, Texas.  He fought for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War,
but also served time in psychiatric hospitals.  He lived poor and died at
40, of drink.  (Cruel h/rumour in Mexico has it that a jealous Carlos
Chavez, the country's other 'compositor de musica culta' of the day,
secretly kept him supplied in liquor.)

As a result, there's only a limited amount of Revueltas music out there.
There are string quartets worth getting (the Cuarteto Latinoamericano
has covered them all, as well as some trios), and I'd say that in ASV's
muddled-bag anthology CDs on Mexican composers, one piece, "Ventanas,"
(Windows) is certainly worth a gander.  There may be more, but nothing
to my knowledge on a par with the Catalyst CD (which also happens to be
extremely well designed).  I haven't heard Esa-Pekka Salonen's new release.

But be warned: I persuaded someone with conventional musical tastes
to drink of this.  Its dissonances and overall angularity simply left
him bewildered, as if I'd perpetrated some undeserved nasty trick.  One
Gramophone critic also dismissed this CD as including moments of great
vulgarity, or some such sniffy remark.  I reckon it was those passages of
out-of-whack brassiness that only latinamerican huaracha bands can achieve.
Well, there's no lack of compositional sensitivity in this music, and
whatever in Revueltas is vulgar certainly suits me.

'Hope it does the trick for you, too.

Bert Bailey, in Ottawa (but originally from Lima)