Alberto Ginastera

Alberto Ginastera grew up in Buenos Aires and became the composer most closely identified with Argentine concert music in the twentieth century. His early ballets drew on the songs and dance rhythms of the pampas, the cattle country beyond the capital, and he had a gift for making an orchestra sound percussive and wild without losing control of it.

He spent much of his career teaching in Argentina, where a young Astor Piazzolla was among his students, though his relations with the Perón government were rocky and he lost posts under it. In the 1960s his operas brought him international attention, and he spent his final years in Geneva, where he died in 1983.

Start with Estancia, the ballet about life on a ranch: it ends with a malambo, a competitive stomping dance for gauchos, and it is hard to sit still through. From there, try the Harp Concerto.