Malambo, for piano, Op. 7

Typical of Alberto Ginastera's appropriation of native Argentinean folk elements, the piano work Malambo (1940) spices a traditional dance form with nontraditional harmonies. The composer emphasizes the machismo of a gaucho's gestures by weighing down a folksy chord progression with chromaticism and polytonality. The nature of dance is initially clear, but gradually its gestures become more and more exaggerated and unwieldy, the harmonies more obscured, the texture saturated. This reaches an extreme when, near the end of the piece, the simple melody and repetitive accompanimental figures are completely overtaken by a series of upward-surging runs and polychordal outbursts. After taking a moment to reorient itself, Malambo returns to the unadorned dance material of the beginning, now repeated with increasing inertia as the work hurtles toward a forceful close.