At last, an issue our friend Aramiarz flagged up some while ago...
Here's Records International's take on the music:
Since the young Castro's natural purpose as a Mexican composer was to show that a Mexican could do what a European could do (no Dvorakian folk inspiration here), it's only natural that the tone poem of 1885 (suggested by a James McPherson poem set in the Celtic Middle Ages) should sound quite a bit like Liszt and that the piano concerto (c.1885-87) should invoke Liszt and Chopin; it's that they're so compellingly done, richly instrumented and exciting in performance here. The cello concerto is later and was premiered in Paris in 1903; heard blind, you might think it's a lost concerto by Lalo or Saint-Saëns. These are claimed to be the first concertos for these instruments and the first tone poem written in the Spanish-speaking western hemisphere. Rodolfo Ritter (piano), Vladimir Sagaydo (cello), Orquesta Sinfónica de San Luis Potosí; José Miramontes Zapata.
http://www.recordsinternational.com/cd.php?cd=09R002 (http://www.recordsinternational.com/cd.php?cd=09R002)
Ah, I see why the emphasis on Spanish-speaking- some Brazilian composers may (http://may) have gotten there around the same time, Henrique Oswald's piano concerto Op.10 for example?*... (And one of Nepomuceno's works might be considered a symphonic poem, as well. Castro, Oswald and Nepomuceno all wrote symphonies, of course...)
*I mention this because I noticed the Oswald concerto, was trying to work out its date and whether it was earlier or later than the Castro and then remembered that this statement was only being made for Spanish-speaking parts of the hemisphere, etc.- my working method was not the other way around or somehow mean-spirited...
I have always been of the opinion that the PC is let down by a weak final movement. A shame as the first two really move me.
Thal
Has anyone noticed a slight resemblance between the opening theme of the 1st movt. of Castro's PC and the music for David Lean's movie of Lawrence of Arabia?
Checking it out on YT,....yeah it's a bit similar. Though hardly enough to think Jarre ever even heard it.
Oh no. I'm sure he didn't. It just struck me as one of those odd aural coincidences that sometimes crop up.
Well, to my ears there seems to be a certain set of notes common to music evoking the mystique of the 'Middle Eastern' lands. I hear it in everything from the Fry's Turkish Delight advertisement, to The Desert Song to Ketelbey, to Jarre's Lawrence of Arabia, and it's certainly in this first movement. ;D