Carlos Guastavino, born just four years before
Ginastera and nine years before
Piazzolla, was no less influenced by Argentine vernacular music than either of those other Argentine masters. But it was the Creole folk music of rural Argentina that showed up in his music, not the urban sound of the tango, and he treated that folk music in a thoroughly romantic way. Guastavino was an attractive melodist known mostly for his songs. Those are stripped of their texts here and arranged for clarinet and piano. Given the fact that an hour of Guastavino and nobody else is quite a bit, the listener may wonder about the point of this. But the program is broken up by Guastavino's brisk little Sonatine for piano, some other fun salon pieces, and a clarinet-and-piano sonata that adopts a Brahmsian idiom wholesale. It's never less than pleasant, and clarinetist
Florent Héau and pianist
Marcela Roggeri are in touch with its considerable charm. Probably of most interest to Argentine music fans, but quite listenable.