☞ Ricardo Castro: Cello Concerto in C minor

 

Ricardo Castro Herrera 

(7 February 1864, Hacienda de santa Bárbara, Durango -- 27 November 1907, Mexico City) was a Mexican concert pianist and composer, considered the last romantic of the time of Porfirio Díaz.

Castro was born at Hacienda de santa Bárbara, Durango. His father, Vicente Castro, was a deputy congressman; his mother was María de Jesús Herrera. Castro began his music education with Pedro H. Ceniseros. In 1879 his family moved to Mexico City where the boy entered the National Conservatory of Music and studied piano with Juan Salvatierra and Julio Ituarte, He studied harmony and counterpoint with Melesio Morales. He finished all his studies in just 5 years, half of the usual 10. He graduated in 1883.

Castro began his musical career as a concert pianist and composer before finishing his studies. In 1882, he won two prizes. At 19, Castro finished his First Symphony in C Minor; the symphony was premiered in 1988, 81 years after his death.

In 1883 the Government of Mexico chose some of Castro's works to send to Venezuela for the Simon Bolivar centenary and later in 1884 he made a concert tour through United States.

1896 was the year of the first premiere of the first act of Castro's opera Atzimba. The second act is lost.

Castro received a scholarship from the Government of Mexico and went to Europe from 1903 to 1906 to give master classes in conservatories in Paris, Brussels, Rome, Milan and Leipzig. He published in Paris many Mexican dances for piano in the Habanera style. He studied with Teresa Carreño while in Europe. When he returned to Mexico he was appointed music director of the National Conservatory of Music by Justo Sierra and kept that work until he died of pneumonia in Mexico City in November 1907.

Castro's music for piano tends to be very colourful and sentimental with a kind of virtuosity in the style of Liszt. He often connects many musical themes in brilliant passages of virtuosity.

 

Cello Concerto in C minor

 

I. Allegro molto II. Andante 6:38 III. Vivo 17:18

Carlos Prieto, cello/ Berlin Symphony Orchestra /Jorge Velazco, conductor

The Cello Concerto in C minor is the first work in its genre by a Mexican composer. It was composed around 1895, and premiered by Marin Loevensohn in Paris at the Salle Erard in 1903. However, it wasn't heard in Mexico until 1981, when Carlos Prieto played it at the Sala Nezahualcoyotl with Jorge Velazco conducting the Mineria Orchestra. 

Ricardo Castro was one of the foremost 19th Century Mexican composers, most of which were unfairly forgotten after the Mexican Revolution; considered part of a decadent past. His works are built upon tremendous wit and a deep admiration for Italian and French romanticism. His Piano Concerto in A minor is among his earliest works, which he composed in Mexico and without European experience. It is a dynamic work which requires virtuoso pianist and orchestra, and shows his great compositional talent. This is its first recording of the digital age.