'Conciertos Románticos' from Mexico

Conciertos Románticos—Jorge Federico Osorio, piano; Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería/ Carlos Miguel Prieto (Cedille 221)
This June 9^th release features piano concertos and solo works by Mexican composers Ricardo Castro and Manuel Ponce performed byJorge Federico Osorio. The concertos — Castro’s Piano Concerto in A minor Op 22 and Ponce’s Piano Concerto No. 1 ‘Romántico’ feature Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería led by Carlos Miguel Prieto. Osorio, the Mexican-born, Chicago-based pianist, says: “At the core of this recording are undoubtedly two of the most representative Mexican piano concertos, both bursting with passion, poetry, and drama. Castro and Ponce are two composers that wholly illuminate the beautiful fusion of European and Mexican musical styles.” All the works here represent high points of the romantic musical language in vogue in Mexico at the end of the 19th century, just before the 1910 Mexican Revolution would bring on the musical Nationalist movement. Castro did not live to see the Revolution, dying of pneumonia aged 43 in 1907. But Ponce – composer, pianist, conductor, educator, musicologist, music critic and researcher on Mexican musical folklore – became the initiator of Mexico’s Nationalist movement.