Songs

Another guitarist and composer featured this evening is the contemporary Puerto Rican Ernesto Cordero (b. 1946). Cordero has written works in many of the same genres as Brouwer and actually helped premiere some of the latter’s works for guitar and orchestra. Cordero studied first in Puerto Rico before moving on for mature studies in Spain, Italy, and America. His Carnegie Hall debut as a performer in 1978 was glowingly received, though his career as a composer has been even more productive and substantial. We hear four songs that display his breath of style, from the sensitive romance of Zenobia to the emphatic gestures of La hija del Viejo Pancho. Similarly, Cadencia strikes a more reserved, rapturous and lyric tone in comparison to El viaje definitiva, which makes a striking start with solo voice.

(c) Jason Stell