MANUEL PONCE PROGRAM NOTES

Posted on October 21, 2022

Manuel Ponce, one of Mexico’s and Latin America’s most pivotal composers in the 20th century, is known for his vibrant, idyllic, and enduring melodicism, as much as for his skillful craftmanship in bridging the classical tradition with Mexican folk and popular music. He received Mexico’s National Prize for Arts and Sciences, taught at the National Conservatory of Music, and was buried in the Rotonda de las Personas Illustres (“Rotunda of Illustrious Persons”) in Mexico City, reserved for politicians, scientists, generals, and artists who made extraordinary contributions to the human values of Mexico.

In his Balada Mexicana, a rhapsodic concertante work for piano and orchestra, Ponce intricately weaves in the tender melodies of two Mexican folk songs: Acuérdate de mi, which translates to “Remember Me,” and the sensuous El durazno, or “The Peach.” An admirer of great literature, he regularly set poems from various centuries to music, a quality he shared with Liszt. Ponce carried on a distinguished pedagogical lineage as the musical descendent of Beethoven and Liszt: Beethoven taught Czerny, who taught Liszt, who taught Martin Krause, who taught Ponce (and Claudio Arrau). In turn, Ponce would go on to instruct arguably Mexico’s most important composer, conductor, and educator: Carlos Chávez.