Carlos Guastavino Biography

The Argentinian composer Carlos Guastavino was born in Santa Fé in 1912. He first studied chemical engineering, but won a provincial government scholarship that enabled him to study music in Buenos Aires, where he entered the National Conservatory in 1938 as a student of the composer Athos Palma, professor of harmony. He studied further in Europe in the years after the war. His compositions include songs, song-cycles and piano pieces. Notable among his orchestral works are the ballet Once Upon A Time, written in 1942, and the Suite Argentina, while his chamber music includes a violin sonata, written in 1952. In style he relies heavily on Argentinian traditional dance rhythms and melodies, writing in an idiom that clearly proclaims its national origins.