Genre: Information/Explanation

Planos ( Planes ) is a chamber-music composition by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas , also slightly enlarged and scored for full orchestra and published under its alternate title , Danza geométrica ( Geometric Dance ) . Both versions were composed in 1934 , and the scores are both dedicated to the architect Ricardo Ortega . From at least as early as 1926 , the architect Ricardo Ortega had encouraged Revueltas to take his composing more seriously , and showed some of his early scores to Edgard Varèse . When , in 1934 , Revueltas composed Planos with a structure clearly alluding to architectural models , he dedicated the score to his architect friend . Although Revueltas is often regarded as a Mexican nationalist with strong populist leanings , Planos contains no obvious reference to folklore . It is one of his purest musical works , in which the use of any folk-like musical elements is almost imperceptible ( Sánchez-Gutierrez 1996 , 7 , 48 ) . His references to geometry , though more programmatic than Varèse's , nevertheless indicate a kinship with the older composer's work in a shared overall linear character . Revueltas was certainly aware of Varèse's music and aesthetics in the 1920s , when the two composers had exchanged correspondence ( Sánchez-Gutierrez 1996 , 14 , 29 – 30 ) . The chamber-music version was completed in March 1934 , and was reorchestrated in June of the same year for full orchestra ( Slonimsky 1945 , 250 ) . Revueltas described the work as functional architecture , which does not exclude sentiment . Melodic fragments derive from the same impulse , the same emotion as my other works ; they sing in persistent rhythms , ever in motion ; they produce sonorities that may seem strange because they are not common . My rhythms and sonorities are reminiscent of other rhythms and sonorities , just as building material in architecture is identical with any building material , but it serves for constructions that are different in meaning , form , and expression . ( Revueltas 1989 , 212 – 13 , translated in Slonimsky 1945 , 248 ) The chamber version , published as Planos , is scored for a nonet : B ♭ clarinet , B ♭ bass clarinet , bassoon , C trumpet , piano , 2 violins , cello , and double bass . This heterogenous scoring , reminiscent of provincial bands , resembles those of other Revueltas scores , such as Alcancías and Colorines ( both from 1932 ) , Toccata sin Fuga ( 1933 ) , and the slightly later Homenaje a Federico García Lorca ( Sánchez-Gutierrez 1996 , 37 – 38 ) . The large-orchestra version , published as Danza geométrica , is scored for piccolo , 2 flutes , 2 E ♭ clarinets , 2 B ♭ clarinets , B ♭ bass clarinet , 3 bassoons ( 3rd doubling contrabassoon ) , 4 horns , 4 trumpets , 3 trombones , tuba , percussion ( 4 players : xylophone , glockenspiel , large and small tamtams , bass drum , slapstick , cymbal , large gong , tambourine , and tubular bells ) , 2 pianos , and strings . The larger ensemble seems to have required a temporal expansion as well . Two sections in the first half are extended and rewritten with newly added melodic material , the return of the opening material at the end is recast , and occasional motivic repetitions are added throughout ( Archibald 1966 ) . Planos departs from the ternary A – B – A form Revueltas habitually employed in single-movement works . Instead , it is freely structured and through-composed ( Hernández 2009 , 80 ) . It is constructed in modular , mosaic fashion from six generating motives , each with several variant forms . These motives are manipulated and juxtaposed , resulting in their continual re-contextualization ( Sánchez-Gutierrez 1996 , 29 , 33 – 34 , 122 – 24 ) . The identity of each of these motivic groups is intensified by the use of particular timbres , intensities , articulations , registers , melodic contours , meters , rhythmic patterns , and durations . Revueltas combines them into a whole through the use of sequencing , double and triple superimposition , stretto , fragmentation , extension , and shadowing , united by a complex design of ostinatos and rhythmic planes . The resulting musical discourse is often both flowing and abrupt , " a faithful mirror of the daily battle within the conflicting imagery of his inner and outer worlds " ( Kolb Neuhaus 1998 ) . When the influence of Igor Stravinsky on the orchestral version was suggested , the composer reacted : It was performed last year . Opinion was divided . Some thought that it was Stravinsky ; who knows what Stravinsky would have thought . Because it uses two pianos and some gongs , the chords at the beginning and end recall the sonority of the final chords of Les noces by Stravinsky ; however , they are neither the same notes nor the same intervals , which probably bestows upon them an even stronger resemblance . ( Revueltas 1989 , 212 ) Archibald , Bruce . 1966 . " Silvestre Revueltas : Danza geometrica . New York : Southern Music Publishing Co. , 1964 " ( review ) . Notes , second series , 23 , no . 2 ( December ) : 345 . Hernández , Juan de Dios . 2009 . " Nationalism and Musical Architecture in the Symphonic Music of Silvestre Revueltas " . DMA diss . Tucson : University of Arizona . Hoag , Charles . 2002 . " Algunos aspectos de las melodías de Revueltas " . In Diálogo de resplandores : Carlos Chávez y Silvestre Revueltas , edited by Ricardo Miranda Pérez and Yael Bitrán , 109 – 17 . México , D.F. : Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes ( CONACULTA ) ( Dirección General de Publicaciones ) . ISBN 978-970-18-8409-6 . Ruppli , Michel , and Ed Novitsky . 1998 . The MGM Labels : Additional Recordings . Volume 3 of The MGM Labels : A Discography . Discographies : Association for Recorded Sound Collections Discographic Reference Series 75 . Greenwood Press . ISBN 9780313300523 .