Much admired by Aaron Copland, the Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) is widely regarded as one of the most important and original South American composers of the 20th century. The two ballets featured on this recording belong to Ginastera�s early period when he was eager to promote an authentically national voice in his work through the use of Argentine folk and popular elements. The exotically scored Panamb� is based on a romantic and supernatural legend of love and magic from the Guaran� Indians, a tribe from the headwaters of the Rio Paran� in northern Argentina. Estancia (a farm or cattle ranch) is a powerful and passionate evocation of the vast and enigmatic Argentine pampas and the spirit of �the unlucky gaucho, who has no one to call to, with no place of his own in all that space, and in all that darkness�.