The Argentinian Alberto Ginastera, together with the Mexican Carlos Chavez and the Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos, ranks among the greatest Latin-American composers of the twentieth century. Ginastera’s most frequently performed works include the ballets Estancia and Panambi, which make direct use of Argentinian folk music. The two Piano Concertos, dating respectively from 1962 and 1972, belong to his neo-expressionist period. Although Ginastera was by then no longer using elements of folk music, Argentinian traits remain: strong, obsessive rhythms, meditative adagios evoking the tranquillity of the pampas, as well as magical, mysterious sonorities.