Misa Criolla: Celebrating Rhythms and Cultures

Argentinian Ariel Ramírez’s evocative Misa Criolla, premiered by the Royal Choral Society in the UK in 1995, was the centrepiece in a concert at Holy Trinity Church that celebrated the universal beats, melodies and rhythms of vernacular folk music. Written in 1964, Misa Criolla combines the sacred mass with the deeply-rooted musical rituals and dances of Latin America. Ramírez’s beautifully melodic Navidad Nuestra, an uplifting folk drama of the nativity, is similarly based on the popular traditional music of Hispanic America; both were performed with a vibrant guitar and percussion accompaniment.

From South America the programme moved to New York, where the rhythmic colours of Puerto Rican immigrants jostled against the jazz of American youth in the choruses of Bernstein’s hugely popular West Side Story. Thence to England where the folk song revival of the early 20th century stimulated an outpouring of music by composers such as Gustav Holst, Benjamin Britten and Percy Grainger, who kept these hallmarks of rural culture alive with their stirring choral arrangements. Holst also turned to India for inspiration: his Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda are based on a traditional Sanskrit text set to western classical music in a unique east/west fusion.