Robert Stern

Piano

Editor's Note:

Robert Stern completed this work in June 1993 in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Its first live performance took place at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, on December 5, 1994, with pianist Estela Kersenbaum Olevsky — its dedicatee — at the keyboard. Olevsky later recorded the piece on her album Piano Solos of Latin America (Centaur, 1994).

Early sketches bore the title Fantasy Variations on Arrorró, referencing Arrorró — a traditional lullaby whose origin has been lost through the centuries. The folk tune is a well-known Argentine cradle song, memorably incorporated by Alberto Ginastera into his Cinco canciones populares argentinas (1943) for voice and piano.

Olevsky, born and raised in Argentina, studied composition with Ginastera before moving to the United States, where she became professor of piano at UMass/Amherst for more than 30 years. As Olevsky recalls: “The folk tune Arrorró is a well-known Argentinian lullaby. I sang it for Bob [Stern] and he liked it. I had recently become a grandmother and enjoyed singing this tune to my grandchildren when they were babies.”