Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas possessed one of the most original and vital musical voices of the 20th century. He also led a wild life. Brilliant and quarrelsome, he was active in revolutionary politics, feuded with fellow artists such as Carlos Chavez and managed to write a substantial body of work in only ten years before his death from acute alcoholism at the age of forty.
The music is dynamic, fierce and colorful, influenced by Stravinsky and Bartók, modernist and imbued with folkloric flavor, though without actual quotation. Like the muralist Diego Rivera, Revueltas created a kind of mock-primitive, epic Mexico in his music, passionate and boldly etched (his best known work, the tone poem 'Sensemaya' is often referred to as a Mexican 'Rite of Spring.) This is an amazingly generous collection, including chamber works and film scores, the quasi-symphonic 'La Noche de los mayas' and not one but two versions of 'Sensemaya,' the bonus being the spirited (if rhythmically errant) debut recording made by Leopold Stokowski in 1947.