GALINDO DIMAS, BLAS  BIOGRAPHY

An example of the musical talent of Mexican people, Blas Galindo Dimas was born in a remote village in Jalisco in the Huichola region, and, with the Revolution, came relatively late to music, at the age of twenty, but his talent and dedication, and the help given by Carlos Chávez, soon allowed him to make up for lost time and to familiarise himself with traditional and modern techniques of composition, eventually to become director of the National Conservatory of Music and a member of the Academy of Arts, among other distinctions.

His Sones de Mariachi remains the most often performed of all his works, in spite of the success of many other compositions in an abundant catalogue of works. It was written at the suggestion of Carlos Chávez as part of a musical programme for the New York Museum of Modern Art. This brilliant synthesis of popular Mexican music enjoyed such success that the composer was invited by Columbia to record the work. Galindo had earlier written a fuller orchestration of the piece, using all the resources of the modern orchestra, and it is this version that is here recorded. Any Mexican will recognise at once the themes used and it is the vigour of the treatment and the brightness of orchestral colour that constitutes the novelty of the piece, assuring its success