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Flores Argentinas: 12 Canciones
Flores Argentinas: 12 Canciones is a song cycle composed by Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000) with text written by León Benarós (1915-2012).

Classification of Guastavino's Songs
Guastavino's output of songs is best categorized into two parts. The first part begins in 1939, the year of his first published song, and ends in 1962. The songs written between the years of 1939-1962 show a wide diversity of musical styles and diverse poetry he chose to set. These songs show a strong influence of impressionism and of Spanish composers like Manuel de Falla and Isaac Albéniz. The music of this period is marked by tonal ambiguity, chromaticism, and passages of extreme dissonances, but also by Guastavino's signature lyricism. The influence of musical nationalism during this period is minimal and reflected in the choices of poetry by mostly foreign authors. In his early songs, Guastavino relies heavily on the evocation of moods, scenes, or historical eras.

The second song period begins in 1963 with the publication of "Milonga de dos hermanos" with text by Jorge Luis Borges and "La Tempranera" with text by León Benarós and ends in 1975 with the Cuatro sonetos de Quevedo with text by Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas. In this period, Guastavino sets the text of Argentine authors almost exclusively. Guastavino's style shifts to a more simple, predictable, and uniform style marked with lighter textures, sparser accompaniments, and formal design influenced by popular music that incorporates musical refrains and a strophic form.

Guastavino's music never strays from tonal harmony and traditional forms but moves within the limits of tonal harmony and traditional form.

Style of Guastavino's Flores Argentinas: 12 Canciones
Flores Argentinas: 12 Canciones is exemplary of Carlos Guastavino's second song period due to many characteristics including text, form, and influences. The text by León Benarós was written for Guastavino for the purpose of putting the text into lyrics. The fact that León Benarós was from Argentina and the subject of the poems is the flowers and birds of Argentina make Flores Argentinas: 12 Canciones characteristic of the second song period. The form of these pieces is strophic and often with a refrain, which is exemplary of popular music. The influences of Flores Argentinas: 12 Canciones is Argentina itself and the nationalist movement that Guastavino and Benarós were a part of.

In the second song period, Guastavino uses almost entirely Argentine poetry, much of which is written in a style meant to emulate Argentine folklore. In this period, Guastavino's musical settings are either nationalistic or gently colored with Argentine inflections. Over half of the songs are in a strophic form that includes a refrain after each verse. It is this persistent use of a refrain that evokes popular music. The songs are harmonically tonal and what dissonance there is, is in the accompaniment during the introduction.

All of the songs are influenced by folk music or popular genres. The most common genre is the zamba, but Guastavino also makes use of the milonga, the cueca, and the vidala. While most of Guastavino's songs during this time of the popular style, many of his songs, including Flores Argentinas: 12 Canciones hover between the genres of popular music and art music.

Text and Music
The text set to the songs in Guastavino's second song period is largely written in a folk or a popular style. The poets Atahualpa Yupanqui, Alma Garcia, Guiche Aizenberg, and León Benarós wrote poetry ideal for setting music in the popular style. In general, each verse of a song text has two stanzas of either four or six lines, after which, there is an estribillo (refrain). Most of the poems set by Gustavino are nationalistic, reflecting the intention of the poets to highlight their Argentine heritage. These poems are often invoking nature, solitude, and nostalgia, especially in the poetry of Flores Argentinas: 12 Canciones. In these poems, León Benarós pays tribute to the flowers and birds of Argentina in poems that are both witty and sentimental. The shorter poetry of León Benarós is lyrical, descriptive, and sentimental often dealing with the natural landscape of Argentina. The short poems are almost always written with stanzas that are meant to be refrains, making the suitable to be texts for popular music. Carlos Guastavino and León Benarós collaborated on more than 60 songs together.

The Impact of Carlos Guastavino's Art Songs
Throughout the history of Argentine art music, very few composers have been more successful in blending the worlds of musica culta and musica popular than Carlos Guastavino. Guastavino created works that, in the right hands, could thrive in both environments. This influence is especially clear in the genre of song, which Guastavino wrote around 500 of, most of which remain unpublished since there are only 162 listed in the catalog of his published works. The sheer number of songs and their character have prompted many to call Guastavino "The Argentine Schubert," or "The Schubert of the Pampas."

Nationalism in Argentine music has many different facets as shown in Guastavino's music. Some examples of this nationalism come from directly inserting folk music into compositions, the text in which is used, and the European influences that were spreading throughout the world, one large example in Guastavino's early music is Impressionism.