Alberto Ginastera composed his Creole Dance Suite for piano, Op. 15, in 1946 while in New York on a Guggenheim Fellowship. Perhaps influenced by the vibrant urban surroundings of the city, the piece reflects the general aesthetic shift scholars have observed in the composer's work during the late '40s: a move away from the Argentine folk music borrowings and explicitly nationalistic flavor of his earlier works (such as the Piezas infantiles from 1934 or Danzas Argentinas from 1937) toward a more integrated, personal style. Of course, Ginastera's native cultural roots leave their imprint even on his later, more cosmopolitan works, and the driving dance rhythms, lively syncopations, and goucho-like bravado that characterized earlier works still appear on occasion. In the Creole Dance Suite, however, these elements serve an expressive rather than evocative role: Ginastera is less interested in exploiting the specific exoticism of his homeland than using its sounds as a springboard for more far-flung pianistic excursions. The listener isn't carried away to a distant place, but rather caught up in the musical moment. The suite is comprised of five dances, tellingly labeled with standard Italian expressive markings rather than names of specific folk dance forms. This concept of the "dance suite" is highly idealized, with only the most abstract suggestion of gesture or choreography. While lacking in specific stylistic topical indications (like, say, the courante or gigue in the European tradition), these pieces certainly convey the more generalized notions of bodily movement, especially the faster movements. The second dance, a brief romp marked Allegro rustico, has a delightful kind of lurch to it, with noisy, off-kilter accents adding idiosyncratic flavor to the compelling triple meter. Likewise, the final movement, a Scherzando with coda, is propelled forward by a constant tension between 6/8 and 3/4 metrical divisions. The other three movements are more restrained in character, but no less expressive. Marked Adaggietto pianissimo, the opening movement combines a lucid and lyrical melody with poignant registral contrasts and subtle textural effects. The third movement, Allegretto cantabile, carries slightly more momentum, the plangency of its descending scalar melodies tinged with a hint of urgency. Marked Calmo e poetico, the fourth dance of the suite is the most mysterious, its languorous melodies and floating accompaniment colored by unexpected dissonances and angular chromatic turns to create, despite the title, an intriguing mixture of repose and unease.

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