Joly Braga Santos - Alfama; etc (Álvaro Cassuto)

Information

Composer: Joly Braga Santos

• (01) Symphonic Overture No. 3
• (02) Elegy in memory of Vianna da Motta
• (03) Alfama, ballet suite (arr. Cassuto)
• (12) Variations for Orchestra
• (13) Three Symphonic Sketches

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Álvaro Cassuto, conductor

Date: 2011
Label: Naxos
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572815

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Review

ARTISTIC QUALITY: 9 / SOUND QUALITY: 9

Joly Braga Santos was Portugal’s greatest 2oth century composer, and virtually everything he wrote is worth acquiring. Stylistically he started out as a disciple of folk-inspired, modal/romantic composers such as Vaughan Williams and Respighi, and wound up squarely in the avant-garde. The amazing thing is that he retained his individually at all times, even when writing atonal, expressionist pieces such as the Variations for Orchestra (first sound clip). The key in all cases is his handling of the orchestra: the use of rhythmic ostinatos, the woodwind writing, his love of vivid colors often achieved through astonishingly economical means.

Aside from the late Variations (1976), this disc contains a series of works covering Braga Santos’ entire career, in all of the idioms in which he worked. Earliest is the Elegy in memory of Liszt pupil and famous pianist José Vianna da Motta, a brief and touching slow movement tinged with modal melody. Next up is the Symphonic Overture No. 3 (1954), one of his characteristic mixtures of classical construction and folk-inflected melodies (second sound clip). This lovely work, which as been recorded at least once previously, whets the appetite for its companion pieces.

Braga Santos dismissed the folk music-based ballet Alfama (1956) as fluff that he undertook for the money, but the suite arranged by conductor, composer, and friend Álvaro Cassuto reveals the piece as appealingly tuneful and well-crafted, despite a certain fluffy over-emphasis on rhythmic tambourine parts and other ballet percussion paraphernalia. The Three Symphonic Sketches stand somewhere between the Overture and the Variations. They are truly sketches–short, punchy, and characterful–written in a harmonic idiom that’s quite tonal but saturated with appealingly spicy dissonance.

Álvaro Cassuto, as other discs in this series prove, was not just Braga Santos’ friend. He is an ideal exponent of this music. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra accommodates the widely varying range of expression with evident enthusiasm and confident virtuosity. As with most productions from this source, Naxos’ engineering is excellent. This deserves your attention.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2012/Feb12/Braga_Santos_8572815.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2012/Mar12/BragaSantos_Alfama_8572815.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2012/Apr12/BragaSantos_Alfama_8572815.htm
https://www.naxos.com/reviews/reviewslist.asp?catalogueid=8.572815&languageid=EN
https://www.amazon.com/Braga-Santos-Symphonic-Overture-Variations/dp/B005YD11Q0
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Braga-Santos-Symphonic-Overture-8572815/dp/B005YD11Q0

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Joly Braga Santos (May 14, 1924 – July 18, 1988) was a Portuguese composer and conductor. He studied violin and composition at the National Conservatoire of Lisbon, and was a disciple of Luís de Freitas Branco. After the Second World War, he was able to go abroad, having studied conducting with Hermann Scherchen and Antonino Votto, and composition with Virgilio Mortari. Braga Santos was considered the leading Portuguese composer of the 20th century. He wrote six symphonies, three operas, chamber music for a wide variety of instruments and ensembles, film scores, and several choral works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joly_Braga_Santos

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Álvaro Cassuto (born 1938) is a Portuguese composer and conductor. He was born in Porto, Portugal, and studied in Lisbon and Berlin. Cassuto has been music director of the Portuguese Radio Symphony, the New Portuguese Philharmonia, the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, the Algarve Orchestra and the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Koussevitzky Memorial Prize. Cassuto has recorded many highly successful CDs for the Strauss, Portugalsom, Marco Polo and Naxos record labels, notably a series of recordings of Portuguese composers for Naxos.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81lvaro_Cassuto

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