Joly Braga Santos - Cello Concerto; etc. (Jan Bastiaan Neven; Álvaro Cassuto)

Information

Composer: Joly Braga Santos

• (01) Staccato Brillante
• (02) Nocturno for Strings
• (03) Divertimento No. 1
• (06) Divertimento No. 2
• (08) Concerto for Cello and Orchestra

Jan Bastiaan Neven, cello
Algarve Orchestra
Álvaro Cassuto, conductor

Date: 2004
Label: Marco Polo
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.225271

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Review

The elusive late Cello Concerto is the climax to a fascinating programme

The latest instalment in Alvaro Cassuto’s marvellous Marco Polo series covers the full span of Braga Santos’s career, from the early Nocturno for strings (1944) – composed aged 20 – to the Cello Concerto (1987) and Staccato brilhante from his final year. This last, a two-minute overture or encore, exhibits his splendid ear for orchestral sound and structural craftsmanship as completely as any of the symphonies and makes as vivid a concert opener as Bernstein’s Candide or Nielsen’s Maskarade overtures.

The two Divertimenti highlight the poles in Braga Santos’s mature expressivity. The First (1959-61) was written on the cusp of his progression away from the modality of Nocturno towards a more modern language, still tonal, albeit more freely so. A bright and breezy, folk-derived triptych, it is utterly unlike the dark and haunted Second of 1978. Scored for string orchestra only, this two-movement work plumbs depths that the First barely hinted at, at times with Shostakovich-like intensity. Although Braga Santos’s musical voice was not, perhaps, the strongest of 20th-century composers, it was never overwhelmed by the more celebrated contemporaries he learnt from, as this often mesmerising work shows.

Cassuto draws some fine playing from the Algarve Orchestra, nowhere more so than in the Second Divertimento or the subtle Cello Concerto, where the soloist’s role – as Cassuto notes in the booklet – is by no means clear-cut. The concerto, nicely delivered here by Jan Bastiaan Neven, traverses a beguiling range of moods and tonal vistas, shadowy without being gloomy or sombre. Be warned though, it does not reveal its inner self at a single hearing. Stick with it, for the rewards more than outweigh the effort. Wonderful sound from Mike Clements and Andrew Walton in yet another splendid disc.

-- Guy Rickards, Gramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 8 / SOUND QUALITY: 9
MusicWeb International  RECORDING OF THE MONTH
https://www.allmusic.com/album/joly-braga-santos-cello-concerto-staccato-brillante-divertimentos-nos-1-2-mw0001850084
https://www.amazon.com/Joly-Braga-Santos-Brilhante-Divertimentos/dp/B0002JEG40

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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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