It’s good to see that
Naxos has embraced Bomtempo, previously
pretty much the hegemony of Strauss.
The latter company has released a slew
of his music over the last few years,
including volumes of the piano sonatas
and a splendid Kyrie and Gloria. They’ve
also released their own performances
of the symphonies performed here, which
I’ve not heard [STRAUSS SP 4291]
He was an assimilator
rather than an inventor and in the case
of the First Symphony sails close to
Haydn’s prevailing aesthetic. The first
movement is classical almost to a fault
but has knowledgeable use made of wind
writing and well judged moments of lyrical
relaxation. Bomtempo places the Minuet
and trio before the slow movement; it’s
a mite generic, with no great identifying
touches but is deftly constructed. The
conductor Álvaro Cassuto has
added two trumpets to the timpani part
in the Andante sostenuto on the grounds
that there is no trumpet part at all
and that those works that influenced
Bomtempo never used timpani without
trumpets. This I suspect distinguishes
this recording from that on Strauss,
with the Hanover Philharmonic under
César Viana.
The Second Symphony
– neither seems to be datable – is a
much bigger work with a Beethovenian-sized
opening movement and an air generally
of a more considered sensibility. Whilst
it lacks the earlier symphony’s geniality
and freshness it has qualities of its
own. The fluent Allegro moderato cleaves
to the hinterland of Romanticism – nice,
avian flutes and a bold compositional
palette on broadly predictable lines
and rather overstretched for its (here
sixteen minute) length. The Allegretto
has pertly delightful immediacy – and
strikes a far keener and more personalised
note; entrancing counter themes and
a truly operatic, vocalised impress;
was this the great aria he never wrote?
The finale is vigorous, lithe, in sonata
form but with a witty pizzicato band
march theme. The humour is puckish,
the wind choirs are prominent, and the
strings answer with felicitous drama.
The attacca playing here is particularly
good.
The sound quality,
recorded in the University of the Algarve,
is rather recessed and muffled and has
a veiled quality that tends to distance
listening. The orchestra doesn’t sound
too big and sometimes lacks heft in
some of Bomtempo’s more vigorous outbursts
(there are a few). Otherwise this has
been another pleasant re-acquaintance
with Portugal’s leading classicist composer.
Jonathan Woolf
Algarve Orchestra/Álvaro Cassuto 