I owe a great deal
to Walter Wells and Mark Lehman for
introducing me to so much fine neglected
music. In the 1980s parcels of cassettes
winged their way back and forward between
various places in the USA and Saltash
in Cornwall just over the Tamar Bridge
from Plymouth.
Among those parcels
was a tape of Braga Santos's Fourth
Symphony. I was immediately enthralled
by Santos's fine, epic, open-air symphonism.
Indulged further by Portugalsom in the
early days of this site I reviewed many
other Braga Santos discs. Later Marco
Polo trounced the marketplace with their
Alvaro Cassuto series of which this
is the latest volley. Can there be anyone
who, as conductor, knows Braga Santos's
music as well as Cassuto. He was also
the conductor on a number of the Portugalsom
series discs and must stand in relation
to Braga Santos as Beecham stands to
Delius; Bernstein to Schuman, Handley
to Bax.
Of the Six Symphonies
the first four are melodic-tonal, echoing
with styles others will link with Moeran,
RVW, Bruckner and Tchaikovsky. The final
two symphonies are tough and dissonant.
With that backdrop I wondered what the
Staccato from 1988 would
be like. In fact it is personable, tuneful,
flighty without being trivial in mood,
brief of course, abounding in chattering
activity but with some braw rhythmic
work for the brass and a typically euphonious
heart-easing melody at 1.30. The Nocturno
is grave and melancholy with
a solo viola curving out of the steady
trudge with which the work opens. It
recalls Howells' Elegy and the
sweeter elegiac moments from the Miaskovsky
symphonies. The Divertimento No.
1 is for full orchestra. It
has three movements and we are told
is one of the composer's few works based
on Portuguese folklore. It certainly
doesn’t show in any potpourri way -
at least not in the first movement.
The Preludio starts with the
same steady trudge as the Nocturno,
with the accent on the strings (which
in the case of the Algarve Orchestra
are here not as succulent as
they might be). By the time we get to
2.45 we realise that we are in for another
of the composer's trademark melodies.
These abound in open air virtue and
the freshness of a cool and dazzling
morning. The Intermezzo second
movement might well have us thinking
of Lincolnshire folksongs à
la RVW - very close in style. The
Finale takes us back to touching
melodies of a type similar to the tune
that sings out at the peak of Vaughan
Williams' Wasps Overture.
The Second Divertimento
is definitely tougher - music
of haunting and disillusion with a prominent
role for string solos. This is music
with a souring edge rising to ruthlessness
and a cauldron of atonal discontent.
Voices paralleling those from Waxman's
Concerto for Strings, from Le
Sacre and from Rawsthorne can be
heard.
The Cello Concerto
is in three movements calling out
soulfully in discontent, in tension,
in anger, fearfully teetering on the
edge of the abyss. The concerto does
not look back to the music of the first
four symphonies. This is certainly not
a companion to the Moeran Cello Concerto.
The linkages belong more naturally to
Boris Tchaikovsky, to Rawsthorne, to
Sallinen and to Shostakovich (try the
central movement). It is played with
grave reverence by the principal cello
of the Algarve Orchestra, Jan Bastiaan
Neven. The work ends in ambivalent stillness
with the muttering of an uncertain heartbeat.
The whole package is
definitively supported by Alvaro Cassuto's
programme notes. He writes with engaging
frankness. Of the Concerto he writes:
"It is the kind of work where the music
speaks for itself, and trying to write
about it I feel completely lost."
This is a disc for
those already sympathetic to the mix
of styles you get in juxtaposing symphonies
1 and 5 : 3 and 6. The earlier melodic-nationalism
jostles elbows with the later tougher
dissonance - not that Braga Santos ever
loses complete touch with the long line.
Rob Barnett
OTHER BRAGA SANTOS CDs FROM MARCO POLO AND ALVARO CASSUTO
Symphonies 1 and 5 8.223879
Symphonies 3 and 6 8.225087
Symphony 2; Crossroads 8.225216
Symphony 4; Symphonic Variations 8.225233
Concerto for Strings etc 8.225186
Jan Bastiaan Neven (cello) 