The conductor Alvaro
Cassuto has made it a lifelong mission
to bring the music of Portugal’s orchestral
composers to the world stage. This
he did most notably with a sequence
of Marco Polo discs of Joly Braga
Santos’s six symphonies. Before that
he had recorded discs of related repertoire
for the Portusom label. Anyone with
a taste for the orchestral music of
Vaughan Williams and Moeran should
give these works a try. Much the same
can be said of the four symphonies
of another Portuguese composer, Luis
de Freitas Branco who was born into
the most comfortable of surroundings
in the city in which he spent most
of his life, Lisbon. He studied in
both Berlin and Paris. His teachers
included Engelbert Humperdinck.
The Symphony No.
1 has the stamp of the symphonies
by César Franck and Paul Dukas.
This can be heard in the excitable
lyrical release of the first movement.
It is also there unmistakably in the
explosive opening of the finale of
this three movement work. However
de Freitas Branco also infuses oxygen
into Franck’s sometimes suffocating
harmonic scheme. There are some lovely
fresh and radiant touches throughout
this fine work and echoes of L’Apprenti
Sorcier and of RVW’s The Wasps
overture. The engraved life-enhancing
melody in the first movement (2:21)
is irresistible. The second movement
recalls the serenity of Rodrigo’s
Aranjuez yet has a late nineteenth
century patina. Again we hear a long
and lambent melody heavy with benediction
and kindliness. The Scherzo
Fantastique was written when
the composer was only seventeen. It
is magically scored in the manner
of the Parisian ballet tradition of
the 1890s. The work shows a light
hand with a delicacy learnt from the
best of Massenet and Berlioz. There
are two orchestral suites inspired
by the indigenous countryside music
of the Alentejo region south of Lisbon.
The three movements of the First
Alentejana Suite are reminiscent
of Vaughan Williams yet with a warmer
Southern accent. The first two movements
revel in the mists and nuances of
landscape. The finale draws heavily,
enjoyably and with unblushing candour
on the examples of Chabrier’s España
and Massenet’s ballet music from
Le Cid. It combines brilliance
of display with a noble and faintly
ecclesiastical melody.
Alvaro Cassuto provides
the liner-note for this disc.
The Portusom discs
are no longer available so these are
the only game in town. However they
are in any event presented by an orchestra
able to bring more polish than the
motley yet passionate Hungarian bands
used by Portusom.
Fine early twentieth
century melodic Portuguese music with
nationalist Franckian inclinations,
an open air gloss and lashings of
the oxygen of the warm countryside.
May the remaining three volumes be
not far behind as the passion of these
performances encourages further exploration
– further discovery.
Rob Barnett
Luis de Freitas Branco: Symphonies
etc on Portusom; Violin
Concerto; Symphony
No. 2
Joly Braga Santos: Symphony
2; Symphonies
3 and 6; Symphonies
1 and 5; Symphony
No. 4; Concerto
for Strings.
Frederico de Freitas: orchestral
works
RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra/Alvaro
Cassuto 
