Tag Archives: 20th Century

«Having surveyed the orchestral music of Luis de Freitas Branco, Naxos now turn to his modest catalogue of chamber music. Born into a wealthy Lisbon family in 1890, he enjoyed a privileged musical education in Berlin and Paris. It was the French metropolis that was the major influence, though he had already fallen under the spell of Cesar Franck, having been introduced to his music by his mentor in Lisbon. Indeed his First Sonata, composed when he was seventeen, is directly derived from Franck’s well-known violin sonata, its long flowing melodies redolent of that score. It is nonetheless a most attractive score with a vibrant and joyful finale. It was to be thirty-one years, by which time he had passed through one world war, before he returned to the genre. (mais…)

«Luís de Freitas Branco’s symphonies, with their somewhat Franckian cyclical forms (and sometimes melodies), are more conservative than his impressionist, cutting-edge orchestral works from the turn of the 20th century. Vathek is one such, an amazing, luscious, exotic tone poem in the form of a theme and variations. Unperformed until 1950, just five years before the death of its composer, it is a masterpiece, and one of the most remarkable works of its era (there’s a variation written with something like 59 string parts, almost an anticipation of Messiaen or Ligeti).

In the Fourth Symphony (1944–52) Branco recaptures his youthful fire. The work mixes the modal melodies of Gregorian chant with tangy dissonances and supple, Latin rhythms. The result recalls the Hindemith of, say, Nobilissima Visione, though the scoring is quite different and the handling of form more traditional (save in the multi-sectional finale). Certainly this is the finest of the composer’s four symphonies, and a wonderful work by any measure. (mais…)

«Luis de Freitas Branco (1890–1955) may not be well known, but the notes tell us that he is Portugal’s leading composer of the first half of the 20th Century. Aside from studying in Berlin and Paris, he basically spent his life in Lisbon. He became an active musicologist, a teacher and mentor of younger composers, soughtafter lecturer, and music critic, as well as a composer.

Here we have a spectrum of his music from early to late. The Death of Manfred was written in 1905 and 1906 along with his first orchestral work Manfred, Dramatic Symphony for Soloists, Chorus, and Orchestra. This is a single movement work scored for pairs of violins, violas, and cellos, all muted, and an unmuted double bass. It is, of course, a single slow movement based on a feeling of suffering. It is really quite attractive. (mais…)

“Luís de Freitas Branco was the towering figure in Portugese music during the first half of the 20th Century. His Second Symphony combines elements as disparate as Gregorian chant, the boisterous spirit of a Brucknerian scherzo and the influence of Franck and Debussy into a superbly integrated Romantic work. His tone poem After a reading of Guerra Junqueiro was inspired by Richard Strauss, whose opulent orchestrations it echoes. Artificial Paradises , an eerie piece inspired by De Quincy’s Confessions of an Opium Eater , is regarded as Freitas Branco’s masterpiece.” – Naxos (mais…)