Braga Santos Sym No. 2; Crossroads

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Joly Braga Santos

Label: Marco Polo

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 65

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: 8 225216

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Symphony No. 2 Joly Braga Santos, Composer
Álvaro Cassuto, Conductor
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Joly Braga Santos, Composer
Encruzilhada Joly Braga Santos, Composer
Álvaro Cassuto, Conductor
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Joly Braga Santos, Composer
Alvaro Cassuto’s recordings of the symphonies by his former teacher, Joly Braga Santos, have been one of Marco Polo’s most revealing recent projects, on a par in quality (if not quantity) with that of Havergal Brian. The late Lionel Salter gave the previous instalments in the cycle a hearty welcome (7/98, 2/99), which I would warmly endorse.
The Second Symphony (1947) followed its predecessor by a year. Eschewing the First’s wartime atmosphere, No 2 is expansive and pastoral, though at times the landscapes are full of shadows. There is a more than a hint of Vaughan Williams’ Pastoral Symphony in the Adagio non troppo, the oft-noted resonance of the Englishman due to a common modality. Elsewhere, there are orchestral touches that Respighi would have been proud of, but Braga Santos was his own man and his individual voice and aesthetic are audible throughout. It is a remarkable achievement for a 23-year-old, not least the convincingly symphonic nature of the opening fantasia and compound-form finale.
As with both previous issues in the series, an early symphony is partnered by a later piece in his more dissonant, angular style developed from the late 1950s on. In this case it is the engaging ballet Crossroads (1967), written for the Gulbenkian company in Lisbon. Laid out like a Baroque suite, Crossroads is highly entertaining, the angularity of idiom contained in an accessible tonal (sometimes polytonal) idiom. The Bournemouth SO, substituting for the Portuguese SO, play as if they have known the works for years. Another winner

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