VIOLIN PORTUGUESE MUSIC

LUÍS PACHECO CUNHA, VIOLINO / EURICO ROSADO, PIANO /

PEDRO WALLENSTEIN, CONTRABAIXO

I-Tunes:

Notes

The production of music for violin in Portugal is sparse and uneven, revealing from the creators (and the public) a difficult relationship with an almost \"alien\" instrument. Nowadays still, only the piano and voice manage to fill venues.

Although some interesting works are to be found in the past, the XXth century is responsible for a major shift in musical creation.

The works included in this CD are examples of excellent compositions for the instrument, at the level of the best European productions. They denote a fluid idiomaticism that reflects the trends of their time - in the baroque, romanticism, impressionism, neo-classicism or contemporary eras.

The Creators and their Music

The biographical elements at our disposal about PEDRO LOPES NOGUEIRA are almost nonexistent - a small reference in a document of the Brotherhood of St. Cecilia, from the first half of the eighteenth century. Nevertheless he left us a complete and wonderful book for the fiddle, already considered among the most important manuals produced at that time for the instrument. The Prelude and Fantazia in the 6th Tom (F Major) are full of rhythmic invention and energy.

FRANCISCO DE SÁ NORONHA became notable in our academic world (thanks to the work of Luísa Cymbron, among others) as the creator of the first examples of \"national\" Opera. But early biographers (such as Ernesto Vieira) particularly emphasize his career as a virtuoso violinist and composer of remarkable pages for the violin. An immense curiosity, self-taught skills and brief contacts with Paganini’s heir - Camillo Sivori, endowed Noronha with enormous technical virtuosity, lyricism and invention. His Variations in three voices are a tribute to Thalberg (a serious rival of Franz Liszt) and his famous \"piano for three-hand\" technique. Noronha transposes this technique for the monodic violin with incredible panache.

Although not the most significant work of Master VIANNA DA MOTTA, this Romanza excels exquisite lyricism and remarkable formal consistency. A central section in B flat Major allows the composer to use a long bridge on the way back to the original D Major. The enlightened simplicity of this miniature makes us regret even further the 

disappearance of his Sonata for violin and piano.

The Romance of LUIS BARBOSA (father of violinist Vasco Barbosa) is a delicious encore, characteristic of the repertoire of concert violinists from the beginning of the XXth century. It is particularly remarkable the development of the harmonic palette, exposing a deep influence of French Impressionism.

The cycle From overseas by CLAUDIO CARNEYRO – a renowned violinist and composer from Porto - written between 1925 and 1926 - was his first set of pieces dedicated to his wife, Catherine Hickel, also a violinist. She was responsible for its première in the USA (Worcester), in 1926. Carneyro reveals himself as a young composer in search of a national language, still under a strong influence of French romanticism – mainly Fauré and Franck. The programmatic inspiration - allusions to sea traveling, the saudade – sail in very patriotic waters.

The discovery of this Nocturne of JOLY BRAGA SANTOS was a very pleasant surprise for the author of these notes. It explores the density of sound, breathing deeply even in the extreme high pitch of the violin, serving a plaintive phrasing in a very expressive yet complex way. Perhaps the main originality of this composition consists on the frequent and very inspired change of registers, adding to great drama.

The work was premiered in 1942 by Silva Pereira and João de Freitas Branco.

This Four Miniatures by FERNANDO LOPES-GRAÇA, were composed in 1980. These are pieces of very contrasting character and discursive resources that, like most other works the composer wrote for this ensemble, contain moments of great melodic inspiration, painstaking rhythm and timbre and a clear but never ostentatious virtuosity.

DANIEL SCHVETZ is the only non-Portuguese presence in this project. It is justified not only by his long residence among us - generating interesting fusions of musical influences – but also by the main factor determining my choice of the contemporary authors in this collection - the friendship that binds me to them and many years of working together. 

In Ejstake there are abundant Latin rhythmic references and a very lively contrast with the traditional nostalgic \"gesture\" one tends to find among the Portuguese creators.

\"Inspired by my two and a half years old son Pedro’s drawings, which he named freely from his imagination, I composed a series of four works - Paskut, for violin and piano, Recherarat, for bass and piano, Os Cupc for violin, bass and piano, and finally Ejstake, for violin and bass.\" [Author’s note]

LUIS TINOCO dedicated this work to Luis Pacheco Cunha in 1997. 

Although the title might suggest a set of three instruments or a tripartite form, it is indeed written for a violin and piano duo, and consists of four different sections. The idea of the Triptych comes as a result of the superposition of three voices, presented by the violin and the left and right hands of the piano. This process is present throughout the first three sections but, towards the end of the piece, the horizontal lines tend to mingle and, in the final bars, the violin plays a \"faraway chant\" doubling the high notes of the piano’s \"clusters\". [Author’s note]

The Crude is the third incursion of composer CÉSAR VIANA into the dreams - rather, the nightmares – of D. Pedro and D. Inês de Castro. This version for solo violin - following the setting for large orchestra and chamber group (eight elements) - reveals a remarkable synthetic capacity and programmatic cohesion, recreating idioms that are new frontiers for the instrument and its performers.

Graffiti, a work by AMÍLCAR VASQUES-DIAS, are decorative art forms that are typical of the urban landscape of the Alentejo region. They introduce elements of strong color that break the cruel sharpness of the large surfaces of white lime. This composition develops the energy emanating from this confrontation of white / anti-white culminating in 

an exuberant farandole of rhythm and color.

Notes by Luis Pacheco Cunha

Details:

Fernando LOPES-GRAÇA [Tomar, 1906-Parede, 1994]

1/4. Quatro Miniaturas [1980]

04’33’’ 1. Preludio - 2. Melodia - 3. Mandolinata - 4. Exercício

Joly BRAGA SANTOS [Lisboa, 1924-1988]

5. Nocturno [1942]

07’44’’

Amílcar VASQUES-DIAS [Badim, 1945]

6. Esgrafitos [2005] Obra dedicada a Luís Pacheco Cunha / Work dedicated to Luís Pacheco Cunha

07’23’’

Cláudio CARNEYRO [Porto, 1895-1963]

7/9. D\' Aquém e d\' Além-mar, op. 20, nº 3 (1925-26)

10’36’’ 7. Pelo oceano voga sem âncora minha nau saudade - 8. Ausência - 9. Regresso 

José Vianna da MOTTA [S.Tomé, 1868-Lisboa, 1948]

10. Romanza

04’13’’

Daniel SCHVETZ [Buenos Aires, 1955; reside em Portugal desde 1990]

11. Ejstake [1995] Obra dedicada a Luís Pacheco Cunha / Work dedicated to Luís Pacheco Cunha

06’23’’

Francisco de Sá NORONHA [V.Castelo, 1820-Rio Janeiro, 1881]

12. Variações a três vozes sobre um tema de Thalberg [Estreia moderna / Modern première]

07’56’’

Luís BARBOSA [Lisboa, 1887-1952]

13. Romance

03’28’’

César VIANA [Southampton, 1963]

14. Cru [2005] Obra dedicada a Luís Pacheco Cunha / Work dedicated to Luís Pacheco Cunha

06’59’’

Pedro Lopes NOGUEIRA [1ª metade séc. XVIII]

15/16. Prelúdio e Fantazia [Estreia moderna / Modern première]

04’12’’

Luís TINOCO [Lisboa, 1969]

17. Tríptico [1997] Obra dedicada a Luís Pacheco Cunha / Work dedicated to Luís Pacheco Cunha

06’11’’

Ref.: NUM_1214

PORTUGUESE MUSIC FOR A QUARTET

QUARTETO LOPES-GRAÇA

I-Tunes:

This CD presents the world-premiere recording of António Victorino D’Almeida’s latest String Quartet, op. 148, as well as the first performances on disc by a Portuguese quartet playing two works of Fernando Lopes-Graça from 1966: Suite Rústica No. 2 and Quatorze Anotações. This recording also marks the premiere of the recently formed Lopes-Graça Quartet, which consists of musicians from the National Conservatory of Lisbon. The experience and mastery of these musicians, as well as their close ties with both composers (violinist Luís Cunha worked with Lopes-Graça, while António Victorino D’Almeida’s quartet was written expressly for this group), imbue these energetic and insightful performances with an uncommon understanding of this powerfully expressive repertoire.

Details:

VIOLINS

LUÍS PACHECO CUNHA

ANNE VICTORINO D’ALMEIDA

VIOLA

ISABEL PIMENTEL 

CELLO

CATHERINE STRYNCKX 

António VICTORINO D’ ALMEIDA

Quarteto, op. 148 (2007)*

1. Andantino non troppo 06’28’’

2. Scherzo – Allegro non troppo 08’31’’

3. Allegro 03’54’’

4. Allegro assai 06’25’’

* Obra dedicada ao Quarteto Lopes-Graça

* Work dedicated to the Lopes-Graça Quartet

Fernando LOPES-GRAÇA

5/18. Catorze Anotações (1966) 08’32’’

14 Annotations

Suite Rústica nº 2 (1966)

Sobre cantos e danças tradicionais portuguesas

On Portuguese songs and dances

19. Melancólico 02’03’’

20. Danzante 02’46’’

21. Scherzoso 01’20’’

22. In modo di ninna nanna 02’45’’

23. Gaio 02’11’’

Total 44’55’’

LOPES-GRAÇA QUARTET

The members of this Quartet, formed at the School of Music of the National Conservatory (Lisbon - Portugal), are musicians possessing outstanding solo and chamber careers who are also teachers at that institution. This project intends to bestow on its Conservatory, as happens at many of its fellow schools around the world, a group of reference in the area of string performance capable of developing permanent teaching activity (quartet master-classes) as well as promoting the school, both in Portugal and abroad. 

The ensemble performed in the most recent editions of the “La Folle Journée” Festival at the Cultural Centre of Belém, Lisbon, as well as in the Festival “In search of a Lost Concert House”, in Lisbon, and in many other major venues, including anniversary commemorations for Lopes Graça and Mozart.

It devotes special attention to repertoire by contemporary Portuguese composers, having given several world premieres of such works. One important example, a concert given last December in Andorra on the theme of “the Portuguese musical tradition of the 20th century,” deserves particular mention.

Its first CD includes major works by Lopes-Graça and Antonio Victorino d’Almeida.

Ref.: NUM 1182

DANCING FIDDLE - DANÇAS

I-Tunes:

Luís Pacheco Cunha - violin
Eurico Rosado - piano
José Diniz - guitar
Luís Gomes - clarinet

"DANCING FIDDLE is a long-scope project, which enhances its author\' association with dance, in several occasions. The recorded repertoire already integrated a homonymous performance assignment, in co-operation with nine young ballerinas, who lent a lot of grace and gestural dynamism to our musical inspiration — an endeavour of true scenic interplay in which the whole went certainly further than the sum of the parts.

It would be, in fact, redundant to insist in the privileged relationship that music and dance maintain from the proto-history of the art, arriving, in some cultures, to be designated by the same word..."

Luís Pacheco Cunha

Details:

"DANCING FIDDLE is a long-scope project, which enhances its authors' association with dance, in several occasions. The recorded repertoire already integrated a homonymous performance assignment, in co-operation with nine young ballerinas, who lent a lot of grace and gestural dynamism to our musical inspiration — an endeavour of true scenic interplay in which the whole went certainly further than the sum of the parts.

It would be, in fact, redundant to insist in the privileged relationship that music and dance maintain from the proto-history of the art, arriving, in some cultures, to be designated by the same word.

Let us, for a moment, consider the plasticity, the visual wealth in music performance, of which, helas!, the musician himself is not always aware. In our visual — not aural — culture, a live concert is, first of all, a pleasure for the eye. 

Take the violinist\'s example: — his posture, upright, dominating, is inseparable from his charm; the wavelike movement of the body, the cinematic relationship between the bow movement (amplitude) and the sound (dynamics), the choreography of the fingers rushing upon the strings. All these and many other irreplaceable elements of the musical event enhance its vicinity with dance, the sublimation of body and movement. 

The musical examples registered in this phonogram do not belong to the category of functional music. We may consider these works a stylisation of dances not being, however, written with the actual purpose of being danced. While mentioning a waltz, a rumba or a mazurka, we are, in fact referring to musical-instrumental genres that emancipated from its original function and are destined, essentially, to be heard.

Such purpose determines their elaborated construction, formal and harmonic complexity and aesthetic refinement, since music has the monopoly of the spectator's attention. These dances are, thus, a well-achieved synthesis of music and the choreographic movement that, remotely, brings it about. They should also — depending on the level of the listener / spectator’s information — wake up other complex contextual references — scenic involvement, historical / geographical / social background, programmatic contents. 

May these small pieces carry you to other microcosms of experiences, and our effort will have been thoroughly rewarded.

The three dances from the Trio Suite that Igor Stravinsky based on its scenic work The Soldier’s Tale (1917) — Tango, Waltz and Ragtime — operate a miraculous cure on the Princess of the story, a symbolism that associates music and movement with physical, mental and emotional fairness.

How Down is an arrangement for violin and piano accomplished in 1945 by Aaron Copland. The original homonymous dance integrates his ballet Rodeo, based on elements of American’s folk music.

Jamaican Rumba, a version for violin and piano extracted from the composer's original for two pianos, written in 1938, by William Primrose, is dedicated to Heifetz. Under its Latin rhythmical skeleton, allows for the stunning virtuosity characteristic of this interpreter. 

The Waltzes and German Dances (Deutscher) for piano, composed in great number in the course of Schubert\'s creative career and, certainly, very much in vogue, judging by the fact that they deserved publication during the composer’s lifespan, are simple and unpretentious works, in the brilliant context of his creation. The allocation of right and left hands in the piano score to different instruments accounts, in our understanding, for the more subtle display of their melodic, harmonic and rhythmic vivacity.

The Spanish Folk Suite presents three of the Seven Spanish Folk Songs by Falla (written in 1915), in Polish violinist Pawel Kochansky’s transcription. Falla derives innovative harmonic subtleties from the folk themes, enveloping these dances in an unmistakable Iberian mist. 

In Chopin’s footsteps, Henryk Wieniawsky composes a series of Mazurkas — evoking Polish folklore — for the instrument he mastered — the violin. Among them, the op.19, no. 1, known as Dudziarz, excels for the intrepidity and idiomatic instrumental writing.

Dithyramb - a classical Greek dance, is the last of the three pieces that composer Lopes-Graça, dedicated, in 1960, to violinist Blaise Calame. It serves as good example of this creator's mastery in polytonal and polyrhythmic techniques, suggesting the somewhat chaotic atmosphere of a much frequented popular festivity.

Bartók composed, in 1915, his Romanian Folk Dances for piano, given here in violinist Zoltán Székely’s transcription. They recover, in a naïf and dispossessed form, the Romanian popular tradition, evoking warlike quarrels and cavalcades, alongside with passages of great lyricism. They are called: Jocul cu Bâta, Brâul, Pe Loc, Buciumeana, Poarga Româneasca (Roumanian Polka), Manuntelul.

To close up this CD, an Adagio cantabile proceeded by a Rondoncino em tempo di polacca (indeed a Siciliana), the movements of the second Sonata from a set of six known as Centone. Featuring Paganini in its best melodic vein, exploring with dexterity the resources of instruments he so perfectly mastered.\"

Luís Pacheco Cunha 

Igor STRAVINSKY (1882-1971) 

1 The Soldier’s Tale (Tango, Waltz, Ragtime)

História do Soldado 06’57’’

Aaron COPLAND (1900-1990)

2 How Down (from Rodeo) 03’15’’

Arthur BENJAMIN (1893-1960)

3 Jamaican Rumba

Rumba Jamaicana 01’58’’

Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)

4/11 Waltzes op. 9a (I - VI)

Valsas op. 9a 05’05’’ 

Manuel de FALLA (1876-1946)

12/14 Spanish Folk Suite

Suite Popular Espanhola (Polo, Asturiana, Jota) 07’37’’

Henryk WIENIAWSKY (1835-1880)

15 Mazurka, op.19, no. 1 – “Dudziarz” 02’31’’

Fernando LOPES-GRAÇA (1906-1995)

16 Dithyramb (from Petit Triptyque)

Ditirambo de Pequeno Tríptico 02’10’’

Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)

17/21 German Dances, op. 33 (I –IV), and Ländler

Danças Alemãs, op. 33 e Ländler 03’24’’ 

Béla BARTÓK (1881-1945)

22/27 Roumanian Folk Dances (I - VI)

Danças Romenas 06’22’’

Niccolo PAGANINI (1782-1840)

28/29 Sonata II (from Centone di Sonate) 06’33’’

(Adagio, Tempo di Pollacca)

TOTAL 47’09’’

Ref.: NUM 1176

QUARTETO LOPES-GRAÇA - PORTUGUESE MUSIC FOR A QUARTET

I-Tunes:

This CD presents the world-premiere recording of António Victorino D’Almeida’s latest String Quartet, op. 148, as well as the first performances on disc by a Portuguese quartet playing two works of Fernando Lopes-Graça from 1966: Suite Rústica No. 2 and Quatorze Anotações. This recording also marks the premiere of the recently formed Lopes-Graça Quartet, which consists of musicians from the National Conservatory of Lisbon. The experience and mastery of these musicians, as well as their close ties with both composers (violinist Luís Cunha worked with Lopes-Graça, while António Victorino D’Almeida’s quartet was written expressly for this group), imbue these energetic and insightful performances with an uncommon understanding of this powerfully expressive repertoire.

Details:

PORTUGUESE MUSIC FOR A QUARTET

Lopes-Graça Quartet

VIOLINS

LUÍS PACHECO CUNHA

ANNE VICTORINO D’ALMEIDA

VIOLA

ISABEL PIMENTEL 

CELLO

CATHERINE STRYNCKX 

António VICTORINO D’ ALMEIDA

Quarteto, op. 148 (2007)*

1. Andantino non troppo 06’28’’

2. Scherzo – Allegro non troppo 08’31’’

3. Allegro 03’54’’

4. Allegro assai 06’25’’

* Obra dedicada ao Quarteto Lopes-Graça

* Work dedicated to the Lopes-Graça Quartet

Fernando LOPES-GRAÇA

5/18. Catorze Anotações (1966) 08’32’’

14 Annotations

Suite Rústica nº 2 (1966)

Sobre cantos e danças tradicionais portuguesas

On Portuguese songs and dances

19. Melancólico 02’03’’

20. Danzante 02’46’’

21. Scherzoso 01’20’’

22. In modo di ninna nanna 02’45’’

23. Gaio 02’11’’

Total 44’55’’

LOPES-GRAÇA QUARTET

The members of this Quartet, formed at the School of Music of the National Conservatory (Lisbon - Portugal), are musicians possessing outstanding solo and chamber careers who are also teachers at that institution. This project intends to bestow on its Conservatory, as happens at many of its fellow schools around the world, a group of reference in the area of string performance capable of developing permanent teaching activity (quartet master-classes) as well as promoting the school, both in Portugal and abroad. 

The ensemble performed in the most recent editions of the “La Folle Journée” Festival at the Cultural Centre of Belém, Lisbon, as well as in the Festival “In search of a Lost Concert House”, in Lisbon, and in many other major venues, including anniversary commemorations for Lopes Graça and Mozart.

It devotes special attention to repertoire by contemporary Portuguese composers, having given several world premieres of such works. One important example, a concert given last December in Andorra on the theme of “the Portuguese musical tradition of the 20th century,” deserves particular mention.

Its first CD includes major works by Lopes-Graça and Antonio Victorino d’Almeida.

Ref.: NUM 1182