Luís de Freitas Branco (1890-1955)

[Scion7]

Cello Sonata & String Quartet: 


Violin Sonatas (Roberto Szidon & Tibor Varga)

[vandermolen]

Scion 7 thanks. Which do you recommend of these interesting looking chamber music discs?

[Scion7]

Well I'm happy with the CD version of the Cello Sonata from the "Cello Music from Portugal" album.

And, while the Naxos violin sonatas sound good to me via what I hear on YouTube, the artists are really no match for a combo that includes Roberto Szidon on the Strauss/Portugalsom label - he's a "star" for a reason, even if he's not the principal player on those pieces.     It's been released on CD.  Why the music company thought a cover of some leaves for this would be a good idea for marketing the album boggles the mind.  If you're going to do that, do what Bryan Ferry did for Roxy Music and toss a couple of buxom birds topless in front of the damn ferns!

I'd love to come across that String Quartet LP in a record shoppe some day, but not pay $46 for it - which it went for on eBay.

[Scion7]

NO                                                                             YES!

         

[vandermolen]

Thanks. On the basis of your recommendations I will be ordering the Roxy Music album. 

[Scion7]

Country Life is an excellent prog-rock record, but that's for another forum. 

       I need to find the Violin Concerto and pick that up.

[vandermolen]

I need to investigate Symphony 3.

[Scion7]

And where is an album of the piano music?   So much stuff out there - so little time.

[ritter]

Cross-posted from the WAYLTN thread:

First listen to this CD:

[asin]B0048077Z4[/asin]
Vathek is turning out to be as interesting as I was led to expect! Hat tip to vandermolen! At some moments, it sounds very French to me. For instance, the opening, fanfare-like Introduction, reminded me (in its sonorities) of the the opening of Dukas's La Péri...but this music is so varied and colourful, and so forward-looking in many aspects (that Variaton III: Délices des yeux, wow!!!! ), that it is anything but derivative. A strong musical voice...

Luis a great composer, Pedro a wonderful conductor...what a remarkable pair of brothers, these Freitas Branco! 

[Christo]

Have been playing this recording of the Symphony No. 2 from 1926 over the last weeks and like it much better now. It's also easy to see where Joly Braga Santos found his first symphonic inspiration.
https://www.youtube.com/v/xsmf_9AAKho

[André]

Have been playing this recording of the Symphony No. 2 from 1926 over the last weeks and like it much better now. It's also easy to see where Joly Braga Santos found his first symphonic inspiration.
https://www.youtube.com/v/xsmf_9AAKho

Just a reminder that this disc is on sale for less than 4 € at JPC. 

[Christo]

Just a reminder that this disc is on sale for less than 4 € at JPC. 

Exacty. That's where I bought it (free shipping included)  and came to appreciate it now. Fine disc, now playing its equally fine - better played Scherzo even - rival:

[Rinaldo]

Ah, memories. Thanks for resurrecting this thread – and reminding me that I never got to the symphonies as I planned long time ago. Listening to some Branco via YouTube and I'm swept again..

https://www.youtube.com/v/GMv9dqdyqAg

[SymphonicAddict]

I have excellent memories of the 2nd Symphony too. The 1st movement is kind of in the vein of the 1st movement from the Magnard's 3rd, even in the same tonality (B-flat minor). There is an gorgeous and elegant melody in the 2nd movement, like a barcarolle or a siciliana. The 3rd movement is somewhat furious and tense, and the 4th mov. shares similar features with the 1st mov. A splendid work.

I revisited this cycle last year and I liked every symphony very much.

[foxandpeng]

11 years ago, huh? That's a long time without posts. Well, I am a fan of Luis de Freitas Branco, so I am happy to rekindle and blow offf the dust.

Now listening to L d Freitas Branco Symphony 1, the Scherzo, and the Suite Alentejana, with the RTE NSO under Álvaro Cassuto. Great Naxos release.

This is tuneful and enjoyable music.

[Symphonic Addict]

Just came across something.

kyjo from the past said this (bolded text):

So, what are FB's best works? Many consider the dazzlingly impressionistic and rather forward-looking Symphonic Poem Artificial Paradises to be his masterpiece. I would agree with that statement to an extent, but my personal favorite work by FB is his huge Symphonic Poem Vahtek, which is also quite advanced for its time. This is a vivid, exciting, voluptuously decadent piece of music that can be placed alongside pieces like Schmitt's Tragedie de Salome, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe and Scriabin's Poeme de l'exaste. Composed in the same year as The Rite of Spring (1913), Vahtek shows some uncanny similarities to the revolutionary masterwork in its barbaric, percussive outbursts and massive chords. Mind you, it's quite a bit more luscious and romantic than the Stravinsky, but it packs just as much of a punch in my opinion.

but kyjo from the present claimed (bolded text):

Freitas Branco: Vathek (Symphonic Poem in the form of variations on an Oriental Theme):



https://youtu.be/0JzXj50yl4E?si=DKPFh8nlhnaNUh2s

Incredibly, I just listened to this piece for the first time a few days ago - not sure why I had put it off for so long since I'd known about it for a while! It's undoubtedly Freitas Branco's masterpiece - nothing else I've heard by him approaches it in originality and striking level of inspiration (though the accompanying 4th Symphony - reminiscent in places of his student Braga Santos - is quite a fine work). Vathek is quite ahead of its time for 1913 - witness the mysterious, murky dissonances of the Introduction and - most remarkably - the creepy microtonal(?) ululations of the strings in Variation III, foreshadowing Ligeti and co. by 50-some years! And immediately following this in Variation IV is some of the most sensuously beautiful, voluptuously romantic music you're likely to hear. Simply a remarkable work full of fascinating contrasts and its neglect is incomprehensible! Interesting how Freitas Branco went on to compose in a much more conservative style starting in the 1920s - his Symphonies nos. 1-3, written in a quite Franckian style, are pretty good works but pale in comparison to the masterpiece that is Vathek.

It must be that Vahtek (first post) and Vathek (second post) are different (and this is not the first time I've detected the same thing on him with other works). 

[Roasted Swan]

Just came across something.

kyjo from the past said this (bolded text):


but kyjo from the present claimed (bolded text):

It must be that Vahtek (first post) and Vathek (second post) are different (and this is not the first time I've detected the same thing on him with other works). 

Lucky the person who always remembers every piece of music they have ever heard - even ones that make quite an impression!  The thing I take from Kyjo's posts is how consistent his reaction is which to my mind reads that Vathek has made a powerful impression on him both times he encountered it with an "innocent" ear.  How he writes with such enthusiasm also makes me want to listen to given that I have no memory of ever having heard it before...... probably......

[Symphonic Addict]

Lucky the person who always remembers every piece of music they have ever heard - even ones that make quite an impression!  The thing I take from Kyjo's posts is how consistent his reaction is which to my mind reads that Vathek has made a powerful impression on him both times he encountered it with an "innocent" ear.

It could be, but it's somewhat curious how vivid and emphatic the first reaction was so that he then says he listened to it for the first time. Looks like he suffered from amnesia. 

[kyjo]

Just came across something.

kyjo from the past said this (bolded text):


but kyjo from the present claimed (bolded text):

It must be that Vahtek (first post) and Vathek (second post) are different (and this is not the first time I've detected the same thing on him with other works). 

Please ignore all posts by my old account from around 2013 - I had no idea what I was talking about then...   I was young and immature at the time and sometimes liked to claim that I knew works that I'd never actually heard....

[Symphonic Addict]

To moderators: Is there any possibility to merge the two threads of this composer to have one unified?

Here is the another one:

https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,23933.0.html

Thanks in advance.