Schmitt: La Tragedie De Salome, Le Palais Hante, Psaume 47 Tortelier, Bullock, Sao Paulo Symphony (2011)

Florent Schmitt was well known as a critic and composer during his lifetime, but his compositions fell into neglect after his death. Difficult to pigeonhole, he has been called everything from conservative to neo-romantic to revolutionary, and Dutilleux wrote of him that he ‘gave back to the French school certain notions of grandeur’. The three works on this CD are all remarkable in their own ways – for their rhythmic exuberance, their rich and varied orchestration, their imaginative use of traditional harmonies, and in the case of Le Palais hanté and La Tragédie de Salomé for their exploration of the dark side of humanity.

In 1907 Florent Schmitt composed music to accompany a ‘mimodrame’ danced by Loïe Fuller, La Tragédie de Salomé . His score is bursting with colour, energy and voluptuousness – and also with oriental influences stemming from his travels to Morocco and Constantinople, where he discovered the howling dervishes. The final scene features the heart-rending ‘Chant d’Aïça’, an oriental melody sung by a soprano. This music, though bold and modern for the listeners of 1907, nonetheless aroused the admiration of another composer, Igor Stravinsky, to whom Schmitt dedicated the Symphonic Suite he subsequently derived from the work. However, Alain Altinoglu, at the helm of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra of which he has been Music Director since 2021, has chosen to record the original version of this landmark of early twentieth-century French music. The beautiful Chant élégiaque , in its 1911 version for cello and large orchestra, completes this programme.

The tone poem Cauchemar, which means "nightmare" in Portuguese, is much a product of its time, similar in tone to contemporaneous works by Schoenberg, Massenet, Stravinsky and Schmitt. This is not surprising since the composer was studying in Europe at the time. Despite the title, there is nothing terribly frightening about the music which has a mood rather somewhere between the Rienzi overture of Wagner and something by Nielsen.

BIS has done it again! If you’ve been collecting any of the marvelous unknown composers that this label has been advocating over the years, including Tubin, Tveitt, Klami, or (from this source) Guarnieri, then you’re going to love this fabulous new disc of music by Brazilian composer Francisco Mignone (1897-1986). He’s best known today for his shorter piano pieces, which appear on numerous Latin American keyboard music collections–but there’s much more to him than that. The son of Italian immigrants, Mignone’s music sounds like an Afro-Brazilian homage to Respighi, Puccini, and Stravinsky–but as happens so often in these cases, whatever he may lack in sheer originality he more than makes up for in melodic spontaneity and in finding a mix of ingredients that is his alone. This disc, which shows the work of a superb craftsman and an orchestrator every bit on the level of the three composers just mentioned, only whets the appetite for more–much more.

The Cello Concerto no.1 was Villa-Lobos’s first major orchestral work. Filled with youthful energy and displaying an eclectic style, it is the sound of the composer finding his voice. Three decades later and with his reputation at its height, the inspired melodies and flowing style of the Fantasia sees Villa-Lobos giving free rein to his vivid imagination. Composed for the Brazilian cellist Aldo Parisot, the no less inventive and lushly scored Cello Concerto no.2 from 1953 suggests man’s solitude when facing the vastness of nature.

The recordings by the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra of works by Villa-Lobos, Camargo Guarnieri and other Brazilian composers have demonstrated the variety of their national music and the multi-faceted nature of Brazilian dance. Alexandre Levy’s Samba and Alberto Nepomuceno’s Batuque are early examples of a Brazilian art music which draws heavily on the dance rhythms of popular music.

Villa-Lobos Complete Choros & Bachianas Brasileiras - São Paulo Symphony Orch. [Official Digital Download 24bit/44.1kHz, 2009]
7 Discs - FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44.1 kHz | Time - 8 hours, 45 minutes | 4,43 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Full PDF Booklet (in Disc 1 folder)
2009 BIS Release

The finest recordings of these works available! The Brazilian composer (we needn't remind his most ardent supporters that he's the most significant Latin American composer of all time) behind numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works lets his creative genius show on Choros (from the Portuguese verb chorar , "to weep") Nos. 1-12 and Bachianas Brasileiras ("Brazilian Bach-pieces") Nos. 1-9. Also includes a bonus disc of solo guitar music played by the distinguished Anders Miolin. Great notes in the booklet, too…highly recommended! - Gramophone Magazine