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

This attractive album featuring the São Paolo Symphony Orchestra led by John Neschling includes three of Hindemith's most popular and appealing orchestral scores, all dating from the mid-'30s. Mathis der Maler, a 1934 symphony made up of three movements the composer incorporated into his opera of the same name, is a work with a mysteriously effective consolidation of seemingly disparate elements; it comes across as austere yet deeply intimate, and radiantly pure yet full of passion and ardor. Nobility is difficult to define in musical terms, but it's a quality that can be applied without reservation to Hindemith's majestic, warmly humane symphony. Nobilissima visione (1938), a suite based on a ballet about St. Francis, inhabits a similar emotional and musical world. It's a lovely, often serene piece, but it doesn't rise to the same transcendent level of inspiration as the earlier work.

This attractive album featuring the São Paolo Symphony Orchestra led by John Neschling includes three of Hindemith's most popular and appealing orchestral scores, all dating from the mid-'30s. Mathis der Maler, a 1934 symphony made up of three movements the composer incorporated into his opera of the same name, is a work with a mysteriously effective consolidation of seemingly disparate elements; it comes across as austere yet deeply intimate, and radiantly pure yet full of passion and ardor.

Jose Antônio de Almeida Prado was one of the most admired Brazilian composers of his time. The two stylistically diverse works featured on this album exemplify different creative periods in the composer’s life. The prize-winning Pequenos funerais cantantes, which was Almeida Prado’s breakthrough as a composer, is a lament full of unique soundworlds forged from different combinations of choral and orchestral writing. The superbly orchestrated Sinfonia dos OrixAs takes as its subject the Orishas (deities in the Yoruba religion) – and is a personal tribute to the rich Afro-Brazilian religious traditions, a sumptuous melodic and rhythmic feast celebrating the forces of nature.

Choral music holds a central position in Villa-Lobos’s catalogue of works, but among these famous pieces is a series of little-known transcriptions for a cappella choir taken from the standard classical repertoire. They were intended for a teachers’ chorus and for use in schools, and through astonishing alchemy they achieve a true ‘orchestration’ of largely piano originals, adding a fresh new repertoire for vocal ensembles. This album also includes the first ever recording of Villa-Lobos’s complete set of a cappella transcriptions from Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier.

Camargo Guarnieri (1907-1993). Guarnieri was actually christened with the first name of Mozart by his poor but musically rich parents. He studied in France and the US, where Copland praised his music.While remaining absolutely to his nationalist roots, his style owes nothing to that of Villa-Lobos, being far more disciplined and neo-classical in outlook. This music is a little dissonant, with a intense and complex structure that delights in taking the listener along with it.

What attracts us in Guarnieri's music is his warmth and his imagination which vibrate with a profoundly Brazilian sensibility. It is, in its most refined expression, the music of a "new" continent, full of flavor and freshness…