The main attraction here, for me, are the two works by the ‘Spanish Mozart,’ Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga (1806-1826, reportedly born precisely 50 years to the day after Mozart), who died at the unconscionable age of 19 and who wrote only three significant works, the Symphony and Overture included here and a set of string quartets. I’ve long admired the quartets but had never heard these orchestral works and I must say they are quite a discovery. The Overture to his opera, ‘Los esclavos felices’ ['The Happy Slaves,' talk about a non-pc subject!], was written and premièred successfully in Spain when he was only thirteen. If I heard it without knowing who wrote it I would think it was a previously unknown overture by Rossini. The Overture was written in 1819 and Arriaga might possibly have known something by Rossini, but I’ve read that Rossini’s operas were late coming to Spain and 1819 was before Arriaga had moved to Paris to study with Fétis. Of course, there were similar precedents in 17th-c. Italian opera. Still, the occurrence of Rossinian melody and decorative elements, as well as the Rossinian crescendo-accelerando toward the end, are, to my ears, virtually indistinguishable from music by the Swan of Pesaro. Add to this the thoroughly winning melodies and rhythmic vitality and you have a true winner. It is amazing to me that I’d never heard this little masterpiece. It should be, at the very least, a frequent opener for symphony concerts.
Then follows the Symphony in D (and this CD’s excellent booklet annotator, Sérgio Azevedo, makes the valid point that one cannot call it either D major or D minor because Arriaga alternates between them frequently) was written when Arriaga was studying with François-Joseph Fétis in Paris. This would have been after his sixteenth birthday but the date is not precise. This symphony has often been compared to Bizet’s Symphony in C for several reasons. Both of these symphonies were written by teenagers, then lost and not premièred until early in the 20th century. And they are the untroubled products of optimistic youth. Even though Arriaga’s symphony opens with a Haydnesque adagio, the clouds soon part and we are launched into an Allegro vivace that, even though there is the switching back and forth between major and minor, is so rhythmically animated one cannot but smile. II is an Andante that sings lyrically. III is a lively minuet. [Fétis, an arch-conservative, must have loved this backward-looking movement.] IV is a bustling Allegro con moto whose classical orchestration [double winds and brass, strings, timpani] fairly sparkles. It reminds me a bit of the infectious finale of Haydn’s Symphony No. 88.
The two works by Arriaga comprise fully thirty minutes of this CD whose timing falls just shy of an hour. The rest of the disc is made up of works by Portuguese composers: a Sinfonia in B flat by Carlos Seixas (1704-1742), the Overture ‘L’amore industrioso’ by João de Sousa Carvalho (1745-1798), ‘Sinfonia’ by António Leal Moreira (1758-1798), and the Overture: ‘Il Duca di Foix,’ by Marcos Portugal (1762-1830). None of them is particularly memorable, at least when compared with the works by Arriaga. The Seixas sounds vaguely like Vivaldi. Carvalho was the teacher of both Moreira and Portugal. His Overture is second-rate Italianesque music reminiscent of, say, Paisiello. The Moreira Sinfonia is actually rather nice, starts out sounding for all the world like Bellini. It continues with a bouncy (and rather simple-mindedly ingratiating) tune that is orchestrated in a wind-band style similar that of early Verdi. Of the non-Arriaga pieces here my favorite is the Overture by Portugal. There is a ceremonial quality to the opening followed by a sprightly tune that skitters all over the orchestra. There are some pleasant uses of winds in thirds and even an almost-Rossini accelerando.
This orchestra is based in the Algarve, a popular tourist destination in Portugal, and was founded only in 2002; the disc was recorded a couple of months later. Its conductor, Álvaro Cassuto, is well-known to those of us who have fallen head-over-heels in love with the music of 20th-c. Portuguese composer Joly Braga Santos. He has recorded all of Braga Santos’s symphonies on Naxos and we are in his everlasting debt for that. The performances here are a bit rough and ready, not surprising for a new orchestra, but more than adequate for the music presented. There are other recordings of the Arriaga Symphony, but I’ve not heard them. I don’t know of a recording of the Overture. And I don’t believe there are widely available recordings of the Portuguese rarities here.
Recommended for the Arriaga.
Scott Morrison
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