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CHAN 9804 Front.qxd 24/8/07 3:45 pm Page 1 CHAN 9804 CHANDOS Latin Yuli Turovsky Impressions I Musici de Montréal Yuli Turovsky CHAN 9804 BOOK.qxd 24/8/07 3:47 pm Page 2 Latin Impressions Joaquin Turina (1882–1949) 1 Serenata for Strings, Op. 87 11:07 Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959) Hulton Getty Fantasia for Saxophone and Chamber Orchestra 10:56 2 I Animé 4:40 3 II Lent – 3:08 4 III Très animé 3:05 Camargo Mozart Guarnieri (1907–1993) Concerto for Strings and Percussion 13:29 5 I Vigoroso – 3:27 6 II Saudoso 5:39 7 III Jocoso 4:21 Heitor Villa-Lobos Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992) Two Tangos for String Orchestra 7:22 8 I Coral 3:54 9 II Canyengue: Presto marcato 3:25 3 CHAN 9804 BOOK.qxd 24/8/07 3:47 pm Page 4 Latin Impressions Andrés Gaos Joaquin Turina Heitor Villa-Lobos 10 Impresión nocturna 10:30 Serenata for Strings, Op. 87 (1942) Fantasia for Saxophone and Chamber This Spanish composer received his musical Orchestra (1948) Joly Braga Santos (1924–1988) training in his native Seville, in Madrid, Brazilian cellist, composer, conductor, and and at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, despite pedagogue Heitor Villa-Lobos was renowned Concerto in D major for Strings 17:40 his parents’ hope that he would study for his exuberant, extraordinary personality 11 I Largamento maestoso 7:09 medicine. Whilst in Madrid Turina met and for his intense patriotism. As was the case 12 II Adagio non troppo 5:42 Manuel de Falla, and together they moved to with Turina, Villa-Lobos’s parents desired him 13 III Allegro ben marcato 4:44 Paris in 1905 to study with Moritz to become a medical doctor. Largely Moszkowski and Vincent d’Indy. In 1907 self-taught, by 1923 he had gained enough TT 71:29 Turina performed one of his compositions official favour to win a government grant to with the Parent Quartet. Albeníz attended leave his native Rio de Janeiro and study in I Musici de Montréal this concert and urged Turina to incorporate Paris. He was initially influenced by the late Yuli Turovsky Spanish folk idioms into his works, advice Romantic and Impressionist schools, and by that Turina took seriously. Back in Spain, the music of Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky. Turina conducted for the Ballets russes and In Paris, his works won the admiration of held the position of Choirmaster for the Olivier Messiaen. It was upon a return to his Teatro Real in Madrid until that institution homeland that Villa-Lobos designed a system closed in 1925. In 1930, after a visit to Latin of comprehensive musical instruction based America, he was appointed professor of on Brazil’s rich musical culture. In 1945 he composition at the Madrid Conservatory. founded the Academia Brasileira de Música in The Serenata, Op. 87 was written during Rio de Janeiro. The forties were years of great this mature period. A kind and simple man, success for Villa-Lobos, bringing him Turina was also a highly cultivated thinker international acclaim as a composer and and the author of a compositional treatise conductor of his own music. Audiences and of the excellent Enciclopedia responded to the pungent Brazilian folk, abreviada de la música (2 vol., Madrid, popular, indigenous, and children’s music he 1947, 1950). incorporated into his works. Written in the last 4 5 CHAN 9804 BOOK.qxd 24/8/07 3:47 pm Page 6 phase of his productivity, the Fantasia reflects Astor Piazzolla Andrés Gaos television as composer, arranger and his concern for instrumental virtuosity. Given Two Tangos for String Orchestra: Coral and Impresión nocturna (1937) conductor. Until the end of the 1950s, his years of travel and his heartfelt patriotism, Canyengue (date of composition unknown) Andrés Gaos was a native of Galicia, an Braga Santos essentially subscribed to the the following words of Villa-Lobos are As any tango lover will tell you, Astor Piazzolla independent region of Spain situated north of neo-classical aesthetic of English composers particularly apt in describing the recurring instigated a tango revolution. The notion of Portugal on the Atlantic coast and encircling the such as Ralph Vaughan Williams and William theme of his music: ‘an isolated human or ‘before or after Piazzolla’ has become affixed city of Santiago de Compostela. This Walton, who were at that time widely group of humans journeying in immense, to the genre’s history. The Argentine composer composer’s early productive phase occurred acclaimed in Portugal. However, a journey untamed landscapes, fighting dangers both was born in 1921, in the town of Mar del between 1912 and 1917, and his works at that to the experimental studio at Gravesano in spiritual and physical’. Plata, but he spent his childhood in New York time show a marked predilection for the Italy in 1957–8 radically altered his style City. At five years of age he began studies in neoclassical and French rhapsodic styles of and, from the 1960s onwards, he went Camargo Mozart Guarnieri classical piano, but when he was ten his father Vincent d’Indy and Camille Saint-Saëns. much further afield in exploiting chromaticism Concerto for Strings and Percussion (date of presented him with a bandoneon (the little However, his Impresión nocturna (in effect, a and in exploring the limits of tonality and composition unknown) accordion that characterises the tango). In serenade for strings) was written in 1937 on atonality. During this phase Braga Santos The Brazilian composer and conductor 1937, at sixteen years of age, Piazzolla the occasion of the Paris World Exhibition, and also investigated a number of variation Camargo Mozart Guarnieri belongs to the returned to Argentina where his talent was is a mature work conceived in a totally different techniques as well as a wider range of generation that succeeded Villa-Lobos. His immediately recognised by his contemporaries. spirit, belonging to the tradition of the great instrumental colours. In the 1970s he earliest works established him as one of Until 1956, Piazzolla was torn between his Romantic and Expressionist serenades of was inspired by the early music revival to Brazil’s greatest musical hopes, and he two passions – for the tango and for classical Dvorˇák, Tchaikovsky, Elgar, and Schoenberg. The include in his works elements of Renaissance travelled to Paris, where he studied with Nadia music. His symphonic works Portena Rhapsody work exudes a sense of profound sadness, and musical idioms. His Concerto in D Major Boulanger. At the onset of World War Two in and the suite Buenos Aires won acclaim and in view of the civil war that was gripping Spain belongs, however, to his first, neoclassical 1939, Guarnieri was residing in the United prizes, and he obtained a grant to study in at the time of its composition, its title might be manner. States, where his works were well received and Paris with Nadia Boulanger, among others. It understood not literally, but figuratively. where his First Symphony was premiered by was Boulanger who, after hearing him play the © 2000 Rachelle Taylor the Boston Symphony Orchestra. When bandoneon during an informal gathering, Joly Braga Santos hostilities ceased, Guarnieri became conductor convinced him to return to the tango, saying Concerto in D major for Strings (1951) I Musici de Montréal’s core of fourteen of the Saó Paólo Orchestra and, in addition to ‘that is Piazzolla, never forget it’. Thus upon The Portuguese composer and conductor Joly artists, under the direction of cellist Yuli leading an intensive international conducting his return to Buenos Aires that same year Braga Santos studied at the Lisbon Turovsky, lends its musical talents to a wide career, he continued to compose relentlessly. (1956), Piazzolla founded the orchestra which Conservatory from 1934 to 1945. His First spectrum of chamber repertoire from Baroque Like Villa-Lobos, Guarnieri’s works in all he led during three decades and which Symphony, written and performed in 1947 to twentieth-century works. The string genres bear the neoclassical stamp, while revolutionised the tango through a fusion with when the composer was only twenty-three, orchestra has recorded over thirty CDs for being infused with the rhythms and melodic other musical styles like jazz or, as in the attracted much attention and ushered in a Chandos Records, now distributed in fifty inflexions of the Brazilian folk idiom. present recording, European classical music. productive career in national radio and countries around the world. Among many 6 7 CHAN 9804 BOOK.qxd 24/8/07 3:47 pm Page 8 accolades bestowed on the Montreal chamber and went on to obtain a doctorate in music. orchestra is a Diapason d’or for a recording of In 1969, he won the USSR Cello competition Lateinische Eindrücke the Symphony No. 14 by Shostakovich in and, a year later, was one of the winners at 1988. The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs the twenty-second International Competition and Cassettes, 1992, singled out I Musici’s CD ‘Spring in Prague’. Prior to his emigration Joaquin Turina Kompositionslehre sowie der hervorragenden of Handel’s Concerti grossi, Op. 6 Nos 1–12 from the former Soviet Union, Yuli Turovsky Serenata für Streicher, op. 87 (1942) Enciclopedia abreviada de la música (2 Bde., for the award of a Rosette, denoting a appeared as member and soloist on Der spanische Komponist erhielt seine Madrid 1947, 1950). recording of ‘special illumination, magic… that international tours with the Moscow Chamber musikalische Ausbildung in seiner Heimatstadt places it in a very special class’. The Conseil Orchestra under Rudolf Barshai. Upon settling Sevilla, in Madrid und an der Schola Cantorum Heitor Villa-Lobos québécois de la musique awarded its CD of in Montreal, he co-founded the Borodin Trio in Paris, obwohl seine Eltern gehofft hatten, Fantasia für Saxophon und Górecki, Pärt and Schnittke two Opus prizes, in 1977 with whom he performed until 1992.