Americanos
Duo Brasilis (Dawson de Souza (flute), Ana Claudia Brito (piano))
rec. 2005, Belém, Brazil
Lindoro AA0104 [67]

The booklet notes to this engaging CD, by the music critic and historian Lauro Machado Coelho (1944-2018), author of a history of opera and books on composers such as Liszt, Shostakovich, Berlioz, Bruckner and Sibelius, open with the proposition that “[t]here were never, since the Baroque era … clear boundaries between classic and popular”. Machado Coehlo sees the absence of such a clear boundary as a common characteristic of much of the music of the Americas. This disc, which contains music by composers from Brazil (Francisca Aquino and Ricardo Vasconcellos, Edmundo Vilani-Cörtes, Radamés Gnatalli), Argentina (José Carli) and the USA (Aaron Copland and Michael Colina – whose father was Cuban) illustrates his ‘thesis’.

The programme gets off to a vivacious start with the delightful Gosto de Brasil (Taste of Brazil), the first of three short pieces, written by the pianist Francisca Aquino and double-bassist Ricardo Vasconcellos, who performed together as ‘Duo Assunto Grave’. They wrote in essentially popular idioms but, in the words of Machado Coehlo, they intended “to give an elaborate chamber treatment to their pieces”. Originally written for piano and bass, there are also arrangements of Gosto de Brasil for violin, viola, cello and, of course this one for flute and piano, which gets an exemplary performance from de Souza and Brito, the popular dance rhythms interspersed by some more delicate passages. It sets the tone for the rest of the disc in its fusion of popular and classical styles. The other two pieces by Aquino and Vasconcellos are only a little less rewarding; both are miniature tone poems evoking places in Brazil, Beira-Mar being a beach-side area of Rio de Janeiro and Santa Teresa a neighbourhood in Fortaleza, a city in North-Eastern Brazil. Both offer pleasant (if less than profound) listening pleasure.

Eduardo Villani-Cortes is a man of many musical parts – a pianist, composer, arranger, teacher and conductor. In his youth he studied composition with Camargo Guarnieri, before himself teaching composition and counterpoint at the State University of São Paolo (in which city Villani-Cortes had been born). As a composer he turned his back on the avant-garde and largely remained faithful to the influence of Ravel and Debussy – indeed, the influence of the latter’s writing for flute is audible in Villani-Cortes’s Seresta, which has a persuasive charm fully articulated in Dawson de Souza’s fine performance, which is full of subtle tonal variety and is technically impeccable. This is one of the special delights of this disc.

Being prolific seems to have been a characteristic common to many Brazilian composers of the Twentieth Century. It was certainly the case with Radamés Gnattali. He was hyperactively busy in the world of Brazilian music, producing over 500 compositions, including numerous concertos for violin, guitar, piano, cello, harp and marimba, as well as a substantial body of chamber music, though he seems never to have studied composition formally. His training was primarily as a pianist – and he was good enough to give, in 1929, a well-received performance of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. He also had the energy to produce numerous arrangements – for strings, brass and woodwinds – of popular sambas for various Brazilian radio stations.  He is represented here by his Sonatina for Flute and Piano, originally scored for flute and guitar. Its three movements – Allegro moderato, Expressivo and Allegro are all essentially classical in structure, though they all incorporate popular Brazilian elements. Duo Brasilis gives it a respectful (but not over-reverent) performance, providing another of the disc’s unexpected delights.

The one Argentinian composer here is José Carli, whose Cuadros Tangueros (Tango Pictures) are suitably colourful. I particularly enjoyed ‘La Museta’ with its changes of tempo and rhythm and ‘La Parda’ – a ‘portrait’, both admiring and derogatory, of a lively, but perhaps immoral woman seen amongst the dubious dance halls of the Belle Epoque (c.1890-1910) in Rio de Janeiro.

Of the two composers from the USA represented on the programme, Aaron Copland is certainly the most familiar, though any readers who share my fondness for contemporary jazz will surely recognise the name of Michael Colina.

Aaron Copland is a well-nigh perfect example of an ‘American’ composer who regularly crossed, to good effect, the ‘boundaries’ between ‘popular’ and ‘classical’. One need only bring to mind such works as Rodeo (1942), with its use of a number of traditional cowboy songs; Billy the Kid (1938) had already incorporated cowboy songs such as ‘The Dying Cowboy’ and ‘The Old Chisholm Trail’. In Appalachian Spring (1945) he makes memorably beautiful use of the Shaker melody ‘Simple Gifts’. Since all of these works are written for larger forces, Duo Brasilis turn to Copland’s Duo for Flute and Piano, a late work written in 1971. Its three movements carry simple descriptions of their nature – ‘Flowing’, ‘Poetic, somewhat mournful’ and ‘Lively, with bounce’. In all three movements there is music which has the kind of simplicity implied by those markings, a simplicity one might reasonably call ‘popular’, though the result has, for all its simplicity, some considerable beauty.

Michael Colina is a musician and a composer, though he is perhaps best known as a music producer. In the realm of jazz he has produced albums by musicians such as Bill Evans (Portrait of Bill Evans) and Marcus Miller (Suddenly). His own ‘classical’ compositions include Canto for Orchestra (1970), Four Songs to Poems by Dylan Thomas (1973), Meditation for Cello (1975), Goyescana, a concerto for guitar and orchestra (2008), Three Cabinets of Wonder, a concerto for violin and orchestra (2010), Chant D’Auvergne, a Nuevo Tango version of Canteloube’s folk-song arrangements and, of course, The Isles of Shoals (2004), originally written for flute and orchestra – this version for flute and piano being specially prepared for Duo Brasilis – and it is very attractive.

All in all, this is an album with a governing idea, though that idea is not driven too hard. The result makes one think, and be entertained listening.

Glyn Pursglove

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Contents
Francisca Aquino (b.1956) and Ricardo Vasconcellos (b.1955)
Gusto de Brasil
Beira-Mar
Santa Teresa
Edmundo Villani-Cörtes (b.19300
Seresta
Radamés Gnattali (1906-1988)
Sonatina para flauta e piano (1959)
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
Duo for Flute and Piano (1971)
Michael Colina (b.1956)
Las Islas de Shoals (2004)