Guarnieri, C: Dança Negra

Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire’s eagerly awaited new album, Brasileiro: Villa-Lobos & Friends, pays tribute to his country’s greatest composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos, upon the 125th anniversary of his birth.

In containing Freire’s personal choice of rarely recorded pieces by seven other lesser-known Brazilian composers whose music helped shape his artistic personality during his formative early years, the album also offers a sonic “portrait of the pianist as a young man”.

Comprising works that roughly span the seventy or so years of Villa-Lobos’s own lifetime, Freire’s chosen repertoire chronicles the efforts of three generations of Brazilian composers to forge a recognisably national musical language out of an amalgam of European influences and indigenous folk and popular styles.

In combination with his trademark technical mastery and legendary sense of melodic line, Nelson Freire’s quintessentially Latin American temperament and innate sense of rhythmic ease ensure that he brings a uniquely authentic touch to the rarely heard piano music of his native land.

Mozart Camargo Guarnieri was the most important Brazilian composer next to Villa-Lobos. Guarnieri’s piano music embodies his most distinctive stylistic features. One of his most beloved works, the Dança Negra shares folk-music inspiration with the Suite Mirim. The Ponteios are characterized by an enormous variety of Brazilian music styles and moods, and the Sonata can be seen as a summary of Guarnieri’s musical personality. Max Barros’s “unfaltering brio and a complete command of the idiom” (Gramophone) can also be heard in Guarnieri’s Piano Concertos (8557666 and 8557667).

Kathryn Stott writes: ‘This year is very much a celebration for me – a fiftieth birthday and thirty years on the concert platform! When Ralph Couzens and I started to discuss plans for a solo CD, I was very keen to record repertoire which would reflect my wide taste in music from around the world. The subject ‘dance’ was in my head from the start and so here we have a musical journey encompassing South American countries, Romanian and Hungarian folk music, and dances from the Polish Mazurka to the Russian Polka, via Finland, France and Spain, to name but a few! Piazzolla sits alongside Satie as do Sibelius and Albéniz… dances both joyous and sad. I’m particularly excited to include the world premiere of Old Style, a birthday present from one of my favourite British composers, Graham Fitkin.’

South American music is a great love of Stott’s and so the inclusion of Villa-Lobos, Piazzolla, Ginastera, Guarnieri and Lecuona was essential: ‘Valsa da dor I find both touching and passionate, whereas Ginastera’s Danza has a distant sadness, which is almost untouchable.’ Stott has previously worked with the members of Piazzolla’s original Quintet, and has remained an avid fan ever since. Here she performs Milonga del ángel, a work that recreates the haunting sound of the bandoneón.

This eclectic repertoire of dances is completed by the premiere of Old Style by Graham Fitkin, written for Kathryn Stott in celebration of her landmark anniversaries this year: ‘For the past ten years, Graham has been writing the most fantastic music for me – always challenging but with such a fantastic energy. This piece is no exception and I feel its inclusion is an important part of this international and rather special journey.’

Kathryn Stott’s birthday celebrations culminate in a concert at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on 4 December, at which a total of twenty-five colleagues will perform with her, including Yo-Yo Ma, Natalie Clein, the Hermitage String Trio and Martin Roscoe.