Braga Santos: Orchestral Works

Featuring

Álvaro Cassuto
Goran Filipec
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Joly Braga Santos

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Composer Biography

Joly Braga Santos (1924-1988) is considered Portugal's greatest orchestral composer, despite composing only six symphonies.

Compositional Technique

Joly Braga Santos's early style, as seen in Symphonic Overture No. 1, is characterized by modal harmonies and the systematic exclusion of the dominant seventh chord.

Performer Biography

Álvaro Cassuto, the conductor on this album, is Portugal's foremost conductor and has held music director positions with numerous orchestras worldwide.

Compositional Technique

The Piano Concerto features a large percussion section, making it sound almost like a concerto for piano, percussion, and orchestra, with the composer giving the pianist a much more relevant role.

Composition History

The Piano Concerto is the only orchestral work on this album from Joly Braga Santos's later period, composed many years after his studies in Italy.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Joly Braga Santos inherited and developed a style of 'monumentality in music' from his teacher and mentor Luís de Freitas Branco.

Compositional Technique

In the Piano Concerto, Joly Braga Santos moves freely between tonality and atonalism, often starting movements without harmonic definition but ending them with clear tonal chords.