In terms of international
reputation the names of Ginastera and
Piazzolla stand out here, but their
compositions are not the only ones worth
hearing in this enterprising anthology
of modern chamber music from South America.
José Bragato
(born in Udine in northern Italy, but
resident in Argentina since 1928) has
long worked in the twin fields of classical
and popular music, as both composer
and performer (many will have heard
him as cellist on recordings by the
Octeto Buenos Aires). From the mid 1940s
onwards he worked as a soloist with
orchestras such as the Orquestra Filarmónica
de Buenos Aires and the Orquesta Estable
del Teatro Colon as well as working
with groups such as the Quarteto Pessina
and the Buenos Aires Quartet. In the
popular tradition he worked with prestigious
tango orchestras such as that led by
Enrique Francini and Armando Pontier,
and groups led by, amongst others, Atilio
Stampone and Anibal Troilo. From the
mid 1950s onwards he worked extensively
with Piazzolla, not least in the famous
Octeto Buenos Aires, the two becoming
good friends – Piazzolla’s composition
‘Bragatissimo’ being a fitting tribute
to the older man. In a sense, the prominence
of Bragato in the music of the tango
and the nuevo tango was a kind of recapitulation
of earlier events, Italian émigrés
having been so important in the nineteenth
century evolution of the tango. Bragato’s
‘Milontan – the title apparently a kind
of portmanteau word made up of ‘milonga’
(a fast dance) and ‘tango’ – opens and
closes with slow lyrical lines for cello,
either side of a more up-tempo central
passage, in which the piano is a little
more prominent. The whole makes for
tender, slightly melancholy music of
attractive intimacy. ‘Graciela y Buenos
Aires’ was written during the 1970s,
a celebration of a beautiful lady cellist.
There’s passion and delicacy in this
piece, some lovely melodies and some
very effective alternations in tempo
and dynamics. It is played with well
judged rubato by Adamik and Merker and
fuses, beautifully and memorably, the
two traditions in which Bragato worked
for so long.
In the last few years
‘Le Grand Tango’ has been heard in so
many arrangements for a variety of instrumental
combinations that we may be in danger
of forgetting that Piazzolla’s composition
was originally written for cello and
piano. It was premiered by no less a
cellist than Mstislav Rostropovich,
in 1990 in New Orleans. The work’s first
section (Tempo di tango) is characterised
by strong rhythmic accents and some
attractive melodies, before a second
section (Meno mosso: libe o e cantabile)
of an intensely melancholic quality.
It closes with a third section (Piu
mosso: Giocoso), passionate and
wild, the tango rhythms insistent and
hard-driving. While I wouldn’t say that
this present performance is the very
best that I have heard – some of the
rhythms could be sharper, some of the
contrasts more marked – it is an interesting
and thoughtful reading, even if lacking
the absolute in passion.
A third Argentinean
composer, Alberto Ginastera is represented
by the second of his three compositions
using the title ‘Pampeana’ – a word
clearly intended to designate music
evocative of the Pampas, the steppes
of Argentina The first of the series,
for violin and piano, was written in
1947; this second in 1950 and the third,
for orchestra, in 1954. Ginastera wrote
that whenever he crossed the pampas
he felt himself "inundated by changing
impressions, now joyful, now melancholy,
produced by its limitless immensity
and by the transformation that the countryside
undergoes in the course of the day".
That experience is certainly reflected
in Pampeana No. 2, the work being constructed
so as to alternate, in its four sections,
slower and faster tempos. No specific
folk materials are used, but the rhythms
draw on dances such as the estilo
and the malambo. Again I
felt that Merker and Adamik might have
made a little more of the contrasts;
the faster sections, in particular,
I have heard played, very effectively,
a little faster. But, again, there is
much to be enjoyed in their performance,
which has real innerness and unflamboyant
sensitivity.
The rest of the programme
is devoted to works by two Brazilian
composers of very different generations.
The earliest born of the composers on
this disc, Francisco Mignone was the
son of Italian emigrants and studied
at the San Paolo Conservatory and then
in Milan. He later taught at the Escola
Nacional de Música in Rio de
Janeiro. He composed works in many genres
– operas, orchestral pieces (there is
a selection of these on BIS CD 1420,
played by the Sao Paolo Symphony Orchestra
and Chorus, conducted by John Neschling:
see review),
ballet music, songs, keyboard music,
and chamber music. This short piece,
‘Modinha’, gets its title from the Portuguese
word for song or ballad, and is as lyrical
as that might lead one to expect. It
is perhaps best described as a salon
piece – but a rather good one. Pianist
and cellist work very well together
here, and Merker plays with expressive
grace. This is a piece which would merit
a place in any recital of cello ‘miniatures’.
The youngest composer
on the disc, and the second Brazilian,
is Liduiono Pitombeira. According to
his website,
Pitombeira studied composition at the
Louisiana State university, where he
now teaches. His works have been performed,
inter alia, by the London Sinfonietta,
the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet
and by the Orquestra de Câmara
Eleazar de Carvalho back in his native
Brazil. The three movements of his interesting
cello sonata carry the titles ‘Mente’
– ‘Alma’ – ‘Corpo’, (Mind – Soul – Body).
The first movement, fittingly, is more
‘intellectual’ in design, employing
some of the devices of dodecaphonic
music, for example. The second has a
dreamy, tranquil quality; it has, apparently
no marked rhythm, so that, as Martin
Merker says in his booklet notes, the
performers are "practically allowed
the liberty of improvisation".
The final movement is grounded in Brazilian
music, in rhythms and genres such as
bendito, baião
and valsinha de esquina; it also
adds to piano and cello the wordless
sound of soprano Marilia Vargas (herself
Brazilian) and percussionist Wolfgang
Lindner, playing the caxixi (a
kind of closed basket filled, in this
case, with mussels). The whole is a
fine, fascinating, thought-provoking
piece. I was delighted to make its acquaintance.
The programme closes
with the four movements of Pitombeira’s
Seresta (Serenade) No. 15. Each of the
movements is based on a different musical
tradition of north east Brazil. The
first returns us to the bendito
(a popular form of Christian song);
the second employs the xaxado,
a dance of the region; the third is
a modinha, a love song based
on Portuguese traditions; the final
movement is a maracatu, a dance
of African origins, often used in Brazilian
parades. Pitombeira draws on these materials
with sophistication and finesse, but
never loses touch with the roots of
his material. If I say that this is
music that an heir of Villa-Lobos might
have written, I don’t mean to suggest
that Pitombeira’s work is derivative,
but to help to ‘locate’ it for listeners
and also to praise Pitombeira by suggesting
that his work has something of the imaginative
richness and technical accomplishment
of that great Brazilian master.
In its mixture of the
relatively familiar and the little-known,
this CD offers a fascinating conspectus
of what is, I suppose, a rather specialised
area of modern chamber music. But it
is music that deserves to be better
known than much of it is and, for me
at least, Liduiono Pitombeira is a discovery
of real interest and value. Maybe Naxos
could sign him up for a CD in their
American Classics series.
Glyn Pursglove
Martin Merker (cello); Anna Adamik (piano);
* Marilia Vargas (voice); * Wolfgang Lindner
(percussion) 
