FREE>> Alberto Nepomuceno (1864-1920) - Symphony in G Minor - PREMIERE

 

Alberto Nepomuceno (1864-1920)

Symphony in G Minor

PREMIERE

The series The Music of Brazil is part of the project Brasil em Concerto, developed by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to promote music by Brazilian composers dating back to the 18th century. Around 100 orchestral works from the 19th and 20th centuries will be recorded by the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra, the Goiás Philharmonic Orchestra and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra. Further recordings of chamber and vocal music will gradually be added to this collection.

The works were selected according to their historical importance for Brazilian music and the existence of recordings. Most of the works recorded for the series have never had recordings available outside Brazil; many others will have their world premiere recordings. An important part of the project is the preparation of new or even first editions of the works to be recorded, many of which, despite their relevance, have only been available in the composer’s manuscript. This work will be carried out by the Brazilian Academy of Music and by musicologists working together with the orchestras.

 

Alberto Nepomuceno (1864–1920)

O Garatuja – Prelude • Série Brasileira • Symphony in G minor

Alberto Nepomuceno is a central figure in the history of Brazilian music. His work as a composer, conductor and educator were key to the development of Brazil’s music in the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries.

Born in 1864, Nepomuceno spent his childhood and adolescence in two of the major cities in Northeast Brazil, his native Fortaleza and Recife. At the age of 18, still a student, he became director of concerts at Clube Carlos Gomes in Recife, and also became politically active, having strong anti-monarchy and abolitionist opinions. In 1884, he moved to Rio de Janeiro, and in the following year made his debut as a pianist at the Beethoven Club, an establishment that spearheaded musical creation and diverse instrumental genres.

In 1888, with the patronage of the sculptor Rodolfo Bernardelli (1852–1931), Nepomuceno left for a seven-year sojourn of studying in Europe, travelling to Rome, Berlin, Vienna and Paris, and being taught by eminent tutors. In 1893, he married pianist Walborg Bang, a student of Edvard Grieg—a composer with whom Nepomuceno developed a lasting friendship, and who inspired him to seek the creation of a Brazilian musical heritage. In this regard, Nepomuceno embraced the mission of modernising the Brazilian musical environment when he returned to the country in 1895, questioning the culture of his time while simultaneously seeking to bring it closer to its roots. He also devoted himself to teaching, having taken over as director of the National Institute of Music, where his innovative concepts were faced with resistance from his contemporaries (in 1916 Nepomuceno translated Schoenberg’s Theory of Harmony into Portuguese, with the intention of implementing it in the institute’s curriculum). As conductor of the Popular Concert Association, Nepomuceno premiered contemporary works by European composers in Brazil, such as Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, while at the same time performing concerts in Europe to promote Brazilian music. He set about recovering the work of José Maurício Nunes Garcia (1767–1830), one of the main Brazilian composers of the colonial period, and championed the career of the young Heitor Villa-Lobos, publishing and conducting some of his early works. As a tireless director and supporter of the most important musical entities of Rio de Janeiro, Nepomuceno played a decisive role in the musical culture of his country. As a notable teacher and mentor, he led disciples such as Luciano Gallet and Lorenzo Fernandez, both of whom rank among the most important composers in Brazilian music.

The modernist critique of the end of the first half of the 20th century consecrated Alberto Nepomuceno as a herald of Brazilian musical nationalism. The composer was one of the first to systematically employ elements of Brazilian folklore in his compositions, and undertook an intense campaign for singing in Portuguese, facing a harsh reaction from critics who considered the language inappropriate for the lyrical genre. His deep interest in Brazilian literature and appreciation of the Portuguese language in song lyrics brought him closer to important writers of the time, such as Coelho Neto, Machado de Assis and Olavo Bilac. Nepomuceno said, ‘There is no nation for a people who do not sing in their own language.’ He composed 53 songs with lyrics in Portuguese, plus two dozen others in French, Italian, German and even Swedish.

In the context of Nepomuceno’s work, the nationalistic aspect only represented one creative facet, as this prolific composer had a remarkable ability to reconcile, in a very personal language, the different schools of composition that influenced him.

Nepomuceno died in Rio de Janeiro in 1920, a few days after Richard Strauss conducted the prelude to O Garatuja, a lyric comedy based on the work by José de Alencar, with a libretto by Nepomuceno himself, in the Theatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro. Nepomuceno began composing O Garatuja in 1904. The music, using popular motifs from 17th century Rio de Janeiro, was intended to introduce a truly Brazilian lyric comedy based on the local setting, featuring up to date use of the Portuguese language and the appreciation of Brazilian rhythms such as the syncopation of the maxixe and lundu. The work remained unfinished; only the Prelude and the first act were completed. The debut of the Prelude, which eventually became one of Nepomuceno’s best-known compositions, took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1904, under the direction of the composer himself.

At the age of 27, in Berlin, where he studied with the Austrian composer Heinrich von Herzogenberg (1843–1900), a great friend of Brahms, Nepomuceno composed the Série Brasileira (‘Brazilian Suite’) for orchestra, in four parts. The first, Alvorada na serra (‘Dawn at the Mountains’), employs the Amazonian folkloric theme Sapo cururu in a very lightly orchestrated piece, with a predominance of the woodwinds and an important part for harp solo. The second part is an Intermédio (‘Intermezzo’), which is an orchestration of the Allegretto of the composer’s Third String Quartet, titled ‘Brasileiro’, introducing the vivacity of the rhythms of a maxixe. In the third part, Sesta na rede (‘Napping in a Hammock’), Nepomuceno achieves delightful effects in the simulation of the lazy hammock swing and in the use of modal melodic lines that refer to the music of Northeast Brazil. Contrasting with this atmosphere, the Série Brasileira ends with the famous Batuque (a dance of African origin brought to Brazil by slaves), to this day one of Nepomuceno’s most popular works, which is often performed separately. The piece is rhythmically vigorous, with humorous touches, and concludes the suite feverishly. In the orchestration of this piece, Nepomuceno included a reco-reco for the first time in the percussion section, an instrument similar to the güiro of other Latin American countries, which infuriated some of the more orthodox critics of the period.

The Série Brasileira was first performed in Brazil in 1897, in the same concert in which another work by Nepomuceno was also premiered, the Symphony in G minor, composed in 1893. The pieces signalled two primordial aspects of his production: the Série Brasileira was a milestone in nationalist Brazilian music, and the symphony showcased the admirable craftsmanship that reflected the technical mastery acquired by the composer during long years of European studies and the influence of Brahms, especially in the first movement.

Nepomuceno’s Symphony in G minor is one of the earliest Brazilian symphonies, and certainly the most successful of that period, and it is still performed relatively often by Brazilian orchestras. The work opens with an energetic Allegro con enthusiasmo in G minor, in 6/4, with two alternating themes in rigorous development in sonata form, the first being in G minor, of a more heroic character, and the second, in B flat major, more lyrical. The second movement, Andante quasi adagio, in C major, opens with an extensive and ardent theme led by the strings which, after a Più mosso episode led by the oboes, returns in the whole orchestra in a grand Maestoso that precedes the quiet coda. The third movement is a vigorous Scherzo in B flat major in 3/4, ingeniously orchestrated, with a brief lyrical Intermezzo in D sharp minor. In the Con fuoco of the fourth movement, in G minor and in 4/4, the vibrant theme of the opening, announced by the brass, contrasts strongly with the delicate episodes alternating violins and flutes. The symphony closes triumphantly with a coda in G major.

Paulo Sérgio Malheiros dos Santos and Gustavo de Sá

English translation: Stela Brandão