Volume 1

ALBERTO NEPOMUCENO
Sinfonia em sol menor – O garatuja (Prelúdio) – Série brasileira
Orquestra Filarmônica de Minas Gerais
Fabio Mechetti – regente

O nome de Alberto Nepomuceno é fundamental para compreender a história da música no Brasil a partir do fim do século XIX. Suas obras marcam a virada para o século XX, tocando na questão de uma música de identidade brasileira. Deve-se também lembrar que Nepomuceno foi fundamental na institucionalização da vida musical e educacional no país, a partir do Rio de Janeiro, dirigindo o Instituto Nacional de Música. É justo, portanto, que tenham início com ele os lançamentos da série Brasil em Concerto, que ao longo dos próximos anos vai editar trinta CDs dedicados à música brasileira, iniciativa do Ministério das Relações Exteriores em parceria com três orquestras do país (Osesp, Orquestras Filarmônicas de Minas Gerais e de Goiás) e a Academia Brasileira de Música (no Brasil, os CDs serão lançados em parceria com o Selo CLÁSSICOS). O disco traz três peças fundamentais para compreender o autor: Sinfonia em sol menor, prelúdio de O garatuja e Série brasileira. São obras conhecidas, que aqui ganham – não é exagero dizer – leituras de referência pelas mãos da Orquestra Filarmônica de Minas Gerais e do maestro Fabio Mechetti, seu diretor artístico e regente titular.

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Reprodução do encarte do CD

 

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13/03/2019
Nepomuceno, finalmente, como ele merece
por Irineu Franco Perpetuo 

“Continuarei sendo punido ou quem sabe terei ouvintes no futuro?” O compositor cearense Alberto Nepomuceno (1864-1920) já tinha morrido há muito tempo quando o escritor paulista João Silvério Trevisan colocou essa pungente indagação em sua boca, no livro Ana em Veneza, em 1994 – com uma angústia que parecia valer não para seu caso específico, mas, em maior ou menor grau, para todos compositores brasileiros, à exceção de Villa-Lobos.

Teve que passar um quarto de século desde a publicação do premiado romance de Trevisan, e quase cem anos desde o falecimento de Nepomuceno, para que o Brasil finalmente conseguisse dar uma resposta positiva a esse brilhante compositor e a seus pares. No site e na edição impressa da Revista CONCERTO, João Marcos Coelho explica, em detalhes, o projeto Brasil em Concerto, iniciativa visionária do compositor e diplomata Gustavo de Sá que prevê a gravação de nada menos que 30 CDs com o repertório sinfônico nacional – um projeto ambicioso, envolvendo as filarmônicas de Minas Gerais e Goiás e a Osesp, a gravadora Naxos, o Departamento Cultural do Itamaraty e a Academia Brasileira de Música. 

O volume de abertura da série, que já está correndo o mundo, não podia ser melhor, contendo as três partituas orquestrais mais célebres de Nepomuceno: o Prelúdio de O Garatuja (1904), a Série Brasileira (1891) e a Sinfonia em sol menor (1893).

Como as histórias da música brasileira começaram a ser escritas durante o período de hegemonia cultural do nacionalismo musical, e como justificativa deste projeto, Nepomuceno nelas costuma aparecer como precursor do nacionalismo – rótulo que não é absolutamente injustificado, mas que empobrece o legado de um músico cosmopolita, informado e completo, cuja trajetória vem sendo paulatinamente reavaliada na última década, graças a estudiosos como Avelino Romero Pereira (autor de Música, sociedade e política: Alberto Nepomuceno e a República Musical. Rio de Janeiro, publicado em 2007 pela Editora UFRJ) e João Vidal (com seu Formação germânica de Alberto Nepomuceno: Estudos sobre recepção e intertextualidade, publicado pela Escola de Música em 2014). Nepomuceno é o mais brilhante representante da geração que, após a Proclamação da República, em 1889, rompeu com a tradição sacra, operística e italianizante que marcava a música do Brasil desde os tempos coloniais e, com base nas informações trazidas de Alemanha e França, gerou uma produção instrumental como não tivéramos ao longo do século XIX, e que serviria de paradigma e base para o que seria feito no século XX. Não seria despropositado ver na geração de Nepomuceno uma relevância, para a música, similar à que teve para a literatura um gigante como Machado de Assis (1839-1908), cuja assim chamada Trilogia Realista (Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas, 1881; Quincas Borba, 1891; Dom Casmurro, 1899), não por acaso, coincide cronologicamente com as partituras do compositor cearense presentes no atual CD, compartilhando com elas o status de divisores das águas estéticas que singrávamos por aqui.

Creio não exagerar ao colocar o disco da Filarmônica de Minas Gerais como marco fundamental na reavaliação crítica e recepção da obra de Nepomuceno. Se todas essas obras já tinham sido gravadas, nenhuma delas merecera um registro tão engajado e atento aos detalhes técnicos, sonoros e musicais quanto esse. Não sei se a Filarmônica de Minas Gerais é a melhor orquestra brasileira, mas certamente é a que possui a direção mais meticulosa, cuidadosa e profissional. Cuidando do grupo desde 2008, de forma presente, ativa e carinhosa, o maestro Fabio Mechetti não apenas é o responsável por uma programação interessante e equilibrada na Sala Minas Gerais, como vem moldando com apuro de ourives a sonoridade da filarmônica. 

Não há como ficar pasmado, por exemplo, com a solidez do coro de metais do Prelúdio de O Garatuja. Ou com o refinamento das madeiras na Série Brasileira, dando aulas de fraseado e matizamento de dinâmica.

Mas o impacto maior mesmo – e, aqui, seria injusto destacar um ou outro naipe ou instrumento em particular – é oferecido pela Sinfonia em sol menor, a obra que, se não cronologicamente, pelo menos como relevância e ascendência, pode ser tida como a fundadora do sinfonismo brasileiro.

Pela retórica e gestual, a uma primeira audição, a influência mais perceptível é a de Brahms, trazendo à memória o fato de que Nepomuceno foi aluno, em Berlim, do brahmsiano Heinrich von Herzogenberg (1810-1856). Contudo, vale notar que, ao elencarmos as referências sofridas pelo compositor, não estamos falando de um mero epígono ou imitador, mas sim de uma mente criativa que se serve de ingredientes distintos para realizar sua síntese própria e pessoal.

Conhecedores do compositor cearense sabem que ele se servia dos elementos estéticos que tinha à disposição de forma eclética, e a aparente adesão a uma escola não excluía a utilização de características que pareciam pertencer à tendência oposta. Assim, a sinfonia também traz as ressonâncias wagnerianas que se fariam ouvir na ópera Artemis (1898, com libreto de Coelho Neto); e, no Intermezzo do terceiro movimento, não parecemos estar muito distantes do mundo do tcheco Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904), cuja Sinfonia do Novo Mundo, não custa lembrar, foi escrita nos EUA, no mesmo ano que a obra de Nepomuceno. 

Talvez esteja na hora de nós, brasileiros, finalmente abraçarmos a “nossa” Sinfonia do Novo Mundo com o mesmo amor com que os norte-americanos vêm abraçando a de Dvorák. Afinal, o deslumbrante disco de Mechetti e da Filarmônica de Minas Gerais nos permite, finalmente, não apenas conhecer e avaliar, como desfrutar dessa obra-prima como ela merece. Agora é torcer para que a qualidade da gravação faça com que Nepomuceno, no ano que vem, em que se completa seu centenário de falecimento, receba homenagens à altura de sua relevância para a cultura brasileira.

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Críticas internacionais

WQXR (New York), December 2019

The Best Classical Recordings of 2019

This album, the first of a planned 30-album anthology of Brazilian music to be released on Naxos, fittingly pays tribute to Alberto Nepomuceno, the first composer to meld indigenous Brazilian rhythms with the sweeping romanticism of Grieg, Saint-Saëns, and Brahms. His energetic melodies are met with matching exuberance by conductor Fabio Mechetti and the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra.

 

Angus McPherson
Limelight, July 2019

Naxos’ new 30-disc Brazilian series sets off in classical style.

This polished recording by the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra under Fabio Mechetti opens with the cheery fanfare of Nepomuceno’s Prelude to a never-completed comic opera based on motifs from 17th-century Rio de Janeiro, O Garatuja. Though Nepomuceno’s suite Série Brasileira is a product of his studies with Heinrich von Herzogenberg in Berlin (he spent seven years in Europe), it’s very much an evocation of his home, albeit in a late-Romantic European idiom. Accumulating wind and string layers, and the chirps of birdsong, in the pastoral Alvorada na serra (Dawn in the Mountains) create a magical effect, but it’s the finale, a vibrant Batuqe (an African dance brought to Brazil by slaves) coloured by reco-reco (a scraped percussion instrument) that really impresses.

 

James H. North
Fanfare, July 2019

Minas Gerais is a huge inland Brazilian state that creeps close to Rio de Janeiro and to São Paolo; Belo Horizonte, where this recording was made in 2018, is its capital city. This orchestra is a young one, founded in 2008. …They radiate enthusiasm, which is just what this music craves. Naxos’s recorded sound is sweet and warm if a touch reverberant. A most enjoyable disc!

 

Don O’Connor
American Record Guide, July 2019

A persistent asset of these pieces is their colorful, clear orchestration. The composer studied under Herzogenberg, and though that German master was a reserved colorist, he may have taught Nepomuceno that good orchestration is even better when applied as it is here over a solid foundation.

If this is typical of the Minas Gerais Orchestra’s playing, I want to hear more of it. Their performance is first class, with excellent discipline. As it’s a large group, the sound is full-bodied and resonant. Maestro Mechetti leads the music with verve and understanding.

 

Bob McQuiston
Classical Lost and Found, June 2019

All three works receive commanding performances from the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra (MGPO) under its Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, Brazilian-born Fabio Mechetti. The MGPO musicians make a strong case for their fellow countryman’s music, and hopefully, Naxos will give us more of it on upcoming discs in this series.

The overall instrumental timbre is characterized by pleasant highs, a lush midrange and rock-bottom, clean bass with pants-flapping whacks on the bass-drum. Everything considered, this release earns an “Audiophile” rating, and will particularly appeal to those liking wetter sonics.

 

Martin Blaumeiser
Klassik heute, June 2019

…the real surprise of this CD is the Orquestra Filarmonica de Minas Gerais… With his 90 players, São Paulo’s chief conductor Fabio Mechetti succeeds in a flawless performance of all three works. This orchestra, which is still largely unknown in Europe, is simply world-class: the precision of the interplay, the rather soft, yet transparent string sound, the excellent brass solos in the suite, and above all the enthusiasm and verve, is displayed here. There is love in every detail, everything is well thought-out: from the smallest musical element to the growth of longer developments, these take place with the most natural beauty.

 

Lark Reviews, May 2019

I have to admit to knowing nothing of Nepomuceno before I listened to this new recording but was immediately delighted. The Brazilian composer pre-dates Villa-Lobos and was known to, and played by, Richard Strauss. He draws on Brazilian folk music but sets it within a late romantic framework, the potential tension between the two adding to the enjoyment of the works. Only the prelude survives of O Garatuja and it is apparently his most popular work—though I can’t recall ever hearing it in concert in the UK. A pity for it is a fine work and very well worth discovering. Buy it—you will not be disappointed.

 

David Hurwitz
ClassicsToday.com, May 2019

The Minas Gerais Philharmonic, a relatively new group founded only in 2008, plays all of this music very well under Fabio Mechetti. The ensemble has good discipline, and reveals some fine players occupying the principal woodwind and brass chairs. They are also quite well recorded in what sounds like a flattering acoustic space, the Sala Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte. I look forward to further releases from these forces.

 

Andrew Farach-Colton
Gramophone, May 2019

The entire programme [O Garatuja] is played with panache by the Minas Gerais Philharmonic, who sound far more polished and mature than one would expect from an orchestra founded just a decade ago.

This is the first instalment in what’s promised to be a 30-disc survey of Brazilian music, a joint project between Naxos and the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. If subsequent volumes maintain the high standards heard here, we have a lot to look forward to. Urgently recommended.

 

Alain Lompech
Diapason, May 2019

Fabio Mechetti did a great job… We still have this record to applaud the quality of the orchestra, that of the conductor and the music of Nepomuceno.

 

Rob Barnett
MusicWeb International, April 2019

Nepomuceno’s Prelude to O Garatuja opens a lyric drama for the opera-house. This enjoyable spumante prosecco overture is a substantial piece. It bubbles, barks, struts, serenades and effervesces in a manner related to Chabrier's España.

The four-movement Symphony is one of the earliest Brazilian symphonies and, it seems, is in the active repertoire of Brazilian orchestras. Its Allegro Con Enthusiasmo has a Tchaikovskian yearning about it but is not free from the Brazilian nationalist touches we have come to know from the other two works on this CD. The calming and dreamy Andante (II) might have escaped from a suite by Tchaikovsky or Arensky. The upbeat scherzo has elements of both Glazunov and Mendelssohn but also a brusque manner. The Finale has the exultant bustle of a Schumann symphony.

…This orchestra give the music its full measure of stir and soul and the Naxos engineers are allies in presenting this valuable music…

 

Grego Applegate Edwards
Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review, April 2019

The CD has a well performed program of three Nepomuceno gems for our appreciation and happy listening. All are infused with a melodic folk brilliance one loves to hear, whether it be in the Prelude “O Garatuja” (1904), the four part “Brazilian Suite” (1891) or, somewhat less folkloric with the impressive “Symphony in G minor” (1893).

Performances are first-rate. The Music of Brazil Series is off to an auspicious start with this enlightening and enjoyable survey of the music of Nepomuceno. Very recommended.

 

BBC Music Magazine, April 2019

Nepomuceno, who lived at the turn of the 20th century, revels in his South American heritage in the Brazilian Suite, while his Symphony has a Mendelssohn-like feel. Uplifting stuff.

 

James Manheim
AllMusic.com, March 2019

Best of all is the opening Prelude to O Garatuja, an unfinished opera; this sparkling comic overture offers a Brazilian counterpart to Nielsen’s Maskarade. It gets a lively performance from the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra under Brazilian conductor Fabio Mechetti, and it could be added profitably to absolutely any orchestral concert. Recommended.

 

Raul de Gama
The WholeNote, March 2019

The mysterious splendour of O Garatuja—Prelude (1904) reverberates with the mesmeric swirling of African slave dances that Nepomuceno incorporated into his music. The full grandeur of the composer’s work is uncovered in the celebrated Symphony in G Minor where maestro Fabio Mechetti draws from the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra its fullest, winning combination of expressive power and voluptuousness yet. © 2019 The WholeNote Read complete review

 

Infodad.com, February 2019

Mechetti’s conducting and the orchestra’s playing—here and throughout the disc—show idiomatic appreciation of Nepomuceno’s compositional style. Indeed, the performers do a fine job of propelling this music along effectively and giving listeners plenty of opportunities to enjoy being introduced to a composer who, if scarcely innovative in any way except for the inclusion of some Brazilian material in his works, was a fine craftsman who does not deserve the near-total obscurity to which he has been relegated for a full century.

 

Jean-Yves Duperron
Classical Music Sentinel, February 2019

…the Music of Brazil series is off to an impressive start. Get in on it now if you want to hold a front row seat on a slew of new and fresh discoveries, and new recordings of works by Brazilian masters.

 

Records International, February 2019

Great recording with wide stereo spread, depth and dynamic range. And then there’s this statement in the notes about this new series “The Music of Brazil” which is part of a project developed by the Brazilian Minisry of Foreign Affairs: “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 Paolo Symphony Orchestra. Further recordings of chamber and vocal music will gradually be added to this collection.” Let’s hope it happens as planned!!

 

David Denton
David's Review Corner, February 2019

Conductor, composer, pianist, concert administrator and teacher, Alberto Nepomunceno was to be a major influence on Brazil’s Twentieth century music. He was to write a large catalogue of works in every genre; was credited as being the leading champion in the use of nationalistic material, and was instrumental in bringing works by Brazilian composers in the concert hall. Sadly the international music world has been less generous in performing his music, this new release a rare opportunity to discover his orchestral scores. The lengthy Prelude to his unfinished comic opera, O Garatuja, is full of fun, while the following Brazilian Suite is a series of four pictures written in 1891 while a student in Berlin. They are in a style that could well have come from better known West European composers, but its content is both pleasing and imaginatively scored for a modest sized orchestra. It is when we reach the rhythmic finale we eventually find a sense of being in Braziliana. Composed two years later, the Symphony—in four movements—was one of the first works in that format from a Brazilian composer. Still performed in concerts there, it is certainly an appealing and tuneful score, well paced and shaped to achieve a smooth and well-groomed aura. The bubbling scherzo is particularly likeable, the finale, marked, con fuoco, an extremely busy score without drama. The orchestra from the Minas Gerais region of Brazil is a large and outstanding ensemble, the strings offering a well focused section. Their conductor for the past ten years, Fabio Mechetti, offers a very transparent quality were detail is a major constituent, the sound engineers being of great help. We can look forward to more releases in Naxos’s Brazilian series.

 

Dean Frey
Music for Several Instruments, January 2019

Fabio Mechetti and the Minas Gerais Philharmonic provide really excellent playing, with especially strong string sections. Their version of the G minor Symphony is vastly better than the other version I’ve heard, by the Orquestra Sinfonica Brasileira under Edoardo de Guarnieri from 1958. This is a strong start for the Naxos series, and I look forward to upcoming releases!