Information
Composer: Claudio Santoro
- Symphony No. 5
- Symphony No. 7 "Brasília"
Goiás Philharmonic Orchestra
Neil Thomson, conductor
Date: 2022
Label: Naxos
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As well as being one of the most significant Brazilian composers of the 20th century, Cláudio Santoro (1919 89) was also active as a conductor, violinist and educator. Relatively little of his output has been recorded and therefore this release of Symphonies Nos 5 and 7 – part of a project between Naxos and the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to promote the music of Brazilian composers – is most welcome.
The Fifth Symphony, completed in 1955, was written at a time when Santoro was aiming to make his music more direct and accessible than it had been during the 1940s. Elements of traditional Brazilian music also feature in many of his compositions from this period. This influence is most obviously heard in the symphony’s second movement, a lively Scherzo featuring a variety of Latin American percussion, including maracas and a güiro, as well as in the Lento third movement, which uses the Xangô chant from Afro-Brazilian religious rites as the basis of a theme and variations. The style of the outer movements, however, is more abstract and darker in tone, with tense climaxes and an underlying sense of unease, building to a bustling and energetic but ultimately cheerless conclusion.
The Seventh Symphony was written in London in 1959 as an entry for a competition commemorating the completion of Brazil’s new capital, Brasilia, which was inaugurated the following year. Although none of its movements is as immediately appealing as the Scherzo of the Fifth, it strikes me as the finer work, both more cogently structured and more lyrically engaging. The slow movement, here placed second, is especially atmospheric and haunting, and the finale is dramatic and powerful, although once again the conclusion of the symphony is anything but triumphal. The performances by the Goiás Philharmonic Orchestra under its principal conductor Neil Thomson are first-class, as is the quality of the recording. A valuable supplement to the existing recording of Symphonies Nos 4 and 9 conducted by John Neschling on BIS.
-- Christian Hoskins, Gramophone
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Claudio Santoro (23 November 1919 – 27 March 1989) was an internationally renowned Brazilian composer, conductor and violinist. He was a pupil of Hans-Joachim Koellreutter at the Conservatório Brasileiro de Música, and he also studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Santoro co-founded and played in the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra. His prolific output was mostly instrumental and includes fourteen symphonies, three piano concertos and seven string quartets. He was a member of the Brazilian Academy of Music, the Brazilian Academy of Arts and President of the Academy of Music and Letters of Brazil.
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Neil Thomson (born 23 May 1966 in London) is a British conductor and conducting professor. He studied violin and viola at the Royal Academy of Music (1984–87) and conducting with Norman Del Mar at the Royal College of Music (1987–89). He was also a member of the conducting class at Tanglewood Summer School in 1989. Since March 2014 Thomson has been the Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Goiás Philharmonic Orchestra. In February 2024 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Toyama Music Festival and the Sinfonia Toyama. His recordings for Naxos received widespread critical acclaim.
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