Joly BRAGA SANTOS Symphony No. 1 / Symphonic Overture No. 3
Joly Braga Santos (1924-1988)
Hungarian State SO/Mátyas Antal
STRAUSS PORTUGALSOM SP4048 (50:32)
One of the unsung triumphs of cultural policy in our time has been the Portuguese government’s sponsorship of recordings devoted to their national repertoire. Without this initiative—ambitious, sustained, intelligently administered—how many of us would know Lopes-Graça, Freitas Branco, or this remarkable composer? The discs come at budget price, which somewhat mitigates the brief playing time here, though when the music proves as substantial as this, quibbling about duration seems churlish.
Joly Braga Santos’s First Symphony dates from 1947 and carries a dedication “to the heroes and martyrs of the last world war.” Three movements, running nearly three-quarters of an hour. The work announces itself immediately as something other than what you might expect from a Portuguese composer of that generation—there’s nothing particularly Iberian about its voice. Instead, the piece radiates influences from across Europe: Vaughan Williams (unmistakably at 12:35 in the first movement), Tchaikovsky’s Fifth with all its mournful Slavic tension, Bruckner’s architectural thinking, even—and this caught me by surprise—Jon Leifs in those savage brass and percussion impacts that conclude the opening movement. The finale glances at Rachmaninov around 1:38.
Yet this isn’t mere pastiche. Braga Santos absorbs these influences and forges something coherent, deeply felt, occasionally quite radiant.
I know three recordings. Pedro de Freitas Branco’s mono effort from the 1950s exists in distressed sound—historic interest only. Alvaro Cassuto’s Marco Polo version offers solid, professional music-making. But this Hungarian State Symphony interpretation under Mátyas Antal, recorded over four days in Budapest’s Italian Institute in August 1989, simply surpasses both. The sound quality alone would recommend it: depth, plushness in the string tone, brass that bites when needed. Four days in the studio—imagine that now. The results speak for themselves.
If you know the various recordings of Moeran’s Symphony, think of Cassuto as Handley, Freitas Branco as Heward, and Antal as Boult in that still-wonderful Lyrita LP. Antal finds tension and excitement in this music that the others miss or underplay. The Hungarian orchestra responds with playing of real commitment—these aren’t provincial sounds, despite what the budget price might suggest.
The third Symphonic Overture, dating perhaps from 1954, makes an attractive bonus. Rustically Sibelian in its folk-inflected materials, it smiles and skips with an energy that anticipates the composer’s Fourth Symphony (also available on this label, also essential). Antal’s interpretive intensity carries over faithfully here—he never conducts on autopilot.
This is the best available version of the First Symphony, no question. Anyone who responds to Sibelius, Moeran, or Vaughan Williams needs to hear this work. After encountering the Fourth Symphony disc, this becomes the album to make converts to Braga Santos’s world—to establish him in the international repertoire where he belongs. Berlin, Chicago, Stockholm, London, Moscow, New York: orchestras in all these cities should be programming this music.
A sheerly lovely disc, and an important one.
