In doing so, these industrious commentators show that they have a rather old-fashioned nationalist, provincial mentality. Unfortunately, the compilers of this series did not want to settle for that, and so the booklets are full of overwhelming claims about the supposed originality of these works, all of which are put in cringingly bad English. As is often the case, the discovery of an isolated figure like Bomtempo does not bring any major surprises, although there is no doubt that he was a competent and very talented musician. Much of this has also been lost, while some other works are only known thanks to one or two preserved copies (printed or manuscript). On two other CDs space has been reserved for a selection from Bomtempo's piano works. 2 (without opus number) largely follows the same pattern, but on a somewhat larger scale, because with almost forty minutes playing time, this piece takes over twelve minutes more than its predecessor. Bomtempo adds few original features, especially in Symphony No. Both are fairly faithful to the conventions of around 1800: the clear examples are Haydn and Mozart. The CD of the Radio-Philharmonie Hannover des NDR, directed by César Viana, contains the only two surviving symphonies of the seven that Bomtempo wrote. Perhaps Bomtempo has written his symphonies for this company. He was, for example, one of the founders of a new Philharmonic society, through which the current European symphonic music could also be performed in the Portuguese capital. However, after a few years, Bomtempo returned to Lisbon, where he was the driving force behind the local music scene. He studied in Lisbon … and advanced further in Paris, where he had a certain reputation as a virtuoso pianist. There is not much information about this man. The Portuguese label Strauss (curious name) is now trying to fill this gap somewhat by releasing a few CDs with music by Joao Domingos Bomtempo (1775-1842). Little is known about Spanish music from the early nineteenth century, but what we do know is a wealth of knowledge compared to the knowledge of Portuguese music from this period.
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