Onyx Asu: CD-levy Vuosi: 2024, 25.10.2024 Kieli: und
Presto Recording of the Week
25th October 2024
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Domingo Hindoyan
Plaza, J B: Vigilia (Poema Sinfónico)
Castellanos, E: Santa Cruz de Pacairigua (Suite Sinfónica)
Carreño, I: Margariteña (Glosa Sinfónica)
Castellanos, E: El Río de las Siete Estrellas (Poema Sinfónico)
Estévez: Mediodía en el Llano
Hung: Kanaima
Conductor Domingo Hindoyan introduces us to a selection of beautiful orchestral works by his fellow Venezuelan countrymen. Most, if not all the composers will be new names to many of us, but their music is extraordinary. Spanning the 20th century, the works on this album are tonal, romantic and colourful, often evoking the rhythmic vitality of the Venezuelan countryside, towns and cities.
The present selection of pieces clearly falls into the category of musical nationalism.
The majority of European countries, eager to distance themselves from apparently ‘universal’ music, such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner etc., sought to differentiate their music at all costs. Whether by using folk themes, unusual scales, authentic melodic phrases or simply by celebrating the landscape or traditions of the respective regions, this approach was not slow to cross the ocean and to arrive in America. The compositional craft of the New World composers –learned from European sources – in turn became steeped in local as well as national influences, even if this had necessitated the extreme measure of inviting a famous Czech, Dvořák, to ‘invent’ a national musical style. In any case, the project took root and national schools sprang up in America, from north to south, including a Venezuelan national musical style courtesy of Castellanos, Estévez, Carreño and others.
(Extract from the liner notes by CARLOS CALDERÓN URREIZTIETA, translated by Robert Sargant)
"Hindoyan gives his compatriot Gustavo Dudamel a run for his money in terms of the energy and ear for detail which he brings to this music, and the Liverpool players sound like they’re having the time of their lives. The stand-out is Evencio Castellanos’s Santa Cruz de Pacairigua - a brilliant juxtaposition of the sacred and profane, as glimpses of a solemn procession are repeatedly eclipsed by a carnival en route featuring virtuosic xylophone solos, a thunder-sheet and essentially everything barring the kitchen sink." - Katherine Cooper, Presto Music, 25th October 2024
