Orchestral works by Henrique Oswald

[eschiss1]

Oswald's symphony in C (1910-11) and sinfonietta in D minor (1897, possibly in its posthumously released edition) have been recorded on Naxos, scheduled for release March 13 - description at Presto. (Not sure offhand if any of these is a commercial premiere.) Fabio Mechetti conducts the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra.

[Ilja]

There is an archival recording of Oswald's C major symphony (1908), made in the 1950s and conducted by Edoardo de Guarnieri. It's a rather attractive work, I've always thought: full of vigour, and rather French in overall style, while incorporating what I assume must be  Brazilian (native?) folk themes. This new, modern recording is very welcome, and from what I can hear from the sound bites it sounds really good.

As far as I'm aware, this is the first recording of the Sinfonietta. It's a shorter work, but apparently still scored for full orchestra. It was written about ten years prior to the symphony and sounds quite different. Same for the Elegia, which seems to be from the same time.

None is particularly forward-looking music, but it's tuneful, well-crafted and really quite original. My order is in.

[eschiss1]

Other sources give the date of the symphony as 1910, etc., not sure what to make of that. The Guarnieri recording was released on LP in 1969 by Festa. The Elegia's been recorded before too, on ORSEM in 1991 with Nepomuceno's symphony. Should have checked, I guess!

[Ilja]

The Guarnieri was recorded in 1958 (and sounds like it), but only released on Festa over a decade later.

[Ilja]

The first review of this recording is in, and it's very positive. I'm looking forward to enjoying this over the weekend.