Press

Last Saturday, the Municipal Theater of Matosinhos Constantino Nery was the stage for an exciting violin and piano concert, starring Bruno Monteiro and João Paulo Santos. The musicians performed works by Henri Vieuxtemps, Claude Debussy, Camille Saint-Saëns and Eugène Ysaÿe, taking the audience on a musical journey full of emotion and virtuosity. Bruno Monteiro, internationally recognized as one of the main Portuguese violinists today, has led an intense concert activity, performing in the most prestigious concert halls in Portugal and across borders. For more than two decades, he has captivated audiences with his masterful interpretations and unparalleled talent."

Link: https://breves.pt/noticia/matosinhos-concerto-de-violino-e-piano-no-teatro-municipal-de-matosinhos

“The trio of Portuguese instrumentalists responds with bravura to the challenge (…). Santos and Monteiro recreate here a beautiful version of the work (Sonata) and the recording ends with a recommended instrumental reading of a charming dance taken from “The Dead City”.”

This new album, Music for Violin, Cello and Piano, includes pieces written at the ages of thirteen and sixteen by the prodigious Austrian composer and conductor Erich Wolfgang Korngold, whose musical career was stifled by the rise of Nazism. Born in Moravia, he taught composition in Austria, and from there he was exiled to the United States of America, where he achieved great fame as a film composer. He received two Academy Awards for his soundtracks to The Adventures of Robin Hood (M. Curtiz and W. Keighley, 1938) and The Seahawk (M. Curtiz, 1940).

Bruno Monteiro, Miguel Rocha and João Paulo Santos, with whom he has been performing for over twenty years, remark on Korngold's style, with romantic reminiscences.

They begin with the Trio for piano, violin and cello in D major, op. 1, dedicated to his father, the famous music critic Julius Korngold. The composer's poetic vein is reflected in this work. The second movement, the Scherzo, revolves around rhythmic and harmonic variations, including a waltz-like section, probably influenced by Austrian dance.

The second work is the Sonata for violin and piano in G major, op. 6, by Korngold, a piece full of lyricism, great technical difficulties and some surprising syncopated ninths. The virtuosity of the two musicians becomes very evident when interpreting the shrill piano chords and violin pizzicato´s.

Monteiro and Santos perform the disc's final work, the enchanting Tanzlied des Pierrot ('Pierrot's Dance Song'), a piece transcribed from the opera Die Tote Stadt ('The Dead City'), op. 12. Korngold and his father collaborated on the libretto; we remember that Julius Korngold signed with the pseudonym Paul Schott.

Bruno Monteiro, Miguel Rocha and João Paulo Santos are musicians with a refined sensibility who, rather than innovating, rediscover Korngold's restless language, with a high-flying musical demand.”

"Viennese composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, born in 1897, was a precocious talent prodigy spotted by his father, the important Vienna music critic Julius. Until then, happy coincidence. It turns out that the then all-powerful critic of the Neue Freie Presse newspaper used all tricks and lobbies to build his son's success. The boy, who was once baptized as a new Mozart by his father, who added a “Wolfgang” to his name, has dealt with suspicion his entire life. And for several reasons.

The first was this, the father's influence peddling. This week's CD, by the excellent duo of Portuguese musicians Bruno Monteiro, on violin, and João Paulo Santos on piano, has as its most important piece the youthful trio no. 1 for violin, piano and cello, performed here by Miguel Rocha.

The boy still studied with Zemlinsky, and the trio was so consistent that it was suggested in Viennese gossip that the teacher and his father had helped him. None of this appears to have happened. But the rumor remained. Especially when Julius used his prestige to debut the 13-year-old boy's trio in Vienna at the anniversary of The Merke newspaper.

But the music is the most important thing. And in fact this trio surpasses, by far, in terms of quality, a similar chamber work composed by Richard Strauss at the same age. Until he took refuge in the United States in the 1930s, Wolfgang established himself as the second most performed composer in Europe – right behind Richard Strauss, who, imagine, made waves first with his symphonic poems and then with his operas.

Once in Los Angeles, he quickly became Hollywood's soundtrack king. In short: he didn't need any push."

“Written at 13, Korngold’s vivacious, harmonically adventurous Op. 1 Trio needs no special ‘juvenilia’ pleading. The Violin Sonata, from the grand old age of 16, captivates from its ambitious, symphonic opening onwards. ”

Something of a prodigy himself, Monteiro, one of Portugal's leading classical music exports, performed his first public recitals at thirteen and fourteen, thereafter studied in New York and Chicago, and in the decades since has appeared on concert stages throughout the world. For more than twenty years he has performed with his recital partner Santos, who accompanies the violinist on this latest recording. Monteiro has issued more than a dozen albums, which have featured works by Stravinsky, Ravel, Chausson, Szymanowski, Schulhoff, and others. Despite the marquee-level status of some of the composers whose works he's performed, Monteiro often gravitates to ones less familiar to a general audience and has helped direct attention to their often underappreciated efforts.

Consistent with the programming design of previous releases, the Korngold set presents a trio work alongside duo pieces, one for violin and piano and the other cello and piano. Initiating the album is his Piano Trio in D major, Op. 1, written when he was a mere thirteen years old. What makes it even more impressive, however, are the maturity and sophistication shown by the writing throughout the half-hour work. The allegro with which it begins endears for its romantic expressiveness and the arresting entwining of the strings' patterns. With Santos providing able and attentive support, Monteiro and Rocha engage in a passionate pas de deux that's wholly engaging. The scherzo that follows is playful and flirts with waltz rhythms, but its eight-minute duration allows for many another stylistic direction too. That aforesaid maturity is perhaps most noticeably evident in the “Larghetto,” its music remarkably poignant considering that it was written by someone so young. The finale is, true to form, marked by vitality and a generally radiant, uplifting tone though a wry gesture emerges as it nears its end.

Three years separate the writing of the opening selection and the Violin Sonata in G major, Op. 6, which premiered in Berlin in October 1913. Coupling Monteiro and Santos, the work reflects, as expected, further development in the refinement of Korngold's writing. That's dramatically shown in the harmonic adventurousness of the opening two movements and the modulations they progress through over the course of their combined twenty-four minutes. Monteiro shines throughout the scherzo in the rapid scale leaps he's called upon to execute, but his expressive voicings in the atmospheric trio section are as memorable. The violinist himself proposes that the adagio movement, the work's third, is “clearly influenced” by Richard Strauss and Mahler, and certainly its chromatic harmonies and lyrical coda indicate such an argument could credibly be made.

Based on a baritone solo aria from the opera Die Tote Stadt, Op. 12 (The Dead City), Tanzlied des Pierrot concludes the release strongly with a hushed, salon-styled setting that crowns a Debussy-esque intro with a lovely, heartfelt performance by Rocha. In terms of production quality, the recording captures the performances effectively, the strings in particular. An audible degree of echo shadows the piano, however, suggesting that the microphone might have been positioned closer to prevent the instrument from sounding so distant. That disconcerting detail aside, the recording earns its recommendation, with Monteiro and company doing their part to remind us that Korngold, as formidable a soundtrack composer as he was, was much else besides."

Portuguese violinist Bruno Monteiro, together with cellist Miguel Rocha and his regular pianist João Paulo Santos, paid tribute to the composer in a recording with the Belgian label Et'cetera, today his trusted house. Rightly so, because the recording is once again a gem. Never change a winning team.

The album begins with the trio for piano, violin and cello in D major, opus 1. This is therefore one of the youngest works by the then promising composer. An immediate blow. In fact, it was dedicated to his father Julius Korngold, who was a well-known music critic. You can hear the determination with which the work was written, but also performed. A job that knows what it wants. Beautiful contrasting themes guarantee an explosive result. The richness behind Korngold's work can be seen from the first note. The transitions to the Scherzo, followed by the almost danceable intermezzo and the calmer larghetto, proceed very naturally, as if this music had always existed and infiltrated Korngold's brain from a higher level. With this rich fantasy, you have to start loving this composer if you didn't already know him.

So the Violin Sonata in G Major opus 6 once again meets expectations. Another great gem, written by Korngold, just sixteen years old. A demanding piece, but everything sounds so logical, so natural, evident in all its complexity. An intense piece where you can barely contain yourself with all the emotion and feel your heart rate increasing. The influences of Strauss and Mahler are clearly audible.

The CD ends with a charming piece of salon music, Tanzlied des Pierrot from the opera Die Tote Stadt, whose libretto Korngold wrote together with his father under the pseudonym Paul Schott. A beautiful deep encore on cello and piano, on this highly enjoyable CD."

"After the previous CD with works by Chausson and Ysaÿe, the musicians playing as a trio or duo now present their view on Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

It remains that already in the trio the musicians show passion and present a vital interpretation of the first movement. And this invested energy is certainly a plus. In the following Scherzo the vitality and with the waltz part the closeness to the music of Austria becomes clear. The three musicians offer rather a robust picture of this type of dance. In the Trio – Larghetto it is particularly noticeable that the technique has captured the musicians all with equal weight. Thus everyone becomes audible and no one sits in the acoustic shadow. In the finale, there is again no stinginess with energy, sometimes a bit over-pointed.

The opening movement of the violin sonata sounds round and pleasing. The Scherzo in second place offers the violin part distinct chains of notes, while later more lyrical passages are heard. In the Adagio, influenced by Strauss and Mahler but written with Korngold’s unique musical language, rows of chromatic harmonies are explored. Bruno Monteiro succeeds in this in a carefully crafted manner. The final movement again closes the work with intensely distinctive shaping by the performers.

In the dance song of Pierrot from the opera « The Dead City », cellist Miguel Rocha lets his skills be heard. With sonorous fine sound he offers an engaging interpretation of this salon piece and can therefore leave a very good impression.

The secure, well-organized and sensitive playing of pianist João Paulo Santos, which is attuned to the partners, may be mentioned as a further positive aspect."

The Larghetto [3] has great subtlety of intonation, expressed as in a dream (violin supple and suave at the same time). And the flexibility as well as the voluptuousness of the final sequence - notes scattered from the airy piano - are close to the vaporous dreamlike atmosphere of the opera Die Tote Stadt.

Concerned with contrasts, Korngold architectures his Finale (allegro molto e energico / 4) with an asperity, a sort of more characterized hoarseness less seductive than beforehand, with accents of pure dreamy fantasy: volubility mirrored with the fanciful lightness and capriciousness of the first Allegro con espressione, as evidenced by the beginnings of waltzes interspersed in an over-expressive, even parodic sequence, in the spirit ideally assimilated here again of the Straussian caprice (the fanciful and brilliant neo-baroque Richard Strauss of Ariane auf Naxos and the French neo-baroque Suite from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme after Lully). The assertive Viennese musicians play and delight in this labyrinth of rhythms and crossed influences.

Virtuoso, intoxicated eclecticism of the young Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Bruno Monteiro adds to the richness of this exciting program a mature work [composed at 16!] which still bears the attachment to this Viennese ideal, both carefree and stylistically eclectic: the sublime Sonata for violin and piano.

The “Ben moderato” [5] highlights the lunar volubility of the violin, so close to singing, but a song modeled on speech and free, fanciful thought, which rocks and dreams… and ends very high in the sky enchanted and intoxicated high notes as the enchanter KORNGOLD knows how to distill them. Piano and violin acutely express its great suggestive and emotional force.

The Adagio [7] is wild tenderness, softness, measured abandon, play on modulations and vaporous harmonic passages, ecstatic inebriation at the confines of tonality, playing between dream and nightmare but in accuracy without softness (as it is noted “mit tiefer empfindung” / with deep sensitivity).

In the Finale: Allegretto [8] – the character of happy carefreeness runs through the entire last movement (con grazia), but also a feeling of happy plenitude, as if intoxicated here again, combining the whimsical and the capricious as in the spirit of a movement constructed like a fantasy – the violin part is close to the voice, a continuous and diaphanous song, while the piano nestles in the folds and folds of preserved, secret resentments, never really expressed. This dreamlike mist, this floating as if bewitched, make up the charm of a piece which seems at first listen, diffuse and uncertain, ultimately revealing an extremely well constructed emotional charge of which it is the violin line which holds the control and the flow from one end to the other.

In addition, the performers play Pierrot's Tanzlied, an extract from the opera Die Tote Stadt for cello and piano: the two performers express its suave fragility, like the delicate outpouring of a dream that evaporates.

This program aptly underlines the precocious genius and virtuoso complexity of a Viennese composer of infinite seduction."

““He (Monteiro) is a superb violinist, exhibiting flawless technique, beautiful tone, and musicianship of the highest order. Bruno Monteiro, Miguel Rocha, and João Paulo Santos perform miracles in the playing of them. I doubt that you’ll find them better presented than they are here. ”

“Although the classical music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) has undergone something of a revival in recent years, it remains comparatively obscure, possibly because he is known primarily for the film scores he created in the United States after fleeing Europe during the Nazi era. Interestingly, Korngold in his early career was something of a prodigy, and even his first few compositions have a great deal to recommend them – as is made abundantly clear in a very well-played new CD from Et’cetera Records. The disc opens with Korngold’s first published work and his only piano trio – a work that is something of a marvel, considering the fact that he completed it when he was only 13. The trio was written when Korngold was studying with Alexander Zemlinsky, and it contains both late-Romantic intensity and high levels of lyricism. It also has some clever compositional elements, notably an almost circular structure, with the work’s opening theme repeated and reworked at the conclusion of the finale. Although it is easy to hear echoes of Brahms and Richard Strauss in the music, there is nothing overtly imitative in it, and its harmonic language is right in line with what would be expected for its time period (1909-10). As a whole, this is a strongly accented, atmospheric work created with compositional skill far beyond its composer’s chronological age. And although the style is scarcely distinctive, the stretching of tonality and expressive intensity of the music place it squarely at the end of the Romantic era and show that even in his earliest music, Korngold had a knack for mixing emotive sensitivity with a high degree of drama – a combination that would stand him in good stead in his much later film works. The performance by João Paulo Santos, Bruno Monteiro and Miguel Rocha is first-rate, allowing the music to flow naturally throughout and explore the full emotional range that Korngold put into it, which is considerable even when it sounds somewhat formulaic in the Larghetto third movement. And Korngold matured quite rapidly from a compositional point of view, as is clear from his Sonata for Violin and Piano, written when he was all of 16. Larger-scale than the Piano Trio, this 40-minute sonata strives constantly to burst the bounds within which Korngold created it. Monteiro and Santos tackle the work’s very considerable technical demands with consummate skill, allowing its frequent contrasts of lyricism and intensity to produce the clear and sometimes jarring effects for which Korngold strove – precursors in a way to the quick mood shifts he was later so adept at producing for films. The free-range emotional elements here flow more naturally than in the Piano Trio, although the musical language itself is somewhat more acerbic. The sonata’s second movement, an insistent Scherzo, contains an unusually beautiful central Trio, and the third-movement Adagio is also packed with sincerity despite a high level of chromaticism reminiscent of Mahler and, again, Richard Strauss. The variation-form finale provides the only leavening in a work that is foundationally highly serious: there are tidbits of lightness here and there that help relieve the otherwise persistent weightiness of the sonata, and the gentle conclusion brings with it a sense of calm that is otherwise largely absent from a work of considerable power. The disc concludes, as an encore, with an excerpt from Korngold’s third and best-known opera, Die tote Stadt, a dark psychological work whose rather lurid plot is nowhere reflected in the sweet and warm cello-and-piano version of Tanzlied des Pierrot, played by Rocha and Santos with considerable delicacy and charm. As a whole, this CD stands as testimony to Korngold’s earlier music (which includes Die tote Stadt, at whose première the composer was 23) and an excellent introduction, for listeners who know Korngold only as a film composer, to some of his substantial contributions to 20th-century chamber music.”

 “This is a very fine issue of superb chamber music from the Belle Epoque period, and one cannot imagine it being better played or recorded. If I begin with the sound quality, it is only because obtaining a correct, genuinely musical, record ed balance between all three instruments is not easily achieved, but the result here border on demonstration standard. (…) Bruno Monteiro and his companions have the style of this period literally at their fingertips, and the whole presentation is admirable.”

*****

‍“The Portuguese violinist Bruno Monteiro and the pianist Joao Paulo Santos turn to a little played repertoire, the chamber music of Igor Stravinsky. And yet, in this programme, we are also very close to the composer’s ballet music.

The Suite Italienne uses mainly themes from the ballet Pulcinella, which in turn goes back to Pergolesi, just as Le Baiser de la Fée refers to Tchaikovsky.

At the same time, the works have a reference to Samuel Dushkin, a violinist who had ordered a Violin Concerto from Stravinsky, which the composer was reluctant to accept because he did not really feel at home with the genre. However, over lunch together, the two of them came to an agreement. Stravinsky wrote not only his Violin Concerto for Dushkin, but also the Duo Concertant. And Dushkin assisted him with the transcription of the music from the ballets, because, after the success of the Violin Concerto, Stravinsky wanted to tour with his friend Samuel with music for violin and piano. The tour consisted of concerts in Königsberg, Ostrava, Hamburg, Paris, Budapest, Milan, Turin, Rome and other cities.

In the transcribed ballet music Bruno Monteiro shows that the music is actually far from the orchestral original and probably closer to what Stravinsky may have had in mind when composing at the piano. The violinist’s playing is immensely imaginative and rhythmically precise, so that the moods are worked out very sharply. Especially when it comes to irony or burlesque, the performance is very characteristic and spicy. The violinist’s sharp and agile playing is a perfect match for this repertoire, just as his rhythmic accuracy makes the sequence of contrasts coherent.

The Duo Concertant is de facto a highly original five-movement sonata, of which Stravinsky said that he tried to create « a lyrical work of musical condensation ». Nevertheless, there are plenty of sharp interactions in this masterpiece, which Monteiro plays expressively. After the ravishing gigue he lets the slow Dithyrambe intensively blossom in all its austere beauty.

With technically and expressively outstanding performances and a good sound recording, this Etcetera production is highly recommendable."

*****

‍“Were it not for the model that Mozart established as a 'wunderkind' composer, it would be hard to imagine that a teenager could create music of great intensity and complexity. Nevertheless, this is the legacy that Guillaume Lekeu left in the late 19th century. Only 24 years when he died in 1894, Lekeu composed a striking series of chamber music works, and 2 of them are put on full display in this new Brilliant Classics recording. Featuring a trio of excellent Portugese musicians, the program sizzles with powerfully extroverted passages, all the while projecting an atmosphere of seriousness, even sadness.
This is gorgeous music, and I definitely recommend the disk to all chamber music devotees."

He proclaimed that the absolute art revolution was against agreed sound and rhythm. Between the bitter lines, dances and more traditional expressivity (the '' Tranquilo '' here in the first sonata), in which mostly feels a prolonged freshness, renewal almost in sight, a kind of inspired perpetuum mobile. Not to mention that he was a friend of Alban Berg (the sounds he sometimes resembles, as in this second sonata), he never resorted to serialism.

And always, a trip to Bach (the title is already present in the beautiful Andante of the second sonata and sonata for solo violin) socialist realism, dissonances, modal tone and quarter, but in a very free approach. Truly inspiring music, invigorating, gaining in depth by repeated listening, perfectly served by our two artists."

The sound is good. At first I thought it a little over-bright, but with repeated listening I came to the conclusion that it was Bruno Monteiro’s tone and not the recording. The accompanying booklet notes are quite detailed and informative, concentrating on the music rather than the composer. They make a good introduction to these works."

The program contains four works: one suite for violin and piano, two sonatas for violin and piano, and one sonata for solo violin. The thing you have to remember, though, is that Schulhoff began composing at about the time the modern era of music began, and while he is clearly avant-garde, innovative, and experimental for his day, he also has one foot firmly planted in the melodies and harmonies of the older Romantic generation. So his music is a kind of fascinating amalgam of the old and the new.

Anyway, Monteiro has arranged the order of the program in chronological order, starting with the five-movement suite, dating from 1911. It has a generally positive and happy outlook, with the violinist delighting in its almost-classical demeanor. Monteiro's tone is always clean, golden, and vibrant, qualities he maintains throughout the program. The interior minuet and waltz segments appear most adventurous, yet they never become objectionable in their eccentricities. The final movement ends the piece with something originally titled "Dance of the Little Devils," and it's charming in its impish delights, at least the way Monteiro and Santos play it.
The next three items are more overtly "modern," being somewhat less harmonious or melodic. The first sonata has more starts and stops to it, with more contrasting sections and a more emphatic rhythmic drive. Nevertheless, for all of its oddities it comes over with an appealingly pensive mood under the guidance of Monteiro and Santos.

In the solo violin work Monteiro not only gets to show off his more virtuosic talents, he gets to display his knowledge and feeling for the jazz idioms Schulhoff adopted. Finally, in the second sonata we hear a more dance-like feeling from the composer, probably from his embracing more of the native folk elements of his country. Don't expect Dvorak, but you get the idea. It begins briskly, energetically, followed by a highly expressive slow movement and returning in the final segments to some of the same themes with which the music started. Again, Monteiro and Santos make a splendid team, keeping the drama of the piece moving forward with a pulsating, scintillating enchantment.

Producer Bruno Monteiro and engineer and editor Jose Fortes recorded the album at Igreja da Cartuxa, Caxias, Portugal in April 2016. The church makes an excellent setting for the musicians, the sound taking on a touch of hall resonance without in any way affecting the overall transparency of the instruments. We get clarity and dynamic impact aplenty, plus a realistic separation of players, making the listening both pleasurable and lifelike."

"Bruno Monteiro continues to travel to the back roads of the violin chamber repertoire between centuries. After his Erwin Schulhoff CD, this time he stops in Karol Szymanowski, the brilliant Polish composer unclassifiable, who would virtually share seat with Janácek, Scriabin, Martinu or Enescu, among others, as this period favored the flowering of free spirits against the current. This recording shows all his work for violin and piano, which includes small pieces such as Roxana of King Roger's aria (fundamental opera of the 20th century), a dance drawn from the Harnasie ballet or the Dance Sauvage, among others, with works of greater substance such as the early Sonata Op. 9 (1904), of Franckian resonances, and, especially, Mythes Op. 30 (1915), one of his masterpieces, a "Greek" triptych in which he describes the myths with a new writing technique for the violin. The profund reading of the Portuguese violinist, with his usual pianist Joao Paulo Santos, explains and clarifies very well the pentatonism, the almost dodecaphonic harmony or the intervals in the style of Alois Hába. There was already a great recording of this music by Ibragimova and Tiberghien (Hyperion), which is added by this one on equal intentions to consolidate, for music, interpretation and the need to know better the great Szymanowski."

"…certainly highly expressive, as is the playing by the excellent artist Bruno Monteiro and his gifted pianist partner.
This collection is thoughtfully played in chronological order, thereby enabling us to follow the composer’s evolution. The very first work here, the Sonatina No 1, is a truly original gem, and every one of these pieces, whether they be for violin and piano or for solo violin, is well worth the time and attention of the enquiring music lover.
The recording is admirably bright and vivid and the whole presentation is another feather in the crowded international Naxos cap."

"Fernando Lopes-Graça (1906-1994) is often treated as an agent involved in obscure historical processes. But, same as to many others, all that happened to him was the Estado Novo *, which granted him with an arrest and seizure order, censored his writings and sayings, criminalised the profession, mobilised the spirit, rendered life illegal and, to some extent, endangered posterity. Therefore, some see him through the light of Manicheism. He who knows it well is Bruno Monteiro, who, in declarations to Expresso**, thus synthetizes the question: “The duality does undoubtedly exist. But it is that what renders [this] music so interesting. Lopes-Graça, with his political, social, musical and aesthetical convictions is, in the end, human. That was our main concern: to highlight [his] human side.”
*Translator Note: Estado Novo, or the Second Republic, was the corporatist authoritarian regime installed in Portugal in 1933. It was greatly inspired by conservative and authoritarian ideologies, developed by António de Oliveira Salazar, ruler of Portugal from 1932 to 1968.
**Translator Note: Expresso is the flagship publication of the Group Impresa, and was founded by Francisco Pinto Balsemão in 1973. A weekly newspaper, it incorporates various supplements, covering general news, business, sports, international news, entertainment, society, a magazine, recruitment and real estate classified supplements.
Collecting this important integral which pervades decades of creation – starting from a pair of expressive Sonatinas, op. 10 and 11 which date back to the 30s and finishing in the somewhat morbid “Adágio Doloroso e Fantasia”, Op. 242, of the late 80s -, Monteiro and João Paulo Santos understood that the strongest of compromises by the composer soon strutted in the definition of intellectual responsibility.
For example, in 1948 (the year of the official entry of Lopes-Graça in the PCP***), in Portugal, being a communist would surely be an opportunity of sharing a common dignity, but Lopes-Graça never did ignore that, in music, ideology is like those presences in our lives whose company in wrong doses poisons, whereas in the inverse ones, intoxicates. Specifically in his chamber music dimension, here, although you may identify the impotence of shape, there is never the glimpse of vulgarity in content. With yet another feature – perhaps more vain or rancorous or exaggeratedly underlining miasmas and asymmetries – that which is within this CD would absolutely slide on to a
***Translator Note: The Partido Comunista Português is the Portuguese Communist Party
prison from which one might not return. The violinist would say that the material itself does forbid linear readings: “All works are relatively short, but all [are] completely contrasting. Even within the same work, all movements are different among themselves. There is no continuity. We are forced to permanently change our emotions and stay alert, for the character, the speed, the interior structure are constantly changing.” This statement suffices to understand that this patrimony is not captivated by just any system. In fact, in no time will it definitely fixate, which presupposes a cultural identity so volatile, a virtuosity which does not only depend on the whims of invention, sounds provocatively hanging on the corners of tone. Monteiro and João Paulo are aware that democracy may follow dictatorship, freedom repression and there will always be someone who will believe that one hell was traded by another. A recording such as this deviates the thought from such a dark idea."

"Both works here are wonderfully well performed, and finely recorded with a natural balance that is impressive". (Saint-Saens/Strauss Violin Sonatas)."