Ofelia, poemetto lirico - Oswald
Impressoes seresteiras - Villa-Lobos
Six Songs - Oswald
Three pieces from Iberia - Albeniz
The pianist Eduardo Monteiro is completing a thesis on the Brazilian composer Henrique Oswald (18521931). He has been neglected in his own country because he wrote in the European musical tradition - he spent 35 years of his life in Italy - and did not cultivate a Brazilian manner like Villa-Lobos.
The five songs of Ofelia (1901) are in the style of recitative with an atmospheric piano accompaniment somewhat in the manner of Debussy. The singer has to shape the rather dreamy words in such a way that the prose meaning is carried by the musical meaning, and not submerged in it. Doreen Curran's rich mezzo soprano was lacking in the delicacy of the accompaniment and her operatic vibrato was at times so pronounced that one had the illusion of two singers rather than one; the acoustic of the Lane Gallery may have been partly responsible for that.
The Ofelia songs were in Italian: the second group of songs, written at various times between 1872 and 1921, was in Portuguese. Excellent texts and translations, in clear type, were provided and were a great help in appreciating this little-known composer. Doreen Curran's Italian and Portuguese were not very persuasive, but the greater variety in the Portuguese group showed off her voice to greater advantage.
Eduardo Monteiro played the Impressoes seresteiras (Minstrel Impressions) with fiery impetuosity. Evocacion El Puerto and Fete-Dieu a Seville, from Albeniz's Iberia, were properly colourful and sections of the FeteDieu were louder than I have ever heard them before - a blast of sun from Andalusia.