Canto da Saudade

Canto da Saudade is a journey through more than a century of Brazilian music for violin and piano. The programme runs from Carlos Gomes’s operatic Al chiaro di luna and Alexandre Levy’s Tango Brasileiro to the modernists Francisco Mignone and Camargo Guarnieri and the later voices of Marlos Nobre and Ronaldo Miranda. Villa-Lobos’s A Lenda do Caboclo appears alongside Francisco Braga’s title piece, Gnattali’s jazz-tinged Flor da Noite and Luiz Cosme’s playful Brincando de pegar. Folk melodies, children’s games, nocturnal serenades and a closing fugue show a music constantly in search of brasilidade. Violinist Cármelo de los Santos and pianist Ney Fialkow give each piece an equal partnership, a quality the music demands. In Nobre’s Desafio III the two instruments duel as equals, and in Miranda’s prize-winning Recitativo, Variações e Fuga they share every thematic turn. Recorded in 2005 and released now on Fuga Libera’s Fuga Latina series, this is a warm and rare survey that goes well beyond Brazil’s best-known names. Cármelo de los Santos, violin Ney Fialkow, piano