Fernando Lopes-Graça (1906-1994)
Melodias rusticas portuguesas (Livre 3)

Sérgio Azevedo (1968-)
Sonatina pour piano à 4 mains

José Viana da Mota (1868-1948)
Souvenirs, op. 7

Fernando C. Lapa (1950-)
Storyboard

Antonio Victorino d'Almeida (1940-)
Balada, op. 126 (para uma criança que vai nascer)

Luis Duarte, piano
Ligia Madeira, piano

Musique portugaise pour piano à quatre mains par Luis Duarte et Ligia Madeira, voilà un disque qui retient toute notre attention et présente un florilège d’un siècle de création musicale par les plus éminents compositeurs portugais. José Viana Da Mota (1868-1948), élève de Liszt et Bülow – pas mal ! – grand pédagogue et directeur du conservatoire de Lisbonne au début du 20e siècle, Fernando Lopes-Graça (1906-1994), élève du précédent et peut-être le plus connu de tous, puis les contemporains, António Victorino d’Almeida né en 1940 issu d’une grande famille d’intellectuels de la culture, le prolifique touche à tout Fernando Lapa né en 1950, et enfin Sérgio Azevedo petit dernier né en 1968. La progression stylistique du programme est particulièrement intéressante et ne pouvait pas mieux placer ces cinq compositeurs dans la lignée des plus grandes de nos références - du romantisme si particulier de Fauré aux couleurs et rythmes d’un Messiaen, de la gouaille de Poulenc au chaloupé d’un Piazzolla - les compositeurs portugais, magnifiés par les quatre mains du duo Duarte-Madeira : jeu précis, tendre, énergique, sensible, élégant… bref parfait, ce qui qualifie aussi la prise de son d’un beau Steinway D dans l’acoustique de la Casa da Musica de Porto, dépassent les frontières de Lusitanie : Plus qu’une belle découverte, simplement un enchantement… Muito bem ! (Florestan de Marucaverde)

This precious collection of piano-four-hands works from the foremost musical minds of Portugal in the 20th and 21st centuries can serve as a welcome introduction to the classical music of Portugal for those who may not know it. But there is a greater significance and added value to this thoughtful recital programme, in that it traces back the genealogy of modern Portuguese classical composition – and pianism! – to roots firmly planted in German Romantic soil. It links the living composers to their teacher and inspiration, the great composer–ethnographer Fernando Lopes-Graça who undertook research into Portuguese folk music on a par with what Vaughan Williams and Bartók & Kodály did in their own nations, and then links Lopes-Graça back to his piano professor, the great virtuoso and music educator José Viana da Mota, himself a pupil and disciple of Liszt. The album opens fittingly with a set of Portuguese Folk Melody treatments by Lopes-Graça, the third in his three-volume set being dedicated exclusively to piano four hands. Immediately, the national colour welcomes listeners to the distinct ethnicity of Europe’s far southwestern corner, a historic and pre-historic crossroads for Celtic, Roman, Gothic and Moorish cultures. This is followed by the Sonatina of his student, Sérgio Azevedo, bristling with the Neoclassicism he inherited from Lopes-Grac¸a. Then to the wellspring, Viana da Mota’s Opus 7 singing with a Mendelssohnian lyricism, yet nonetheless tinged with the innate longing of the Portuguese soul. The expressionistic, effusive atonality of Lapa’s Storyboard returns the listener to the modern era, and to finish, Victorino d’Almeida’s heartfelt Ballad (for a child about to be born) embraces melody and tonality once again, from a post-modern vantagepoint. The fascinating liner note positions this multi-generational story of composers against the political backdrop of 20th-century Portugal, chronicling the struggles of many of them against the oppression of the Salazar dictatorship, and how the restrictions and subsequent freedoms after the ‘Carnation’ Revolution shaped their careers and creative output. The piano duo of Luís Duarte and Lígia Madeira are at the vanguard of a young generation of world-class performers and music educators active in the cultural dynamo of Greater Porto, in the north of Portugal. Among their many individual activities is their duo collaboration, which they have enjoyed since 2008.