The exceptional Portuguese pianist and Beethoven expert Artur Pereira continues his interpretation of the Beethoven piano sonatas with his new album ‘Piano Sonatas vol. 2’.

 

The Sonata Op. 2 No. 1, an early work by the master, was first performed publicly in 1795 in the house of Prince Lichnowsky. The illustrious audience included none other than the great composer Joseph Haydn, who was not only Beethoven’s friend but also his teacher. So it is unsurprising that the Op. 2 Sonatas are dedicated to Haydn. Despite tensions between the two men, the great role model was thereby given a special honour.

 

Artur Pereira with attention to detail
Artur Pereira pays particular attention to detail in his interpretation of the sonatas, and this fact can be heard in every note. His playing is remarkably nuanced but never too intellectual. Although Beethoven often did not place natural signs where they would technically be necessary, his intentions are at least clearly visible in scholarly sound editions of his music. And that’s exactly what Pereira focuses on in his work. Embellishments or decorations are not his thing. This brings him closer to Beethoven in a special way.

 

The sonata ‘quasi una fantasia’, better known by the unspeakable nickname ‘Moonlight Sonata’, is often misinterpreted as romanticized night music. The basic mood of this masterpiece is, however, more like a funeral march. Beethoven was truly in a rather depressed mood when he completed this piece in 1801. It is said that he played the first movement in quiet seclusion on the occasion of a friend’s funeral, completely without an audience.

 

Here too Artur Pereira succeeds in the ‘art of the fugue’. He gives the sonata the necessary intimacy and meticulously adheres to Beethoven’s instructions to play the piece with the ‘utmost tenderness’ while avoiding any sentimental touch. The allegretto is gracefully dance-like and does not lack a certain elegance. In the Presto, he then unleashes a storm on the keyboard. Pereira skilfully uses the pedal to underpin the rousing finale.

 

Artur Pereira’s playing, as a whole, is a stylistic balance paired with a special depth of expression. After his brilliant recording of the ‘Tempest Sonata Op. 31’, he also succeeds in producing an extremely gripping and luminous interpretation with his continuation of the Beethoven Sonatas vol. 2. His Beethoven is empirical, challenging and a source of inspiration.

 

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There is no lack of soundscapes in music, especially when this term is used to attempt to describe musical experiences with words and associations. In the case of the Portuguese composer Luiz Costa, something like this can be taken literally. In his Poemas do Monte, created between 1916 and 1931, Costa was directly inspired by the landscape, especially by the mountain world as its most powerful expression.

 

It might make sense to first listen to this CD with an unbiased mind, without any background information – and yes, there is already this landscape association and above all a dominating meditative aspect at work. Twelve miniature pieces are lined up, forming a rounded continuum. The arc spans from late romantic diction, somewhat like Grieg’s, into a delicate impressionism, which later even acquires something minimalistic, which in the fifth piece, Névoa no vale, even somewhat resembles John Cage, albeit only marginally. However, every comparison is flawed, because Luiz Costa’s tonal language seems much too idiosyncratic and always lyrical for that.

 

Inspired by your own inner voice...
The artistic path of Luiz Costa, who studied with Ferruccio Busoni among others, but also worked with George Enescu and Pablo Casals and made an international career as a celebrated pianist, was also independent. As a teacher and director of the Music Conservatory in Porto, he made a great contribution to musical life in his home country.

 

In his Poemas do Monte it becomes clear that he mainly followed his own voice during the imaginary excursions into a peaceful mountain landscape and knows how to draw productively from this refuge. The murmuring of the streams, the mist in the valley, perhaps a distant echo reflected somewhere and the sound of church bells – all this is elicited onomatopoeically from the piano strings and is expressed in diverse, always pleasantly symmetrical figurations and those melodic arcs preferred by Luiz Costa. The pianist Artur Pereira sensitively brings all this to life when he models the details with a plastically contoured touch and never lets himself be disturbed even in pianistically challenging moments.

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Luiz Costa (1879–1960) is one of the most famous and exceptional Portuguese composers of the first half of the 20th century. His works describe in a painterly and pictorial-musical language the impressions of a poetically-inclined hiker who, with a map in hand, embarks on a journey of discovery through forests, meadows and valleys. His collected impressions are reflected in the so-called “Poemas do Monte” (Poems from the Mountain), an arrangement of a total of 12 piano miniatures.

In this lyrical composition, Costa describes the rural environment of northern Portugal around 1900. In “Across the hills” he takes us on a trip to the mountains, where we watch a shepherd at work in “Conduzindo o rebanho”, while in “The murmuring of the fountains” we watch the hustle and bustle around a village fountain. In “Echoes from the Valleys” Costa describes the peaceful landscape in the valleys of the Minho region and in the concluding part (Belfries) we listen intently to the ringing of the bells on a bright Sunday morning.

 

I was most impressed by the musical realisation of the rushing water in “À beira da fonte”. Costa outlines this resting place of his wanderings as a course of emotions. Artur Pereira plays this wonderful piece technically and interpretatively absolutely brilliantly. He masters even the most difficult passages with his characteristic attention to detail. The rather complex work is a challenge for every pianist, but also testifies to the composer’s rather unbridled passion for experimentally combining different musical stylistic elements. Artur Pereira elaborates the lyrical context of this musical poem with a love of detail. His infallible feeling for tonal colour makes the “Poems from the Mountain” appear like a poetic picture book. By the way, Costa was fascinated by rushing water. This theme determines a large part of his musical work and is also a central component of the piano miniature “Moonlight on the weirs”), performed by Pereira with virtuosity.

 

Artur Pereira with chronology
Most of the “Poems from the Mountain” presented here have never been recorded before and are therefore celebrating their premiere on CD. The manuscripts edited by Artur Pereira have been arranged in chronological order based on tempo, lyricism and tonality. This results in a coherent picture in the form of a musical itinerary.

When discussing Artur Pereira’s last album (Beethoven and Costa), I wished I could hear more of Costa’s compositions. This wish has now come true with the completion of the “Poemas do Monte”. Anyone who would like to take a closer look at Artur Pereira’s biography should take a look at the artist’s website.

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More premieres from the Portuguese pianist Artur Pereira. Readers might remember his name as the author of Beethoven’s Dedications, which I had the pleasure of reviewing in the February issue. Last year Pereira issued two albums on the Sonoris Causa label, the start of a complete Beethoven sonata cycle – it promises to be very fine indeed – which, wisely or not, included on the second disc four movements from Luiz Costa’s Poemas do Monte (‘Poems from the Mountain’). Pereira has now devoted an entire album to the first recording of all 12 movements of the cycle, eight of which are premiere recordings. He studied with the composer’s daughter and it was he who unearthed the unpublished movements to add to those already in print.

 

I doubt if many have ever heard of Costa (1879–1960) but he is revered in Portugal and, from this evidence, deserves a place in the sunshine. In its evocations of the rural Portugal of the 1920s, one hears echoes of the Impressionists, some Lisztian traits, certainly something of Albéniz and Granados and perhaps of Cenas nas montanhas (‘Mountain Scenes’) by Costa’s teacher José Vianna da Motta. But Costa is his own man. His grand-pupil does these bucolic tone poems proud. Pereira is a master colourist and temperamentally attuned to the genre, championing them with warmth and affection, greatly helped by Mark Jonathan Almond’s sound engineering at the RNCM.

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Artur Pereira pf | Sonoris Causa 004

 

Memorably described in the booklet as ‘a window into the 1920s rural atmosphere of northern Portugal’, these pieces may also have been influenced by the great José Vianna da Motta’s Mountain Scenes Op. 14. Luiz Costa (1879–1960) studied under Busoni in Germany; later, he showed a penchant for French composers (particularly Ravel, as can be heard in his 1934 Piano Trio).

 

Poemas do Monte (Poems from the Mountain) is a sequence of 12 descriptive, pastoral pieces: ‘Leading the herd’, contented and delightful, could be a sister piece to Liszt’s countryside pieces from his Années de pèlerinage (‘Eclogue’, for example). All of Costa’s titles are highly evocative and he displays an easy way with harmony, whether oscillating between major and minor or employing modal touches. Eight of the 12 pieces receive first recordings here.

 

In true Romantic fashion, there is a fountain piece, No 4 ‘Murmúrios des fontes’, while the fifth (Mist in the Valley) is lyrically flowing. No 9 ‘Sobre os montes desce a paz’ (Peace descends upon the mountains) is a song without words, its melody beautifully projected by Pereira.

 

A compelling showcase for music worthy of excavation, performance and listening.

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Luiz Costa (1879–1960) enjoyed a long and multi-faceted career in his native Portugal as pianist, prolific composer, teacher, and concert organizer. His resumé included youthful studies with Ferruccio Busoni and Liszt pupil José Vianna da Motta, collaborations with Alfred Cortot, Pablo Casals, and Georges Enescu, as well as having given the first performance in Portugal of Tchaikovsky’s First piano concerto. Costa composed his twelve Poemas do Monte (Poems from the Mountain) Op. 3 between 1916 and 1931, revising four of them in the mid-1930s for publication. Pianist Artur Pereira first recorded the four published pieces on his second CD release, coupled with Beethoven’s ‘Appassionata’ sonata. Now that all of Costa’s Op. 3 pieces are available, Pereira has recorded them all from scratch.

 

It’s hard to pinpoint Costa’s style, although his Op. 3 cycle certainly evokes images of mountain landscapes. You get the sultry harmonies and full-bodied textures of Granados and Albéniz, but without their volatile intricacy. Costa’s melodic ideas suggest Grieg, every now and then; indeed, A beira da fonte’s gushing tremolos and chordal climaxes sound like Grieg being rewritten by Granados. Oddly, the ambling lyrical quality of pieces like Névoa no vale or Ecos dos vales foreshadow Mompou.

Perhaps one should absorb a few pieces at a time instead of twelve in one sitting. However, Artur Pereira’s big, singing tone, his tasteful rubato, and his inherent affinity for Costa’s style makes you want to “keep on listening”, if I may quote David Hurwitz’s famous signature tag line! The sonics could be more robust and less metallic in loudest moments, but that’s a tiny issue. If you collect attractive, off-the-beaten track Romantic piano repertoire, you’ll definitely want this delightful release.

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Not content with writing a book on Beethoven’s dedications which is destined to become a standard reference work, Portuguese pianist Artur Pereira has gone on to record the complete sonatas – and has chosen to partner them with music by a compatriot, whose daughter used to give him lessons. Jeremy Nicholas reports.

 

A few months ago I reviewed a book for our sister publication Gramophone. It is called Beethoven’s Dedications – Stories behind the Tributes, a fascinating treasure-trove which tells you all you should ever wish to know on the subject. Destined to be a standard reference work, it is an extended and revised version of a doctoral thesis awarded in 2016 to the Portuguese pianist Artur Pereira.

 

He was born in Lamego but raised 100 kms to the west in Porto. … He continued his studies in Portugal till he was 22, then moved to South Africa. ‘In Portugal I studied with a very good Romanian pianist, Constantin Sandu, so I received some Romanian-Russian school training – I owe this teacher a lot – and then in Cape Town with the South African pianist Nina Schumann [and Benjamin van Eeden]. I learned a lot from them as well.…

 

Pereira then moved to the UK and Manchester where he studied for his master’s at the Royal Northern College of Music with Norma Fischer. ‘That was when I began to be more interested in the life and works of Beethoven from an academic point of view, particularly the dedications of his works. Just by chance, across the road at the University of Manchester, was professor Barry Cooper, one of the leading Beethoven experts of our time. We met and he was very interest in the subject, so I decided to pursue my studies. …

 

Around this time (2015) Pereira became increasingly interested in the performance practice of Beethoven’s music during his lifetime. ‘Things like trills, grace notes, or the amount of pedal used, etc. Most of my information came from people like Czerny but also from a recent study by the scholar Clive Brown, whose sources are absolutely immense. And then everything in Beethoven’s music suddenly made a lot more sense. For example, a person has to lean how not to play massively long legato lines. I always had trouble with this. But if you do the slurring as Beethoven indicated, the clarity comes through immediately and everything becomes more fluent and easier to perform’.

 

Having already learned almost all the sonatas by then and discovering that there are few recordings of Beethoven’s music that follow performance practice of his time, Pereira decided to record the complete cycle. ‘My account of the sonatas combines 19th-century heritage together with a fresh reading of scholarly editions, looking at the text from a new perspective but using the artistic input of amazing artists of the past’.

 

The recording project came about through the Portuguese consulate in Manchester, a city with a number of fine musicians from Portugal. Finding that Pereira had been performing quite widely in the UK and playing lots of music that is not well known outside Portugal, they started the Sonoris Causa label. ‘We found this absolutely brilliant sound engineer from Manchester called Mark Almond’. The results of Pereira’s first two volumes of Beethoven sonatas, I can attest, are superb: clarity of texture, grasp of structure, and performances that transcend the studio make them rival any other recent accounts of Op 31 No 2 (The Tempest), Op 110, Op 57 (Appassionata) and the early F minor WoO 47 No 2 (Pereira, rightly in my opinion, eschews the standard ‘cycle of 32 Sonatas’: Beethoven wrote 35).

 

But there’s more. Alongside Beethoven, Pereira has decided, boldly, to programme the music of his compatriot Luiz Costa (1879–1960). Though not a well-known name outside his native country, Costa is recognised as one of the most important Portuguese composers of the late 19th/early 20th century. Pereira has a direct connection to him.

‘He had a very talented daughter, Helena de Sá e Costa, who played all over the world, a brilliant performer, and she gave me many lessons when I was young. I learned the Tempest Sonata with her which, coincidentally, is the first sonata of my Beethoven cycle. I went to lessons in her house in downtown Porto which she inherited from her late father and had two massive Bechsteins.

 

‘It was not till later that I discovered how wonderful her father’s music was and started playing it. All of his manuscrits have been put online for people to use – music that has never been printed’. He shows me manuscripts of Costa’s 12 Poems of the Mountain. Pereira’s second volume of the sonatas features numbers 4-7 and was recently named one of the best new albums of 2021 by the German classical music website Orchestergraben. ‘I can’t believe no one thought to download these pieces before. I love this music. It’s stunning’.

 

The first two volumes of Artur Pereira’s Beethoven cycle are available from Sonoris Causa (SC002 and SC003). His recording of Luiz Costa’s complete Poemas do Monte will be released in Spring 2022.

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