Brejeiro, Fado Brasileiro, Confidências

The piano music of Ernesto Nazareth (pronounced and spelt Nazaré by the Brazilians) (1863-1934) has been revered in Brazil ever since this enchanting musician first came to prominence with his compositions and the flowering of chôro music forms, including the diminutive chôrinho, which had flowered from the streets to the parlours of Rio. An influence of European, English and Scottish dance forms, combined with whatever indigenous, plus African music, was to hand, the tango, famously associated with the bordellos of Buenos Aires, also had origins in the Rive Plate area of Argentina and Uruguay; the Creole tango, transmogrifying into the Brazilian tango, filtering into the chôrinho and chôro (confused? you still will be - to borrow a famous by-line from a past but hilarious, comedy). By the time Nazareth's compositions were published it was fairly obvious they were chôrinhos rather than tangos but the publishers stuck with the name. Nazreth also composed a wealth of waltzes, polkas, schottisches and sambas etc; over 200 works survive. One of the great things about reviewing music for Classical Guitar is the knowledge that the readership will contain those who have never had the pleasure of hearing this music nor have the faintest clue who this composer was and that by reading what I scribble here will go on (hopefully) to discover the delights of which I quite rightly passionately espouse. The challenges of transcribing and arranging this music for guitar(s) are similar to those of doing the same with the music of the much more widely known Scott Joplin. This has been done with varying degrees of success in the past and for the most part been highly commendable and effective. I would say that the South American «ragged« music has rhythms that while syncopated skip across the line far more than the northern neighbours (neighbors?) and have more of a tendency for extra passing notes, chromatism and colourful modulations. It feels and sounds «spicier« is what I'm trying to say. Rather than go into blow-by-blow detail I can let you know that Jürg Kindle has done a fantastic job in arranging these pieces for two guitars. He has kept within the boundaries of the fingerboard without sacrificing the highs and lows of the piano keyboard too much. They are a very clean set of arrangements that should allow for a fair amount of interpretation from the players; enough to play with and enough slow-to-fast ratios to keep the attention fixed. Fingering is verging on the minimal, along with dynamic, and tempo markings, but enough to let you know that this must never be bland repetitive music. If it should do one thing it should sparkle. With the scores in front of you and the perfume of the past teasing your senses this music will surely be a delight.
Highly recommended.
Tim Panting (Classical Guitar Magazine)