Sérgio Azevedo: Hukvaldy Cycle Ensemble Darcos & Nuno Côrte-Real

• Sérgio Azevedo (b. 1968): 2 Pieces (After Janáček's JW VIII/17):
• 1 Azevedo: 2 Pieces (After Janáček's JW VIII/17): No. 1, Angústia indescritível 00:58
• 2 Azevedo: 2 Pieces (After Janáček's JW VIII/17): No. 2, A pequena Coruja que não chegou a voar 01:59
• Hukvaldy Sonata:
• 3 Azevedo: Hukvaldy Sonata: I. Con moto, ma appassionato 04:13
• 4 Azevedo: Hukvaldy Sonata: II. The Hunting for Příhody lišky Bystroušky 03:34
• 5 Azevedo: Hukvaldy Sonata: III. V mlhách 06:16
• 6 Azevedo: Hukvaldy Sonata: IV. Sbohem 05:29
• Sérgio Azevedo:
• 7 Azevedo: Hukvaldy Trio 20:31
• V mlhách 1912:
• 8 Azevedo: V mlhách 1912: I. Molto adagio 05:37
• 9 Azevedo: V mlhách 1912: II. Molto adagio 03:02
• 10 Azevedo: V mlhách 1912: III. Molto adagio 02:13
• 11 Azevedo: V mlhách 1912: IV. Por um caminho frondoso 03:30
• 12 Azevedo: V mlhách 1912: V. Molto adagio 04:06
• Sérgio Azevedo:
• 13 Azevedo: À procura da raposa (After Janáček's JW VII/12) 06:51
• Total Runtime 01:08:19

Info for Sérgio Azevedo: Hukvaldy Cycle

Taking its title from the village in which Leoš Janáček was born, this album of chamber works by the prize-winning Portuguese composer Sérgio Azevedo reveals his deep affinity for the music and personality of the great Czech composer. Using fragments from Janáček’s In the Mists and On an Overgrown Path has allowed Azevedo to create a ‘doppelgänger’ of the original material. It draws his music in unsuspected directions, either abandoning the fragments as the music develops or generating new aural contexts. The resultant music represents an unclassifiable but profound communication between two composers from two different epochs.

"His biography would point to a large portfolio of works, his style seemingly a mix of the past interacting with today’s progressive identities, tonality remaining the major stimulus to his thematic material. The title of this new release, Hukvaldy Cycle, points to his link with the music of Leos Janacek, Hukvaldy being the name of the village in which Janacek was born. The result being five pieces of various lengths and scored for differing groups of instruments, all, to varying degrees, using Janacek’s music as its basis We start with two extracts from the piano work, On an Overgrown Path, now using a flute and piano, leading into Hukvaldy Sonata for violin and piano. In a very wide range of tonal colours, it draws its material inspiration from sources as diverse as Janacek’s opera, The Cunning Little Vixen, and his piano work, In the Mists. The disc’s most extended score, the Hukvaldy Trio, was composed to a commission from the Spanish-based, Trio Pangea, and it is they who have recorded a bench-mark performance of the work for Naxos (8.573402). In one continuous movement, it moves one very large stride away from Janacek, it’s 2015 origin evident in sounds very much of its time. The composer’s programme notes, then relate that having completed the Hukvaldy Cycle with V mlhach …1912, where the music’s direction seems tantalisingly indefinite, he was approached in 2019 to write a score for a flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano, A procura da raposa (Searching for the fox) being the colourful outcome. Throughout Ensemble Darcos offers deeply committed performances in a well-balanced recording made last year." (David’s Review Corner)

Ensemble Darcos
Nuno Corte-Real, direction

Nuno Côrte-Real
Born in Lisbon, Nuno Côrte-Real is one of the most important Portuguese composers and conductors working today. He has twice been awarded the prize for Best Classical Music Work by the Portuguese Society of Authors: for the song cycle Agora Muda Tudo in 2018; and for the opera Canção do Bandido in 2019. He received a scholarship from the National Centre of Culture, and in 2003 he was awarded the Silver Merit Medal of the Torres Vedras City Council.

Premieres of his works include Seven Dances to the Death of the Harpist at the Kleine Zaal of the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam; Little Sea Songs at the Purcell Room in London; Concerto Vedras at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in New York; Novo Cancioneiro at the Siglufjörður Folk Music Festival in Reykjavík, and the dance piece Andarilhos at the Casa da Música in Porto.

He has conducted the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Giuseppe Verdi Symphony, the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra, the Orquestra Ciudad de Granada and Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, among others, and collaborated on numerous projects with Ensemble Darcos.

Ensemble Darcos
was created in 2002 by composer and conductor Nuno Côrte-Real with the aim of interpreting European chamber music and the compositions of Côrte-Real. The group’s permanent members, Filipe Quaresma (cello), Gaël Rassaert (violin), Helder Marques (piano) and Reyes Gallardo (viola), are regularly joined by leading international musicians, such as cellist Mats Lidström, violinists Massimo Spadano, Giulio Plotino and Junko Naito, pianist António Rosado, violist Ana Bela Chaves and the percussionist Miquel Bernat.

Ensemble Darcos has performed at Magnus Hall and St John’s Smith Square and is a regular participant at the Dias da Música Festival. Recordings include Volupia comprising chamber music by Côrte-Real (Numérica, 2012), Mirror of the Soul (Odradek, 2016), Lagarto Pintado (Artway, 2019), Agora Muda Tudo (Odradek, 2019), Cante by Nuno Côrte-Real (Odradek, 2020) and Time Stands Still (Artway, 2020).

Booklet for Sérgio Azevedo: Hukvaldy Cycle