Portuguese Tributes to Beethoven Taíssa Poliakova Cunha & Quarteto Lopes-Graça

• João Domingos Bomtempo (1775 – 1842): Piano Quintet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, Op. 16:
• 1 Bomtempo: Piano Quintet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, Op. 16: I. Allegro moderato 12:57
• 2 Bomtempo: Piano Quintet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, Op. 16: II. Presto assai 05:14
• 3 Bomtempo: Piano Quintet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, Op. 16: III. Larghetto 06:27
• 4 Bomtempo: Piano Quintet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, Op. 16: IV. Allegro 08:00
• César Viana: Laberinto del oído:
• 5 Viana: Laberinto del oído: I. Introdução 04:11
• 6 Viana: Laberinto del oído: II. Impróprio silêncio 13:02
• 7 Viana: Laberinto del oído: III. Ó Serpa, pois tu não ouves 07:18
• 8 Viana: Laberinto del oído: IV. Final 04:24
• Jaime Reis (b. 1983): Sangue inverso:
• 9 Reis: Sangue inverso: IV. Quartzo 07:14
• Total Runtime 01:08:47

Info for Portuguese Tributes to Beethoven

These three compositions by three Portuguese composers pay direct and indirect tribute to the music of Beethoven. The Piano Quintet by João Domingos Bomtempo was written in the style of the Viennese Classical mainstream even as Beethoven was changing its direction. The two works by César Viana and Jaime Reis both have distant roots in Beethoven but pay their homage in very different styles, one using relatively traditional language and the other more radical – as was Beethoven himself, of course.

Katherine Rawdon, flute (track 9)
Paulo Gaspar, clarinet (track 9)
Luis Pacheco Cunha, violin (track 9)
Taissa Poliakova Cunha, piano
Quarteto Lopes-Graca (tracks 1–8)

Taíssa Poliakova Cunha
Born in Lisbon, Taíssa Poliakova Cunha began her musical studies at the National Conservatory of Lisbon. She obtained her degree cum laude at the Conservatório Superior de Música de Castilla y León (Salamanca, 2013), where she studied with Miriam Gómez-Morán and Alberto Rosado.

She completed her Masters in Music at the University of Aveiro in Portugal under the guidance of Professor Fausto Neves, having received, upon completion, the award for Best Student of the Masters in Music that year (2017). She also studied privately with the renowned teacher, from the Juilliard School in New York, Oxana Yablonskaya, between 2012 and 2017.

Quarteto Lopes-Graça
made up of musicians with notable solo and chamber music careers, professors at the Escola de Música do Conservatorio Nacional (Lisbon), was formed in 2005 with the aim of equipping the Conservatory, in the image of many of its counterparts in the world , a reference group in the string area, with conditions to develop a permanent work with output at the levels of specialized training in chamber music (quartet master-classes) and the promotion of the school, at home and abroad.

Graça), Cascais (Museum of Portuguese Music), Funchal (Baltazar Dias Theater), Marvão, Castelo de Vide, Caldas da Rainha, Caminha, Pombal, Viana do Castelo and in many other projects and cultural spaces. He also performed several tours to the Azores where he performed with the Coral Vox Cordis.

Awarded on several occasions with support from the Ministry of Culture, he performed concerts in various parts of the country, namely within the scope of the recent Festival CRIASONS 2010 / 11, an event dedicated to contemporary Portuguese composition. It is indeed this aim – the dissemination of new Portuguese music – that has inspired QL-G's action in recent years, often holding first auditions of works dedicated to it by national composers.

He traveled to Andorra in 2010 with a program aimed at disseminating Portuguese culture in that Principality. In 2013, she performed a month-long tour to Brazil, as part of the Portugal in Brazil event, with concerts in Curitiba, Brasília and Sorocaba. In November 2014 she participated, with three concerts, at the XII International Festival of Contemporary Music in Lima, Peru.

He recently completed a tour of Argentina, having performed in the most prestigious venues in the capital (Teatro Colón and Usina del Arte) and held a Master-Class at the Instituto Superior de Arte do Teatro Colón.

In May 2009, he released his first record project – a CD with works by Fernando Lopes-Graça and António Victorino d'Almeida (dedicated work) [Numérica 1182 | 2009]. A new album, released in 2011 (together with Opus Ensemble and Duo Contracello) recorded the works premiered at the CRIASONS Festival [Numérica 1218 | 2011]. He has just edited two CDs with the complete work of Fernando Lopes-Graça for Quartet and Piano, with Olga Prats [Toccata Classics 0253 | 2014 and 0254 | 2015].

Within the scope of the activity plan Create Sons: Viver a Música em Portugal, supported by the Directorate-General for the Arts for the 2018-2019 biennium, the participation of the Lopes-Graça Quartet in the project “Joly Braga Santos – Integral de Música de Chamber".

Booklet for Portuguese Tributes to Beethoven