Bomtempo: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2

"It's good to see that Naxos has embraced Bomtempo, previously pretty much the hegemony of Strauss. The latter company has released a slew of his music over the last few years, including volumes of the piano sonatas and a splendid Kyrie and Gloria. They've also released their own performances of the symphonies performed here, which I've not heard.

He was an assimilator rather than an inventor and in the case of the First Symphony sails close to Haydn's prevailing aesthetic. The first movement is classical almost to a fault but has knowledgeable use made of wind writing and well judged moments of lyrical relaxation. Bomtempo places the Minuet and trio before the slow movement; it's a mite generic, with no great identifying touches but is deftly constructed. The conductor Álvaro Cassuto has added two trumpets to the timpani part in the Andante sostenuto on the grounds that there is no trumpet part at all and that those works that influenced Bomtempo never used timpani without trumpets. This I suspect distinguishes this recording from that on Strauss, with the Hanover Philharmonic under César Viana.

The Second Symphony - neither seems to be datable - is a much bigger work with a Beethovenian-sized opening movement and an air generally of a more considered sensibility. Whilst it lacks the earlier symphony's geniality and freshness it has qualities of its own. The fluent Allegro moderato cleaves to the hinterland of Romanticism - nice, avian flutes and a bold compositional palette on broadly predictable lines and rather overstretched for its (here sixteen minute) length. The Allegretto has pertly delightful immediacy - and strikes a far keener and more personalised note; entrancing counter themes and a truly operatic, vocalised impress; was this the great aria he never wrote? The finale is vigorous, lithe, in sonata form but with a witty pizzicato band march theme. The humour is puckish, the wind choirs are prominent, and the strings answer with felicitous drama. The attacca playing here is particularly good.

The sound quality, recorded in the University of the Algarve, is rather recessed and muffled and has a veiled quality that tends to distance listening. The orchestra doesn't sound too big and sometimes lacks heft in some of Bomtempo's more vigorous outbursts (there are a few). Otherwise this has been another pleasant re-acquaintance with Portugal's leading classicist composer."
- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb, October 2004

João Domingos Bomtempo was born in Lisbon in 1771, the son of an Italian oboist, member of the orchestra of the Royal Court of Lisbon. He studied music in Lisbon's Patriarchal Seminary, and in 1795, after his father's death, he was appointed principal oboist of that orchestra. Unlike most Portuguese composers of the eighteenth century who went to Italy to pursue their musical studies, Bomtempo established himself in Paris in 1801. He was, certainly by nature as well as by education, a cosmopolitan personality, as may also be concluded by the fact that he was a free-mason. In Paris, and later in London, Bomtempo developed a brilliant career as a pianist and composer. A friend of Muzio Clementi, he absorbed the new pianistic style of this Italian composer, pedagogue and music publisher. The success of his public concerts led to the publication of his works by Leduc. After the first performance of his first symphony in Paris in 1809, he established himself in London. Clementi became his publisher, and his first symphony was published as Opus 11, in a four-hands piano version.

In 1820 Bomtempo returned to Lisbon, where in 1822 he founded the Philharmonic Society, with which he widely contributed toward the development of the Portuguese musical establishment. In 1833, when the Lisbon Conservatory of Music was founded, he was appointed its Director. He also published various pedagogical works, including a Method for the Piano and Elements of Music.

Bomtempo composed music for different musical ensembles. Among his works, the most important ones are, in addition to many compositions for the piano, his five concertos for piano and orchestra, his Requiem in Memory of Camões and the two symphonies here included, although early musicologists mention that he composed a total of six symphonies.

Symphony No.1 shows the influence of Haydn and Mozart. It follows the classical form despite the fact that the second movement is a Menuet, and not the usual Andante. The first movement has a slow introduction and its Allegro section follows sonata form. The Menuet has the usual contrasting Trio and the third movement (Andante sostenuto) develops along the lines of a free set of variations, with an emphasis on the use of the wind instruments. The work is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns and timpani. The oldest existing copy of the full orchestral score is in the handwriting of a copyist. Curiously, it has no trumpets. Since the timpani part is independent of that of the horns, and since the symphonies which directly influenced Bomtempo do not use timpani without trumpets, I have added two trumpets to the timpani part. The score and parts of this symphony were published in 1963 by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.

Symphony No. 2 is a work of much larger scope and dimension. Its musical style is clearly more Romantic than that of the first symphony and its form much broader and more fluid. Of particular interest is the lyricisim of the Allegro moderato, which follows the slow introduction of the first movement. Its sheer size reminds us of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony. Equally original is the second movement, whose rhythmic character is interrupted by a theme which resembles more an operatic aria than the middle section of an orchestral slow movement. Also noteworthy is the ease with which the Trio becomes part of the Menuet and the freedom with which the Finale develops, always following the sonata form but without apparent submission to any pre-established musical form. The orchestration of the Second Symphony is the same as that of the first, with the addition of two trombones. Perhaps this indicates that Bomtempo may have known Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony at the time when he composed this work.
- Álvaro Cassuto