GROUP TOGETHER, AVOID SPEECH

© Rui Teixeira | Casa da Música

“Group Together, Avoid Speech (2012) is exemplary, starting with an orchestral arrangement that could well have been signed by Nunes, placing a woodwind quartet and a string quintet on the first risers. This reinforces Vasco Mendoça's formulation of this score as a modern concerto grosso, extremely varied in the presence of solo voices and timbral colours, so that the dialogue with the works of Nunes and Ravel was as consistent as it was beautiful and direct.

Loosely inspired by T. S. Eliot's poem The Hollow Men (1925), on Group Together, Avoid Speech draws on influences ranging from Wolfgang Rihm in its first movement to Enno Poppe in the nocturnal second, through the delicate melismas of the solo viola and cello duo: one of the many chamber organisations through which Mendonça reorganises and enlivens the orchestra (…) a highly imaginative and texturally varied use of orchestral resources shines through. All this was reinforced by an Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto which, year after year, demonstrates its mastery of contemporary music, greatly improving its interpretative level thanks to continued work with some of the most prestigious conductors in this repertoire, as has once again been the case with Sylvain Cambreling.”

Paco Yañez | Scherzo, 24.01.24