This may be old news which was dealt with before I joined the list, but
however...

Joly Braga Santos (1924-1988) is a Portuguese composer whose fifth symphony
I first encountered many years ago through a record club whose scattergun
approach to releasing interesting music from a wide variety of labels was
just the sort of thing a young(ish) music lover needed.  The record club
survived for about twenty years before being taken over by an outfit run
by cowboys whose advertising routinely tells you how many tracks are on a
CD of Beethoven symphonies (huge sigh).

Last year, Marco Polo released the 5th coupled with #1, which latter
revealed that Braga Santos had changed styles somewhere and #1 was written
in a less aggressive and less dissonant style.  Naturally, #5 didn't sound
nearly as "modern" as it did in 1973.  Shortly after, Marco Polo released
#3 and #6 and presumably #2 and #4 will follow eventually.

It's hard to provide any sort of handle on Braga Santos.  Eclectic, yes -
traces of Vaughan Williams, Debussy, Ravel, Sibelius, Copland, Walton and
others, some lovely long-lined melodies, blazing brass chorales, exciting
string writing.  I've listened to all four of these symphonies a lot and
have played them to friends who also like them.  I've forgotten which list
member coined "tingle" as a term for that feeling of excitement that some
really special new music gives you, but Braga Santos does it for me in
spades.

If you want to put your toe in the water, I'd try #3.  The day after I
first heard this, I read a rave review in Fanfare (Jan-Feb, IIRC).  In
the meantime, my tongue's hanging out for Vol 3.

Richard Pennycuick
[log in to unmask]