Naxos’s acclaimed survey of Luís de Freitas Branco’s orchestral works continues with his magisterial Third Symphony which, although composed in 1944, revels in Romantic melodrama...

Naxos’s acclaimed survey of Luís de Freitas Branco’s orchestral works continues with his magisterial Third Symphony which, although composed in 1944, revels in Romantic melodrama and luminous orchestral sonorities. The brooding, agitated atmosphere of his tone poem The Death of Manfred for strings contrasts with the expansive Suite Alentejana No. 2, with its evocations of the rural landscape, folklore and village life of the Alentejo region south-east of Lisbon, where the composer owned a large estate and composed many of his works.