Music lovers who thought Brazil’s only musical exports were samba and bossa nova got a pleasant shock on Sunday when La Jolla Music Society brought young Brazilian violinist Guido Sant’Anna to La Jolla’s Baker-Baum Concert Hall.
Classical music may not be immediately associated with Brazil, but it has a rich history there. The work of Hector Villa-Lobos, its greatest composer, including Bachianas Brasileiras (Brazilian Bach-pieces) has stood the test of time, and pianist Nelson Freire (who died in 2021) built a formidable reputation through refined interpretations of Chopin, Brahms, Liszt and, naturally, Villa-Lobos.
Like Freire, Sant’Anna, born in Sao Paulo, was a child prodigy. At seven, he made his orchestral debut, and by high school (at Graded – the American School of São Paulo), he was demonstrating talent not only in violin but electric guitar (a YouTube clips shows him ably burning through Van Halen’s ‘Eruption’). At 17, he became the first South American to win the International Fritz Kreisler Competition. Last October, he made his North American debut in Chicago.
Absolutely nothing about his recital with pianist Henry Kramer on Sunday hinted at any limits to Sant’Anna’s future potential. Powered by his 1874 Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, Sant’Anna delivers a strong, clean tone, neither “wiry” nor overlush — expressive no question but with a mature restraint and moderate vibrato. On stage, he projects a relaxed, almost athletic poise, as if he knows there’s nothing he can’t handle. While playing, he makes big deliberate steps back and forth, as if ballroom-dancing the music, with the occasional shoulder jerk of an Olympian limbering up. In other words, he commands your attention.
Sant’Anna’s opening reading of Chausson’s Poème (1896) was masterful: keening, aching, but never unbridled, sentimental, overwrought. That tone continued in the first movement (Allegretto) of Ravel’s ambitious Sonata in G Major (1927). But in the second movement (Blues: Moderato), Sant’Anna and Kramer showed an unbuttoned side: swinging, jazzy chops that never vamped for the audience or manhandled the score (Ravel insisted that whatever the movement’s American inspiration, it was “French music, Ravel’s music”).
Following the “fine Gallic frenzy” (Adam Loft’s phrase) of the last movement’s Perpetuum mobile — which inspired a ‘Woo!’ or two from the hall — Sant’Anna and Kramer began swinging even wider with their full-on execution of Igor Forlov’s demanding 1991 arrangement of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Where Kramer’s role felt supportive in the recital’s opening span, he emerged as Sant’Anna’s equal partner from Ravel’s Blues into the Gershwin and on. The personality and rhythmic drive he infused helped the duo kick up quite a few decibels before Sant’Anna’s last upstroke sparked a standing ovation and general clamor. Exchanging “We pulled it off” grins, the pair took their break.
Post intermission, Sant’Anna and Kramer offered Clara Schumann’s Three Romances (op. 22), her penultimate composition before, widowed at age 36, she turned to a better-paying career: concertizing. After the soulful fun of Gershwin, these gentle pieces felt a bit perfunctory, but Sant’Anna and Kramer fully refocused for Schubert’s Fantasy in C Major(1827). Its hurdles for the violinist include rapid runs, double stops, harmonics, and difficult bowing.
But the piano part’s challenges, from fast passagework to tricky arpeggios, have earned it a reputation as “the most difficult music ever written for the piano” (Nikolai Lugansky). Again, Kramer stepped up, driving the opening Andante molto forward until Sant’Anna’s delicate dance in the Allegretto shifted the mood.
After the duo unfurled Schubert’s increasingly complex variations on Sei mir gegrüsst, Kramer reset the mood with the Allegro vivace’s jaunty, regal theme, which Sant’Anna echoed. After Kramer sang the Allegretto’s (A flat major) lyrical melody, the duo raced together through the exultant Presto. As the hall rose to its feet, it was obvious had Kramer had fully earned top-billing rights with Sant’Anna.
Their encore, Fritz Kreisler’s Schön Rosmarin, reminded everyone where Sant’Anna’s sights are justifiably set: the top.
Paul Bodine is a San Diego writer.