Francisco Mignone was a Brazilian composer, active in the 1920s when the art of
Villa-Lobos was at its height; he continued to write music almost until his death in 1986. The piano music heard on this disc has little of
Villa-Lobos' modernism in it, although it has some of the semi-popular qualities of an earlier Brazilian composer, Ernesto Nazareth. Mignone was shaped not by French influences like
Villa-Lobos but by Italian ones: he was trained in Italy, and his subsequent champions in the Americas were
Toscanini and, later,
Eugene Ormandy. At least in the piano music here, which covers most of his career, he never abandoned Romantic, melody-based styles, and he had considerable skill as a melodist. Mignone did draw heavily on Brazilian popular styles, and he was perhaps at his best when he did so. Sample the two Valsas de esquina (Streetcorner Waltzes, tracks 8 and 9), or the Valsas-Choro (tracks 20 and 21), short pieces that artfully evoke not only the forms but also the textures of little bands of street musicians. In the more abstract pieces, where Mignone holds close to the nationalistic forms that had come all the way down from
Chopin, he has a tendency to sound a bit precious. Pianist
Clélia Iruzun, who knew Mignone and was the dedicatee of the Cinco peças para piano when she was young (it is a pleasant set of pedagogical pieces), is an enthusiastic exponent of his music, which in no way pushes boundaries but is worth rediscovering, especially for musicians who are putting together new kinds of programs based on Latin American popular rhythms -- a rhythmically vigorous work like the Dança de Botocudo, based on the music of a native Brazilian tribe, could be played off against the music of
Piazzolla or even
Lecuona in interesting ways.