RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra/Álvaro CassutoNaxos 8.572370 ***

The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and Portuguese conductor Álvaro Cassuto won a 2004 Cannes Classical Award for their recording of the Fourth Symphony by Portuguese composer Joly Braga Santos. They’ve since explored more Portuguese music together on disc, and here offer the Third Symphony by Luís de Freitas Branco (1890-1955). The work was written between 1930 and 1944 and first heard in 1947, though you’d hardly guess that either from the Brucknerian gravitas of the opening or the strange wisps of other music that make fleeting appearances. Like a word on the tip of the tongue, the symphony promises and promises but ultimately leaves one in an intriguing state of extended expectation. The previous collaborations are more straightforward. See url.ie/57c6