Title
Armande de Polignac: Piano Works
Composers
Armande de Polignac
Interpreters
Bruno Belthoise and João Costa Ferreira
Label: Grand Piano (Naxos)
Ref.: GP954
Year: 2026
Sponsors: Fondation Singer-Polignac, Les Nouveaux Talents
Prizes: Medal by the Fondation Singer-Polignac
Review: ★★★★☆ – Riccardo Risaliti in Musica: Rivista di cultura musicale e discografica (05/2026)
“Pianists Bruno Belthoise and João Costa Ferreira rightly bring to light a selection of Polignac’s piano works, some of which have never been recorded before. A discovery, recommended by Greet Van’t Veld.” (translated) – in De Keuze van Klara (11/04/2026)
“One wonders how this impressively vivid music has fallen into neglect […]. While the early Préludes are merely pleasant, much of the rest is impressive and on the strength of this excellent release her music certainly deserves attention.” – Rob Challinor in MusicWeb International (22/03/2026)
“… we start to discover the real gifts of this composer… an impressive exploration of sonority… All the performances are polished and assured, making the strongest possible case for this forgotten voice.” – in International Piano (03/2026)
“A magnificent discovery!” (translated) – Michel Dutrieue in Stretto (02/2026)
Title
José Vianna da Motta: Poemas pianísticos, Vol. 2
Composers
José Vianna da Motta
Label: MPMP Património Musical Vivo
Ref.: 9MCCD00081
Year: 2024
Sponsors: Rede de Teatros e Cineteatros Portugueses, Câmara Municipal de Leiria, República Portuguesa – Cultura / Direção-Geral das Artes, Fundação Millennium BCP, Fundação GDA, Camões – Centro Cultural Português em Paris, Antena 2, Les Nouveaux Talents, Ava Musical Editions
Review: “For the pianist, these were years of research; for the listener, they are minutes of delight.
[…]
João Costa Ferreira’s work is immense and spans nearly a decade, with performance constituting ‘only’ the final stage of the project. Before that, the pianist undertook a meticulous process of recovering the original scores, preserved at the National Library of Portugal – some of them deteriorated, with torn sections or overlapping notes – making a careful and precise analysis necessary in order to decipher the composer’s original intention.
This recording series thus represents more than a mere technical exercise in pianistic interpretation. It reveals an early side of Vianna da Motta (sic) while also offering a more complete view of his legacy and his specific cultural context.” (translated) – Maria Augusta Gonçalves in Jornal de Letras (05/03/2025)
Title
Une Semaine Du Petit Elfe Ferme-L’oeil, Suivi de La Petite Fille aux Allumettes
Composers
Florent Schmitt
Clara Belthoise Josse
Interpreters
Bruno Belthoise, Clara Belthoise Josse, Béatrice Belthoise and João Costa Ferreira
Adaptation
Bruno Belthoise and Béatrice Belthoise
Label: Frémeaux & Associés
Ref.: FA917
Year: 2024
Review: “x.” – x in x (xx/xx/xxxx)
Title
Dialogues | Diálogos
Composers
José Vianna da Motta; Jean-Pierre Deleuze; Gabriel Fauré; Sérgio Azevedo; Camille Saint-Saëns; Olga Silva; Florent Schmitt; Carlos Marecos; Fernando Lopes-Graça
Interpreters
João Costa Ferreira and Bruno Belthoise
Label: Coriolan / Inventive Art Music
Ref.: COR 202005
Year: 2022
Sponsors: Temporada Portugal-França 2022; Camões – Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua; Fundação GDA; Antena 2; AvA Musical Editions; Les Nouveaux Talents
Review: “If anything can immediately give tangible form to the France–Portugal Cross Season, celebrated last year between the two countries, and go beyond its spirit, it is this album by Bruno Belthoise and João Costa Ferreira […].
José Vianna da Motta, Fernando Lopes-Graça, Olga Silva, Carlos Marecos and Sérgio Azevedo meet here with the French composers Camille Saint-Saëns, Gabriel Fauré, Florent Schmitt, as well as the French-speaking Belgian Jean-Pierre Deleuze. The program is distinctive in being devoted exclusively to works for piano four hands, which literally multiplies the intersections, poses interpretative challenges – met in an absolutely and wonderfully successful way – and creates a sense of shared musical complicity that is truly contagious.
[…]
The physical edition of Dialogues, Diálogos also includes a bilingual booklet, with short texts presenting the project and each of the works […], forming a delightful kaleidoscope of stories, periods, and expressions that highlights the profound human dimension created by the program’s “dialogues”.” (translated) – Maria Augusta Gonçalves in Jornal de Letras (28/06/2023)
“We can only rejoice in [the discovery of Ein Dorffest by José Vianna da Motta], as this work has only recently been published and made available to music lovers, and we finally encounter here its sonic realization. It is a work of genuine joviality, which Bruno Belthoise and João Costa Ferreira offer us in this recording. It is worth noting that each movement shares the same thematic material, giving a clear sense of a particularly successful theme and variations, magnificently brought out by the two performers. […]
Bruno Belthoise has long been […] an interpreter and tireless advocate [of Florent Schmitt and his work Une Semaine du Petit Elfe Ferme-l’Œil], originally for piano four hands. I would venture to say that, together with João Costa Ferreira, Belthoise delivers here an essential interpretation: for example, the second movement, La cignone lasse, is performed with such emotion that it compels repeated listening in order to fully absorb this sarabande of ineffable mastery. And what can be said of the fifth and seventh movements (La ronde des lettres boiteuses and Le parapluie chinois), which quite literally make us bounce in our seats with excitement? […]
Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre […] does not go unnoticed in this recording: the famous orchestral work is here transformed into a true contemplative exploration of the timbral and orchestral nuances that a single piano can aspire to, especially in the hands of pianists of the caliber of Bruno Belthoise and João Costa Ferreira. […]
The remarkable performance of these two movements [from the work Mers mortes by Jean-Pierre Deleuze] by Bruno Belthoise and João Costa Ferreira deserves to be fully emphasized: the ability to convey to the listener this tension, this defiance, and consequently this liberating musical enjoyment, is only within the reach of top-tier musicians. […]
“Dialogues” is a recording of immense richness, a treasure of convergences and an essential testament to the refined artistic synergy of these two pianists, united in a single, fully vibrant beating heart. A synthesis of a Franco-Portuguese musical world of rare clarity and conviction.” (translated) – Nuno Jacinto in Da Capo, Revista Musical Portuguesa (28/02/2023)
“Franco-Portuguese friendship is celebrated on this recording. […] This album thus weaves connections between the two nations through a delightful repertoire of works for four hands. […] It is a beautiful recording!” (translated) – Rodolphe Bruneau-Boulmier in France Musique (04/01/2023)
Title
José Vianna da Motta: Poemas pianísticos, Vol. 1
Composers
José Vianna da Motta
Label: Movimento Patrimonial pela Música Portuguesa (mpmp)
Ref.: MPMPCD62
Year: 2020
Sponsors: Fundação INATEL, Fundação GDA, Antena 2, Les Nouveaux Talents, AvA Musical Editions
Awards: Honorable Mention by Grémio Literário
Crítica: “This is a newly revealed treasure of Portuguese music, and one of the most beautiful […]. This is the young Vianna da Motta, with all the instinct and genius that have always defined him — the young musician that the pianist and musicologist João Costa Ferreira discovered among the originals held at the National Library, and now presents in a series of “Pianistic Poems” of pure fascination. […] The “Pianistic Poems” in this first volume are accompanied, one by one, by illustrations from Mariana Santos – the artist Mariana, the Miserable – in a succession of exquisite drawings, each featuring a character uniquely connected to each piece. Music and illustrations together make the physical edition of this album one of the most beautiful objects produced in the recording market in recent times.” (translated) – Maria Augusta Gonçalves in Jornal de Letras (30/12/2020)
“The pianist João Costa Ferreira is probably the world’s leading specialist in the music of the Portuguese José Vianna da Motta. […] [This recording] is a collection of pieces that are like a kind of intimate notebook of his soul [but which] also immerses us in the soul of his country, where joy is always mingled with nostalgia. […] [This repertoire] is performed by someone who knows this music like no one else.” (translated) – Rodolphe Bruneau-Boulmier in France Musique (23/12/2020)
“Perhaps the revelation of the day, or even of the week, for the times ahead is this disc by João Costa Ferreira. […] Undoubtedly one of the major events of the beginning of this month […]: the revelation of Poemas Pianísticos. […] There is much to listen to, much to discover, including [the] extraordinary Inundações de Múrcia, Op. 28, which Vianna da Motta composed at the age of 11.” (translated) – Paulo Alves Guerra in Império dos Sentidos – Antena 2 (09/10/2020)
Title
Viana da Mota – Piano Works
Composers
José Vianna da Motta
Label: Grand Piano (Naxos)
Ref.: GP742
Year: 2018
Sponsors: Município de Leiria, Fundação Caixa Agrícola de Leiria; AvA Musical Editions, Antena 2
Review: “Dedicated to King D. Carlos, the first rhapsody is the longest and possibly the most demanding in terms of finger dexterity and virtuosic interpretation. […] João Costa Ferreira manages to convey the work’s coherence perfectly and masters its difficulties so completely that the listener doesn’t even get the impression that they exist.” (translated) – Christine Wassermann Beirão in Revista Portuguesa de Musicologia, v. 7, n. 2 (2020)
★★★★☆ “A very interesting recording that brings together an early “Berlin” piano work by José Vianna da Motta with the important cycle of the Cinco Rapsodias Portuguesas, although it is indicated as the “world premiere recording.” A very fine performance.” (translated) – Ritmo.es (11/2019)
“Imagine you have discovered long lost solo piano masterpieces by Franz Liszt, and you will have this disc of music by the Portuguese composer, José Vianna da Motta. […] His own output included a major volume of piano scores, the Fantasiestuck being a score that requires soloists of weight and command of the keyboard. By comparison, the Zwei Klavierstucke nacht A. Bocklin forms a lighter prelude to the brilliant Cinco Rapsodias Portuguesas. Dance elements, moments of Portuguese folk music, and a hint of church music combined in producing a colourful mosaic forty minutes in length. Surely if they had the name of Franz Liszt appended, they would form part of the standard repertoire of today’s technically brilliant performers, with big and juicy melodies jostling for inclusion. Of course they need a pianist with that vision of massive waves of sound, and in the young Portuguese, João Costa Ferreira, they have found an ideal interpreter. Never afraid to add appropriate rubati, nor to bring romance to the quiet moments as if in love songs, his playing is crystalline clear. The French recording of a Fazioli Grand is an object lesson in capturing a fine piano tone. My strongest recommendation for content, performance and sound in equal parts.” – David Denton in David’s Review Corner (02/2018)
“With his rigorously produced modern editions of these works and now this album (which largely comprises world premiere recordings), João Costa Ferreira is both shedding light on a little-known chapter of Portugal’s musical history and giving due recognition to a significant Portuguese contribution to the late-Romantic European piano repertoire.” – Rui Vieira Nery in CD booklet
Title
Lisboa-Paris: Bruno Belthoise & Ensembles
Composers
António Victorino D’Almeida; Edward Luiz Ayres d’Abreu; José Vianna da Motta
Interpreters
Bruno Belthoise and João Costa Ferreira
Label: Movimento Patrimonial pela Música Portuguesa
Ref.: MPMP | MPCD38 & MPCD39
Year: 2017
Sponsors: Antena 2; AvA Musical Editions; Fundação GDA
Review: “For several years, Bruno Belthoise has been responsible for a series of beautiful recordings of Portuguese piano repertoire, as well as for a constant and passionate activity promoting Portuguese music of the 19th and 20th centuries internationally. João Costa Ferreira will soon release an excellent disc on NAXOS entirely devoted to Vianna da Motta. Here they are together in this “Souvenir” for four hands by Master Vianna, […] part of a magnificent double CD by Bruno, fittingly titled “Lisbon – Paris”, featuring several live recordings, solo or in chamber ensembles, captured in recent years by RDP microphones. I spent last evening listening to it with delight, as I had previously with João’s disc. Two remarkable releases in a discography of Portuguese music that is fortunately expanding more and more thanks to the work of a new generation of Portuguese and international performers.” – Rui Vieira Nery in social media