A SIX-CD VILLA-LOBOS COLLECTION JUST ISSUED BY NAXOS

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Heitor Villa⁠-⁠Lobos wrote eleven symphonies, written between 1916 and 1957. Ranging from his first five: nos. 1 –O Imprevisto (Unforeseen); 2 – Ascensão (Ascension); 3 – Guerra (War); 4 – A Vitória  (Victory); through the mature no. 6- Sobre a linha das montanhas do Brasil (On the Outline of the Mountains of Brazil); and numbers 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12; the tenth: Sinfonia ameríndia com coros (Amerindian Choral Symphony, and the lost 5th , they offer a panoramic aural landscape of the Brazilian composer’s talent.

Villa-Lobos – self-taught, alternately abhorred for his politics and admired by both his compatriots and the likes of Segovia, Milhaud and Rubinstein for his artistry – is a figure of great contrasts who found his true musical soul and inspiration in the sounds of Brazilian popular music.

At times his early works come off sounding derivative and pseudo-European, but when inspired and mature, his compositions burst forth with tremendous energy, Brazilian rhythmic pulse, and sweeping melody, never more than in his sixth and tenth symphonies and in the symphonic poem Uirapuru, a 1917 work subtitled O passarinho encantado (The Enchanted Little Bird) as enchanting a composition as the feathered subject of its title.

I highly recommend this six-CD Naxos collection (Naxos 8.506039) that continues the label’s invaluable ongoing exploration of Brazilian concert music, here played to utter perfection by the superb São Paulo Symphony Orchestra led by Isaac Karabtchevsky.

Rafael de Acha                  www.RafaelMusicNotes.com

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”