The hugely prolific Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos remained throughout his career fiercely independent of any one compositional style or influence.

Is Heitor Villa-Lobos the last great 20th century composer to be rediscovered? Because he wrote so much, it's easier to sidestep rather than face his overwhelming catalog point by point. The folks at Naxos, though, are tackling his Amazonian output, starting with the piano music. Brazilian pianist Sonia Rubinsky controls the undulating chordal syncopations in the wonderful Book One of A Prole do Bebê with a left hand propelled by an imaginary, rock-steady rhythm section, and never lets the pungent dissonances overshadow the melodies. Rarely heard, the delightful Cirandas are virtually the Brazilian equivalant of Bartok's folk-inspired character pieces. The improvisatory Hommage à Chopin evokes the Polish master's decorative syntax, filtered through Villa-Lobos' more lush keyboard deployment. Rubinsky is both on top and inside of the Brazilian composer's idiom, and her vivid playing is beautifully reproduced. As they say in Portuguese: "um CD sensacional."

– Jed Distler

Originally issued on Marco Polo, these performances make a welcome reappearance on the Naxos label. Villa-Lobos used the "Chôro", a popular type of urban street music found in Rio de Janeiro, as the basis for a new and vibrant type of orchestral composition. Chôros No. 8 evokes a primeval Amazonian jungle with its wonderfully vivid sound-imagery. By making extensive use of Brazilian rhythms and percussion, particularly the caracaxa, which sounds like a huge set of maracas, Villa-Lobos gives the music an impetuous, even sinister feel. This powerful rhythmic thrust pervades throughout, taking a strangely Coplandesque turn for a brief mid-point sequence that brings to mind El salon Mexico.


Chôros No. 9 opens in a brightly festive atmosphere, punctuated by kinetic bass drum thuds. In its colorful character, varied moods, and scenes that segue one into another, the piece is reminiscent of Respighi's Feste Romane (though there's nothing Italianate about Villa-Lobos' language). This is fun stuff--mysterious, exciting, and sensuous--and it's all done with astonishingly authentic flair by the Hong Kong Philharmonic (they really whack the percussion!) under conductor Kenneth Schermerhorn. The 1985 recordings retain their clarity, but also their tendency to brightness. At the Naxos price, this is an irresistible invitation to sample the music of this Brazilian master.
--Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com

We have long needed a good modern recording of the complete Bachianas Brasileiras, and this set fills the bill nicely. It was exactly 20 years ago, back in 1985, that the late Kenneth Schermerhorn made one of the most distinguished contributions to the early Marco Polo catalog in the form of Villa-Lobos' Choros Nos. 8 and 9, with the Hong Kong Philharmonic. So it's fitting that the maestro returns to the field of his early success two decades later in this valedictory release.


There has been a good deal of recording activity in several of these works, including the recent BIS disc of Nos. 2-4, but no really good complete set has appeared since the old EMI/Batiz edition with the Royal Philharmonic. That includes the composer's own mono recordings, which are useful as guides to pacing and phrasing but are technically third rate in terms of orchestral playing. Jesus Lopez-Cobos on Telarc (Nos. 2, 4, and 8) and Michael Tilson Thomas on RCA (Nos. 4, 5, 7, and 9) also have weighed in successfully with single discs, though the latter's habit of gussying up the composer's orchestration with a hyperactive glockenspiel part is both tacky and annoying.


This newcomer improves on most of these in several respects, not least the remarkably rich and full string playing of the Nashville Symphony in Nos. 1, 5, and 9. The orchestra's cellos in particular reveal an excellent corporate sense of rhythm and well-focused intonation, with none of that grinding and rumbling in the lower register that can ultimately prove so aurally fatiguing. In No. 5, soprano Rosana Lamosa's quick vibrato may not be to everyone's taste, but I like the earthy timbre of her voice. It suits the music and sounds remarkably similar to the tone of the solo cello that partners her. José Feghali's characterful piano playing represents an improvement over the less imaginative Jean Louis Steuerman on BIS, though for me this still remains the weakest piece in the set. None of the extant versions conceals the music's tendency to ramble.


In No. 4, the BIS recording is more spectacular, with excitingly present percussion that sounds rather muffled here (though not in No. 2's famous final toccata). But Schermerhorn delivers the more flavorsome performance, full of riotous color and that feeling of organized chaos that makes the music so exotic and so much fun. The orchestra's principal flute and bassoon play No. 6 as well as anyone has, and the full ensemble really does itself proud in Nos. 7 and 8. It's always worth keeping in mind that Nashville is a musical city, and the style of music really isn't the issue. What matters is the opportunity for first rate instrumentalists to find regular work, whether in the Nashville Symphony or in the studio, and the result is an ensemble of crack players with the ability to learn quickly and play accurately.


The orchestra's sheer professionalism, allied to Schermerhorn's lively and sympathetic response to the composer's idiom, pays big dividends here--because let's face it, some of these pieces aren't even repertory items in Brazil. Consider, for example, that the last complete set from that country regularly available, featuring the Brazil Symphony under Isaac Karabtchevsky, arguably was the worst of them all. The sonics here ideally could be a touch clearer, as noted above in connection with No. 4, but otherwise all credit goes to Naxos, Schermerhorn, the orchestra, and conductor Andrew Mogrelia (in No. 1) for giving us a wonderful new cycle of this richly rewarding and vibrant music at a price that everyone can afford.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Includes song(s) by Heitor Villa-Lobos. Ensemble: Mobius. Soloists: Lorna McGhee, Alison Nicholls.

Henry Vieuxtemps was a violin prodigy who became a towering figure in a line of violinist-composers that stretches from Viotti to Ysaÿe, and whose playing led to Schumann’s statement that he “holds us in a kind of magic circle”. Influenced in part by Paganini, Vieuxtemps’s solo works demand the full arsenal of virtuoso techniques from lightning speed to the purest singing tone. The Etudes, Op. 48 include a piece subtitled ‘Torment’, while the Six Morceaux represent the composer’s homage to Bach in their polyphonic style.

VIEUXTEMPS: Viola and Piano Music

Vieuxtemps was a towering figure in the long line of master 19th-century violinistcomposers, from Viotti, Rode, Bériot and Paganini to Wieniawski, Kreisler and Ysaÿe, and one of the first to use the full Romantic orchestral palette in the composition of works with soloist. Composed during his Russian sojourn, the ornate and virtuosic Fantasia appassionata reaches a fast and furious conclusion, as does the wistful yet dignified Ballade et Polonaise. Yankee Doodle and The Star-Spangled Banner are quoted to great effect in Greeting to America.

Pauline Viardot, daughter of the famous tenor, composer, operatic impresario and teacher, Manuel Garcia, and friend of Schumann and Chopin, was a mezzo-soprano and composer. Her Violin Sonatina in A minor reflects her operatic background with its long melodic lines. Her son Paul, the dedicatee of Faure's great A minor Sonata, wrote three beautifully crafted, expressively rich violin sonatas over an almost fifty-year period.

Verdi: Requiem - Quattro Pezzi Sacri

VERDI: Opera Choruses

VERACINI: Overtures and Concertos, Vol. 1

Here's an enormously useful and enjoyable disc containing some well-known favorites (Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, Toward the Unknown Region), alongside three rarities. The Voice out of the Whirlwind is a setting of words from the book of Job, and it consists of a vocal arrangement of the Galliard of the Sons of Morning from Ralph Vaughan Williams' eponymous ballet. It works quite well in this vocal setting. Willow-Wood is a very beautiful cantata for baritone, (mostly) wordless female chorus, and orchestra to a text by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Composed in the first decade of the 20th century, the music's sweetness and serenity anticipates the much later Serenade to Music.


The Sons of Light, a choral setting of three poems by the composer's wife, Ursula Wood, comes from the very end of Vaughan Williams' career, and it's full of those glittering sounds familiar from the last three symphonies. It was recorded once before, for Lyrita, but never released on CD, and it deserves to be better known. The performances here are all very good. Baritone Roderick Williams shows some unsteadiness in his lower register but otherwise sings with excellent diction and warm tone. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic plays very well for conductor David Lloyd-Jones, and the chorus, if not the last word in precision, sounds quite comfortable with music that's fun to sing and not too difficult to master. Very good sonics complete an essential addition to the Vaughan Williams discography. [2/8/2006]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Naxos is putting together a very good Vaughan Williams symphony cycle, featuring exciting performances on the whole, and this newcomer is no exception. Paul Daniel launches the Fourth Symphony with plenty of thrust and violence, and particularly in the last two movements he manages to reveal ear-catching detail without the need to suck any wind out of the music's sails. If I have any quibble at all, it's that the Bournemouth players don't have quite the weight in the heavy brass and lower strings that the music ideally demands, and I think Daniel makes too much out of the ritard in the symphony's closing measures (up to that point the coda has a full dose of nastiness). But that's a pretty short list in a symphony that seldom sees impressive performances on disc. This is certainly one.


I have no issues at all with the couplings, which really are terrifically well done. The Norfolk Rhapsody has plenty of poetry in its contemplative passages, but it also projects powerful climaxes. Flos Campi, a rarity in concert and certainly one of the composer's most sensual and personal creations, gets a much bigger, more dramatic reading than usual, with the intensity of its more voluptuous and energetic sections all but overwhelming. The wordless chorus has particular atmosphere, the engineers not making the mistake of miking the singers too closely (they have no words, after all). In fact, the warm but clear sonics complement all of this music very nicely. I suspect I will return to this release often, particularly for the luscious reading of Flos Campi--but then the whole disc is really very good. [2/7/2005]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Symphony No. 2, 'London' / The Wasps Overt