Search - Villa-Lobos, French Nat'l Radio, Victoria De Los Angeles :: Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasileiras Nos. 1, 2, 5 & 9 / ORTF National Orchestra, De Los Angeles

Villa-Lobos conducts Villa-Lobos

Henry Atherton | Seattle | 01/20/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The portions of Bachianas Brasileiras most of us are familiar with are on this CD. Originally recorded in 1958,this title was digitally remastered at Abbey Road Studios in 1998. It is stunning. Victoria de los Angeles is the soloist and when I discovered this recording I found the exact voice for Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5., Aria. And Villa-Lobos' conducting is like his music - enormous range and power. I own several editions of Bachianas Brazileiras and only listen to this one."

This is the version to buy

David R. Forrest | Rockville, MD United States | 01/10/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is not intended to be a full review, but just a few comments:1. If you haven't heard Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, you owe it to yourself to become familiar with this beautiful and haunting work. 2. I almost made the mistake of not buying this version because of its inferior sound quality (it's mono). The performance goes way beyond the recording techniques and the digital remastering makes this quite listenable. 3. Victoria de Los Angeles is amazing. Don't even breathe until the last echoes of the first movement have disappeared into silence. If you don't get chills up your spine, there's no hope for you."

The best record of Bachianas

Robert | 01/02/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"During his life, Heitor Villa-Lobos recorded almost all his orchestral works, mainly in France with ORTF Orchestra.



I see some customers saying this Bachianas collection isn't a wonderful recording quality (it was recorded in the 50's), this is mono, etc, etc.



I think some listeners are bad accustomed with digital recording, with technologically perfect sounds, superb mastering, and things like that, and they seems forget the principal: the quality of music, of the composition. How many Cds are so "perfect" in recording quality, and the recorded music is a trash, with no artistic value?



So, in my opinion this Bachianas recording is one of the best classical music recording of the XX century, because it has the own composer direction. A few classical composers got the opportunity to record their music with their own interpretation. At this point, Villa-Lobos was probably the most successful composer of all times (neither Stravinsky nor Richard Strauss recorded so many works during their lives).



In this collection, we have the rare opportunity to listen the music as the composer imagined.



About the music, I can say Bachianas Brasileiras has a melancholic taste at all. I agree with the review that say "this isn't happy, sunny day, birds, etc". Just the third movement of the Bachiana 8 (Catira Batida, an old brazilian folk dance) has a happy feeling. Even so, the middle of this movement is a melancholic valse in the old style of Rio de Janeiro serenaders (chorões).



But the "Trenzinho do Caipira" ("country train" of Bachiana 2), the Martelo dance (second movement of the famous Bachiana 5), and all the other dance movements have a pinch of melancholy, a characteristic of the neo-romantic style.



If you want to listen some more animated Villa-Lobos music, search for the "Choros" serie, "Mandú-Çarará", "Prole do Bebê" (Baby's Family), "Momoprecoce" (Carnival of the Brazilian children), and more of his early compositions, which has more freshness, vivid colors and stronger rhythm, including exciting percussion instruments.

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