Heitor Villa⁠-⁠Lobos

The complete symphonies
A world-beating edition

Heitor Villa⁠-⁠Lobos

The complete symphonies
A world-beating edition

ALBUM 1 • 8.573829
Heitor Villa-Lobos’s first two symphonies take the European tradition head-on, absorbing French models prevalent in Brazil in the early 20th century. The confident swagger of the First Symphony is characteristic of Villa-Lobos’s ‘Brazilianness’, while the cyclical Second Symphony filters myriad influences including the music of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy and Puccini. Its slow movement 7 heralds the affecting melodic content that would later become the trademark of the Bachianas Brasileiras (Naxos 8.557460-62). This is the sixth and final volume of an acclaimed complete edition of Villa-Lobos’s symphonies in which ‘Karabtchevsky leads the way’ (Gramophone).

‘The São Paulo Symphony Orchestra brings something special to the music of their countryman. That shared heritage gives these symphonies an extra lift … all of Villa-Lobos’s surviving symphonies are available in first-rate performances.’ WTJU
★★★★
★★★★
Listen to an excerpt from
Symphony No. 1, ‘O Imprevisto’: I. Allegro assai moderato
ALBUM 2 • 8.573151
Villa-Lobos’s War and Victory Symphonies were commissioned by the Brazilian government following the end of the country’s involvement in World War I. Using very large orchestral forces, and conveying the composer’s feelings about the conflict with no sense of triumphalism, the two Symphonies display a confident use of unusual and evocative effects, such as the collage of fragments of the Brazilian national anthem and La Marseillaise in the ‘Battle’ movement of the Third Symphony.

‘A simply outstanding recording of two magnificent and scandalously neglected music … the music is important, and the performances are superb, as is the recording quality. A truly significant issue.’ Musical Opinion ★★★★★
★★★★
Listen to an excerpt from
Symphony No. 3, ‘War’: IV. The Battle: Allegro impetuoso
ALBUM 3 • 8.573043
Heitor Villa-Lobos is generally acknowledged as Latin America’s foremost nationalist composer and his best known works, such as the Bachianas Brasileiras (Naxos 8.557460–62), have tended to overshadow the rest of his work. Symphony No. 6, which launched his mature symphonic style, derives some of its themes from the contours of Brazilian hills and mountains, in a process devised by the composer to obtain a melody from an image by means of a graphic chart. The Symphony No. 7 is scored for a huge orchestra and is one of the composer’s most ambitious and significant statements. Both works represent the composer’s powerful desire to invent a specifically Brazilian idiom.

‘This superb new Naxos recording has the advantage of the full-blooded performance by Brazil’s magnificent orchestra, the São Paulo Symphony conducted by Isaac Karabtchevsky.’ ClassicalCDReview.com
★★★★
Listen to an excerpt from
Symphony No. 6, ‘On the Outline of the Mountains of Brazil’: III. Allegretto quasi animato
Listen to an excerpt from
Symphony No. 6, ‘On the Outline of the Mountains of Brazil’:
III. Allegretto quasi animato
ALBUM 4 • 8.573777
By the 1940s Heitor Villa-Lobos was widely recognised as Latin America’s greatest composer. Working in the United States gave him new perspectives, and his later symphonies move away from the folk influences and exotic effects of works written in the 1920s and 30s, such as the Bachianas Brasileiras, towards more concise, sometimes neo-Classical models. The Eighth and Ninth share a transparent lightness of touch while the Eleventh, described as a work of ‘immediate charm’, is the perfect introduction to the later work of Villa-Lobos.

‘The newly cleaned-up and edited scores, impressive playing by OSESP, and masterful, nuanced direction by Isaac Karabtchevsky, whose reputation has been very much burnished by this superb series, all come together to make this disc, and this series, something special.’ Music for Several Instruments (Top Ten Discs of 2017)
★★★★
★★★★
★★★★
Listen to an excerpt from
Symphony No. 11: II. Largo
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ALBUM 5 • 8.573243
Heitor Villa-Lobos was instrumental in developing a national Brazilian musical culture, writing in a wide variety of forms. Composed in 1954 for the 400th anniversary of the founding of São Paulo, Ameríndia is the composer’s largest symphony. Effectively a hybrid symphony and oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra, it is memorable for its stylistic variety and breadth, drawing on many different sources of Brazilian music. This recording is based on a newly revised edition made by Editora Criadores do Brasil (the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra’s publishing house) in collaboration with the Academia Brasileira de Música.

‘Massive, glittering and intricately coiled, Villa-Lobos’s 10th, ‘Ameríndia,’ is an anaconda of a symphony. This fine recording makes the most of the drama and simmering energy of Villa-Lobos’s dense score, but the work remains a perplexing, heavy heap of good intentions.’ The New York Times
★★★★
★★★★
Listen to an excerpt from
Symphony No. 10, ‘Ameríndia’: Part I – The Earth and Its Creatures
ALBUM 6 • 8.573451
Villa-Lobos’s Symphony No. 12, his last, was completed on his 70th birthday and shows no lessening of his powers, marrying symphonic craftsmanship with explosive energy, harmonic richness, and rhythmic vitality; a fitting summation of his symphonic canon. Uirapuru is one of his most original works, couched in a modernism that teems with colour and creates a specifically Brazilian sound world without drawing on folkloric elements, whilst Mandu-Çarará is a notably inventive, lush, and exciting but little-known secular cantata.

‘For the São Paulo Symphony, the music of Villa-Lobos is like coming home and celebrating a native son. They play with exuberance and passion. The program is filled with colorful, evocative music, with striking percussion and Latin rhythms. Lovers of Villa-Lobos will certainly enjoy this disc.’ Audiophile Audition ★★★★
Best Classical Albums 2015
★★★★★
★★★★
Listen to an excerpt from
Symphony No. 12: IV. Molto allegro