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)
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Symphony No. 11: II. Largo
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