Heitor Villa­Lobos was one of the most remarkable and prolific composers of his time. His 72­year life was a vessel from which music poured continuously – over 1000 works of all kinds. Revision and second thoughts were luxuries for which he had little time (or maybe inclination) and some variability in quality exists‚ as it does in the works of all composers of comparable prolificacy. Villa­Lobos was an ardent admirer of the music of Bach‚ to which the Bachianas pay tribute‚ but he was also 100 per cent Brazilian. Five of them contain ‘Bacho­Brazilian’ fugues‚ and other Baroque titles abound‚ but most have subtitles that announce specifically Brazilian connections. The most graphic of these is the Toccata with which No 2 ends: ‘Trezinho do Caipira’‚ a little train that chugs its tortuous way in the interior of Brazil. Villa­Lobos is said to have composed the piece during a one­hour journey on it‚ setting what may still be a musical land­speed record and suggesting that manuscript paper was to him what an umbrella is said to be to an archetypal Englishman‚ something that is always to hand. The variety extends to the instrumental forces: No 1 is for an orchestra of cellos (a favourite instrument of the composer). No 5 is for soprano voice and eight cellos and contains the most justly famous of all Villa­Lobos’s melodies‚ the Aria – which has words only in the central section‚ the final part is directed to be sung bocca chiusa. No 6 is entrusted to a flute and a bassoon‚ and No 3 is for piano and orchestra. The soloist in the performance directed by Villa­Lobos is Manoel Braune‚ whose 91­year­old widow still works for the Cultural section of the Brazilian Embassy in London! In his later years Villa­Lobos became increasingly intolerant of interpretations that differed from his own‚ so we may take his own recordings as benchmarks. How he might have felt about the movements in which Karabtchevsky’s tempos differ significantly from his own we will never know. In four of these‚ No 1/II‚ No 2/I‚ No 7/III and No 9‚ Villa­Lobos’s slower tempos add more generous breadth to the music. Conversely‚ in No 2‚ Karabtchevsky’s slower little train chugs its way up a steeper gradient. The various soloists in the Harmonia Mundi set acquit themselves very well‚ though Leila Guimaraes does not match Victoria de Los Angeles’ memorably fine­drawn pianissimo on the final note of the Aria of No 5. Karabtchevsky is as faithfully in tune with this music as may reasonably be expected of one so far removed from Brazil and Villa­Lobos. The recordings on which Villa­Lobos conducted date from 1956 and have transferred to compact disc very well‚ indeed they have slightly greater warmth of sound than the later (1987) digital ones; in the latter the flute’s contribution to the ‘conversation’ in No 6 occasionally sounds shrill. The gramophone enables later generations to hear music as it was played in a composer’s own time‚ and sometimes (as here) under his own direction. For that reason I give the palm to the EMI set‚ though it comprises eight discs in toto‚ while the newcomer has only the three necessary for the entire Bachianas‚ housed in a neat cardboard gatefold case. What it occasionally lacks is some of the fire and intensity conveyed to the performers by the charismatic composer himself. Either set will delight any lover of music that is strongly melodic‚ heart­on­sleevedly romantic‚ vividly orchestrated‚ wholly idiomatic and written by a self­taught composer of boundless imagination. Warmly recommended.