If any single work from Villa-Lobos’s vast output could be said to typify him, that might well be the 1917 symphonic poem (later ballet) Amazonas: extravagantly scored for an extremely large orchestra, and employing all kinds of special effects (playing on the wrong side of the bridge, string arpeggios in harmonics, uncouth brass noises, etc.), it creates an exotic image of an exuberant landscape dear to the composer’s heart. The evocative and intriguing opening, punctuated by violent eruptions and strange bird-song, broadens out into a dense texture that parallels the tangled luxuriance of the Brazilian rain forest. There is a story (carefully indexed) of an Indian girl bathing in the river, to punish whose pride the god of the winds sends a monster to pursue her, but I’m inclined to recommend listening to this simply as an orgy of colourful sound. Absolutely spectacular recording!
An even larger orchestra is needed (including an “internal ensemble” of E flat clarinet, saxophone quartet and percussion, and a brass fanfare group) for the Fourth Symphony of two years later, depicting varied emotions at victory after the First World War. Commentators have spoken of French and Stravinskian influences in Amazonas: here a more generalized Russian influence is unmistakable in the cast of some of the themes, even if the scoring is over the top in a big way (though there is delicacy too in parts of the scherzo-like second movement, and a beautiful quiet episode in the finale). The finest part of the work, to my mind, is the elegiac third movement, which shows the composer at his most inspired, concentrated and disciplined. For outstanding performances of these two works the orchestra merit the highest praise.
The Second Cello Concerto is a very much later and altogether more restrained affair, but still calling for considerable virtuosity, written in 1953 for Aldo Parisot. The Chilean cellist Andres Diaz responds confidently to all its demands (particularly the long and brilliant cadenza in the third movement, with its chordal glissandos), and invests the extended cantilena of the Andante with a gentle, poetic melancholy. In contrast to the original Parisot recording (HMV, 4/64 – nla), which excessively highlighted the soloist, the balance here is much truer, with orchestral detail better observed (even if Diaz’s tone is not of the largest). A warm recommendation for the whole disc.'