If any parallels existed between Bach and Brazilian idioms, they were largely in Villa-Lobos’s mind – even the Fugue in No. 8 of these Bachianas Brasileiras is totally un-Bach-like; so anyone coming fresh to these exotically coloured, rather sprawling works should not be misled by false expectations. But fascinating, indeed haunting, in a highly individual way, they are; and the present performances are welcome, all the more since no other version of No. 8 is currently available.
In view of the composer’s sublime indifference to instrumental practicalities (as, for instance, the feasible length of a trombone glissando), his carelessness over detail in his scores, his Micawber-like trust that problems of balance he had created would be sorted out in performance, the chaotic state of the printed scores and orchestral parts of his music (littered as they are with wrong notes and questionable points), and numerous misreadings in past performances, the only half-way reliable yardstick for conductors or critics is the composer’s own recordings, made in the 1950s and now preserved in a six-CD box on EMI.
Compared to them, the present issue shows a number of differences. Chief of these is the warmer, more generalized sound, with less emphasis on clarity of detail. This works reasonably well in the Preludio of No. 8, where concentration on the melodic line and the adoption of a slower tempo aid the movement’s lyricism (likewise the more sentimental approach to the Aria of No. 2); the Aria of No. 8 is unquestionably more poetic and the Dansa of No. 4 lighter; but in the most famous movement, the hilarious and ingenious “Little train of the Caipira” of No. 2, the rasps near the start and the clatter of wheels on the track (evoked by the fiendishly difficult piano part) are far too subdued in favour of the ‘big tune’.
Lopez-Cobos deals persuasively with knotty questions of balance such as in the middle section of No. 3’s Toccata, and brings to the fore the bell-like araponga bird’s cry in No. 4’s Coral, but makes less of that movement’s jungle screeches. He makes clear the thematic link between the sections of No. 4’s Aria, and seeks to overcome the repetitious pattern of its Preludio by taking a faster speed rather than by the wealth of tonal nuance the composer himself introduced. Perhaps such detailed comparisons are superfluous: enjoy, enjoy!'