Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasileiras Nos. 1, 2, 5 & 9 / ORTF National Orchestra, De Los Angeles [Original recording remastered]

Villa-Lobos (Artist, Composer), De Los Angeles (Artist, Performer), French Nat'l Radio (Artist, Orchestra), Victoria De Los Angeles (Artist), Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Francaise (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: De Los Angeles
• Orchestra: French Nat'l Radio
• Composer: Villa-Lobos
• Audio CD (January 12, 1999)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: EMI Classics
• ASIN: B00000GCAG
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #136,737 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

classical music cd - general

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Villa-Lobos conducts Villa-Lobos, January 19, 2000

By 

Henry Atherton (Seattle) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasileiras Nos. 1, 2, 5 & 9 / ORTF National Orchestra, De Los Angeles (Audio CD)

The portions of Bachianas Brasileiras most of us are familiar with are on this CD. Originally recorded in 1958,this title was digitally remastered at Abbey Road Studios in 1998. It is stunning. Victoria de los Angeles is the soloist and when I discovered this recording I found the exact voice for Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5., Aria. And Villa-Lobos' conducting is like his music - enormous range and power. I own several editions of Bachianas Brazileiras and only listen to this one.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the version to buy, January 10, 2003

By 

David R. Forrest (Rockville, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasileiras Nos. 1, 2, 5 & 9 / ORTF National Orchestra, De Los Angeles (Audio CD)

This is not intended to be a full review, but just a few comments:

1. If you haven't heard Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, you owe it to yourself to become familiar with this beautiful and haunting work.

2. I almost made the mistake of not buying this version because of its inferior sound quality (it's mono). The performance goes way beyond the recording techniques and the digital remastering makes this quite listenable.

3. Victoria de Los Angeles is amazing. Don't even breathe until the last echoes of the first movement have disappeared into silence. If you don't get chills up your spine, there's no hope for you.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The greatest masterpiece of Brazilian classical music!, June 6, 2004

By 

Ygor (Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasileiras Nos. 1, 2, 5 & 9 / ORTF National Orchestra, De Los Angeles (Audio CD)

This recording has everything we could wish from this complete masterpiece. The conductor is the composer himself, and Villa-Lobos manages to give us the real soul of his music. It doesn't only mean birds and forests, particularly because in my opinion he has never really meant to describe Brazilian nature, but Brazilian soul. Thus, we have moments that make us think of birds and forests in a sunny day, as well as other moments where we can hear deep feeling like love, solitude and that feeling that incredibly only the Portuguese language can describe in words: SAUDADE. It means that strange feeling we feel when we are far away from our home, from our lover, from our country. I've read another reviewer complaining about the fact that Bachianas Brasileiras n.5 isn't happy. Well, for me it's not happy and it's not sad. It's just 'saudade'. And the amazing soprano Victoria de los Angeles sings perfectly that aria, using her lyric voice and tearful timbre to give us one of the two best Bachianas Brasileiras n.5 I have ever heard (of course the other best is Bidu Sayăo).
The whole piece Bachianas Brasileiras is a delight to our ears and to our hearts. It's a wonderful deep masterwork that should be listened by everyone!

P.S.: Another reviewer told Victoria de los Angeles, being a Spanish soprano, should be able to sing perfectly the poem in the middle of the Bachianas Brasileiras n.5. However, I must remind you that the poems were written in Portuguese, which is much different from Spanish. While the writing may be similar, the Portuguese language and the Spanish language have quite different pronunciations.