Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The greatest version of the Etudes and Preludes, November 27, 2007
There are lots of recordings of the etudes and preludes by Villa-Lobos. Most of them copy the style of Julian Bream. Listeners do not always realize how important the performer is in defining a work. Pieces like these can be interpreted in an infinite variety of ways. Bream set our ears to hear them this way, and most performers would be hard-pressed to imagine them any other way. One feels as if Bream found the path through the Villa-Lobos jungle that leads to Amazonian Nirvana. It's a tremendous accomplishment, and one for which I rarely hear Bream credited. These have been hard to find. I recommend them to anyone who is studying these works, and to anyone who just wants to treat their ears and their souls to the pure luxury of Villa-Lobos's special brand of genius, performed by the REAL master of the guitar.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Villa Lobos/Bream, June 3, 2005
This has been my favourite CD for a considerable period. A must for anyone who listens to classical music. The concerto is a masterpiece, the use of texture and tone colour by Villa Lobos superb, with some truly excellent woodwind parts. Not to mention the guitar part - treated with the sensitivity and virtuosity of which only Bream is capable, it displays what must be some of the finest idiomatic guitar-writting ever. It surprises me that so few people have reviewed this as yet. Then there are the preludes and etudes, Bream's reccording of which - because of more advanced technology and to some extent, more sophisticated treatment - surpass Segovia's considerably, in this reviwer's opinion (please no hate mail!).
In sum: buy it or your a mofo.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For Villa-Lobos on guitar, start here!, September 26, 2008
This music was recorded by Bream for two different RCA LP albums. The first one was 1971's JULIAN BREAM PLAYS VILLA LOBOS with the Five Preludes, the Schottish-Choro (omitted here) and the Concerto with the LSO under Previn. It was one of the more appealing and outstanding recordings ever made of classic guitar. Bream's touch was warm and intimate and the sound was more tactile and varied in timbre than any other recording of guitar I have ever heard. The 1978 recording of the Twelve Etudes was also masterful; the influence of his duet partner, John Williams, was evident in his strong playing. That LP also included the "Suite Populaire Brasilienne", omitted here.
This is a good collection. No one has ever played Villa-Lobos better than this.
BTW: The photo of Bream on the insert is from the 1978 album. While it's great, of course, to picture the artist, it's also a shame that RCA didn't go with the brilliant and exotic, Rousseau-like painting which graced the first LP's jacket - a close-up of a lush green tropical setting wherein a hummingbird hovers over a broad leaf shaped like a guitar. It was a perfect representation of the spirit of this music by a man who said of himself, "I AM the jungle".
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