Villa-Lobos: Piano Music [Import]

Heitor Villa-Lobos (Composer), Marc-André Hamelin (Performer), Marc-Andre Hamelin (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Marc-André Hamelin
• Composer: Heitor Villa-Lobos
• Audio CD (July 11, 2000)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Hyperion UK
• ASIN: B00004TQP5
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #111,034 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #95 in Music > Classical > Historical Periods > Modern, 20th, & 21st Century > Composers > Villa-Lobos, Heitor

Track Listings

1. As Tres Marias: Alnitah

2. As Tres Marias: Alnilam

3. As Tres Marias: Mintika

4. The Baby's Family - Ste No.1 (The Dolls): Branquinha (The Little White Porcelain Doll)

5. The Baby's Family - Ste No.1 (The Dolls): Moreninha (The Little Brunette Papier-Mache Doll)

6. The Baby's Family - Ste No.1 (The Dolls): Caboclinha (The Little Mestiza Clay Doll)

7. The Baby's Family - Ste No.1 (The Dolls): Mulatinha (The Little Mulatto Rubber Doll)

8. The Baby's Family - Ste No.1 (The Dolls): Negrinha (The Little Black Wooden Doll)

9. The Baby's Family - Ste No.1 (The Dolls): A Pobresinha (The Poor Little Rag Doll)

10. The Baby's Family - Ste No.1 (The Dolls): O Polichinello (Punch)

11. The Baby's Family - Ste No.1 (The Dolls): Bruxa (The Witch Cloth Doll)

12. The Baby's Family - Ste No.2 (The Little Animals): The Little Paper Cockroach

13. The Baby's Family - Ste No.2 (The Little Animals): The Little Cardboard Cat

14. The Baby's Family - Ste No.2 (The Little Animals): The Little Papier-Mache Mouse

15. The Baby's Family - Ste No.2 (The Little Animals): The Little Rubber Dog

16. The Baby's Family - Ste No.2 (The Little Animals): The Little Wooden Horse

17. The Baby's Family - Ste No.2 (The Little Animals): The Little Tin Ox

18. The Baby's Family - Ste No.2 (The Little Animals): The Little Cloth Bird

19. The Baby's Family - Ste No.2 (The Little Animals): The Little Cotton Bear

20. The Baby's Family - Ste No.2 (The Little Animals): The Little Glass Wolf

See all 21 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) wrote a copious amount of music, but his pieces for solo piano (numbering around 200) are some of his most memorable. Combining regional folksong motifs with complicated tonal structures, he created art-music that was instantly engaging (imagine Erik Satie growing up in one of the most rhythmically rich countries in the world). Marc-André Hamelin, never one to shy from a pianistic challenge, tackles four of Villa-Lobos's best-loved and most difficult solo works: As Tres Marias; A Prolo do Bebê, Suite No. 1; A Prolo do Bebê, Suite No. 2; and Rudepoema. The last--which translates to "Savage Poem"--is Villa-Lobos's longest work for solo piano and one of the most complex to comprehend, but Hamelin's accents and driving rhythms keep things interesting. On the two suites, Villa-Lobos is at his most playful, creating an aural picture of childhood (the first is devoted to dolls, the second to animals) with miniatures that vary from slow and sentimental ("Caboclinha") to fast and playful ("O camundongo de massa"). This is tough music, and Hamelin captures its magic, especially on the faster, driving pieces. The highlight may be the short piece "As Tres Marias," a pulsating and gorgeous work, whose melodic line was inspired by a pattern of stars Villa-Lobos had detected in the night sky. Great stuff. --Jason Verlinde

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hamelin's Best, August 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Villa-Lobos: Piano Music (Audio CD)

I thought I knew it all about Marc Andre Hamelin. I've seen him in concert, I've purchased all his discs. He's probably the best pianist alive today. But with the release of this disc, he moves into a different league entirely. Like Stephan Hough's Mompou disc, this release is monumental in that it couples a superior technique and tastefulness (enough to make a great pianist) with an awe-inspiring use of color and expression. Hamelin's playing on this disc moves me profoundly. Buy this and Hough's Mompou disc and you'll have two of the best piano discs ever released. You'll be sorry if you don't!

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolute Redemption., July 11, 2000

By 

offeck (New York, NY -- United States of America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Villa-Lobos: Piano Music (Audio CD)

Marc Andre Hamelin is a nonpareil, superlative pianist. Famous not only for his all-at-once breath-taking, hair-raising, jaw-dropping, and mind-boggling technique, but his uncanny sensitivity, crispness, and precision, Hamelin's ease and aplomb through neglected, forgotten, and virtually unknown masterpieces and their composers has made quite a career for him in his habit of one-disc summaries or essence compendiums. Though consistently dazzling and dizzying, scouring and scorching, outrageous and overwhelming, it was not until this disc that I warmed up to his performance-interpretations.

Hamelin's pianism is ravishing and utterly fascinating. He has a gorgeous, illuminating, and tremendously wide spectrum of brilliant but clean dynamic expression, a singing color, an impeccable sense of architecture and multi-voiced structure, and a prodigious ability that allows him to effortlessly sail through even the most mentally complex and technically murderous passages and daunting conundrums with panache and brio, immaculately, and at an even pace. Often ardent, elegant, and robust, Hamelin is always dexterous, avoiding over-indulgence.

Hamelin's gift for unhindered fluidity, not allowing technical limitations to demand tempos, and his attention to clarity and delineation make(s) him the ideal interpreter of strong, clearly chiseled structures, but, as if taking this for granted, in most of his playing, I hear a nonchalant disregard for the resolution of difficulties. A marvelous and enviable talent, yes, but everything under his fingers is controlled, too controlled, leaving out a lot of the potential melancholy, maelstrom, mysticism, inner-torment, poetry, pain, and enigmatic characteristic-qualities. Where disorder and struggle may be the overall purpose, Hamelin's lack of variation in touch and tone can make him sound univocal. He fails to dig beneath the notes. Everything is lightweight and attenuated rather than high-voltage, gargantuan, or menacing. Placing too great an emphasis on a constant and even texture and not enough emphasis on the involvement with impetuous interior qualities of shaping and voicing, and never igniting bravura, many pieces fall flat.

Hamelin's pursuit to provide his listener with understanding is and can be good, but, with some composers, they actually thrive incoherence, they want wrong notes, they want their piece to be unplayable. In a similar way to how happiness is a way of travel, not a destination, it is the journey that matters most, not the eventual or possible arrival. In order for certain things to be expressed, certain things have to be done, or made so they cannot be done, put just beyond the grasp of the pianist. Such things are necessary in order to educate him, to keep him involved, and to make him grow ever more impassioned. This is fundamental to the very essence and Soul of the music, and might also serve as the cause for its being neglected, forgotten, and virtually unknown in the first place. Here enters the inevitable `big' question. Should music be left as dead, unperformed and unheard if it is not going to be done full justice? Of course not. If it is ever to be realized, perfection will owe itself to the very existence of past imperfection.

This recital-disc is a collection of the most important solo piano works of the non-pianist Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), a man of raging passion, who, although claiming that his music was 'the fruit of an immense, ardent and generous land' is often criticized for extravagance and formlessness.

The disc's first selection, As Três Marias, The Three Marias, represents in three miniatures, in a very interesting, melodic, and delightful way, the three belts in the Belt of the constellation Orion. No mere child's-play are the second and third selections of the disc, A Prole do Bebê, The Baby's Family: the two suites are an adult's recollection of childhood, a reflection on the magical family-like world composed of a child's enchanting possessions. Audacious, seductive, teasing, astringent, and percussive, this music can be similar to Debussy in style, but the coloring, folk-like qualities, and rhythms are purely Latin American. The last selection and gem of this disc is Rudepoêma, Savage Poem, written for and dedicated as a musical portrait to Artur Rubinstein, also the dedicatee of a similar work by Stravinsky, the Three Movements from Petrushka - a difficult and remarkable virtuoso masterpiece, an exuberant barnstorming carnival, a larger than life tour de force, simultaneously driving, violent, and propulsive. Though this is definitely an improvement, I cannot say I prefer this Rudepoêma to his previous recording, each is unique, and both are quite good. I can say, however, that on this disc, everything works out just right, taking me closer to the heart of Villa-Lobos than I have ever known possible. Hamelin shows himself to be a true wizard, giving harrowingly eloquent, memorable, definitive, and timeless performances.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interpretive Powers Equal to technical - Finally!, October 9, 2000

By 

John Bradley (Tacoma, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Villa-Lobos: Piano Music (Audio CD)

Often times Hamelin's mammoth technique seems to take center stage with many of his studio recordings for better or worse. But this recording is very different, every phrase is carefully executed dynamics are tightly followed and he really lets the atmosphere of these charming works shine through. Don't get me wrong this is probably one of hamelins finer technical displays and a glance at the terribly unfriendly scores will show as much but he seems to finally have tapped into a tonal refinement that matches his rhythmic accuracy. Not entirely unlike prime michelangeli. Also very very good recorded sound. This truely is one of the finest piano albums I have ever heard. Also watch out for some Schumann from hamelin which will be his next release. Fantasy in C, symphonic etudes and a grand sonata. I just don't think its possible to top this though. absolutely wonderful.