Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasileiras No. 4 for piano or orchestra

This release celebrates 20 years of the outstanding Arpeggione Kammerorchester, which is based in Hohenems, Austria. The orchestra has performed all over the world with some of the greatest conductors and soloists. This collection includes Respighi’s Ancient Dances, Bach’s Violin Concerto in E and Bartók’s Divertimento for Strings.

The long awaited second release in Marcelo Bratke’s complete piano music of Villa-Lobos. All the works on this CD have a direct reference to Brazil and come from two different periods of Villa-Lobo’s artistic output.

This 2-CD set marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Sir John Barbirolli (1899-1970) and features recordings ranging from boy cellist in 1911 to international conductor 1969 – in both ‘live’ and studio recordings. John Barbirolli was born in Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, on 2 December 1899, a Cockney as he proudly boasted. Or, to be accurate, Giovanni Battista Barbirolli was born, son of an Italian émigré violinist and his French wife. English-born with Italo-French parentage – a wonderful pedigree for a musician. And so it proved, for he conducted Elgar, Verdi and Debussy, Vaughan Williams, Puccini and Ravel, with equal sensitivity and perception and intuition. This album of recordings forms a kind of musical biography; and Michael Kennedy’s notes (with many rare photos) trace that life alongside the recordings. A special bonus is the 1947 Austrian Radio recording of two works, Weber’s Euryanthe overture and Delius’s Walk to the Paradise Garden, from the Salzburg Festival concert on 20 August at which he conducted the Vienna Philharmonic. Was this, Michael Kenneday asks, the first time this orchestra had played the Delius? Two rare mementos of the New York period are included in this album. Anthony Collins had long been a friend of Barbirolli (they played in the LSO together) and worked in the USA from 1936 to 1945 and his Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, based on the two comic characters in Twelfth Night, is an example of his overlooked talent. Another composer almost forgotten today is the Czech-born Jaromir Weinberger whose opera Schwanda the Bagpiper enjoyed inter-war popularity. His Christmas for organ and orchestra was composed in 1929. In 1939 he dedicated his Variations and Fugue on an old English tune, ‘Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree’ to Barbirolli and the New York Philharmonic.

This month sees the eagerly awaited volume 2 of Villa-Lobos piano music from Joanna Brzezinska. Simple, sweetly naïve melodies and energetic, unrelenting rhythms carried by boundless surging vitality. Such is the sound of Brazil which Villa-Lobos succeeded in conveying in all his works, particularly those featured on this CD. Joanna Brzezinska has a particular affinity for this unique Brazilian composer, her playing wonderfully conveys the sensuality, sweetness and brazen impetuosity of his music.