Ivan Pires's Music for Children

 

Here's an interesting concert program, especially considering the charity involved: Barnardo's Children's Charity. There's more information on this July 6 concert, at Westminster Cathedral Hall, here.

New Villa-Lobos Re-Issue

I was pleased to see Naxos beginning to look to historic recordings of Villa-Lobos music in their Classical Archives. The disc above, Joseph Battista's 1953 recording of the Cirandas for MGM, showed up today in the great Naxos Music Library. I'm looking forward to listening to this carefully in the near future.

I've seen the LP on eBay in the past, but never expected it to show up on CD. I know that Naxos has been praised for their restoration work, and I look forward to a relatively positive sonic experience when I get the CD. The pieces I've heard so far sound fine with my (library's) "Near CD" bitrate on NML.

Joseph Battista is an American pianist and scholar who was born in Philadelphia in 1918, and who died in 1968. There's a page on the Latin American Music Center's website about Battista and the Cirandas disc, and more about his life at this Joseph Battista Memorial Fund page.

It's nice to have this CD issued in time for the 40th Anniversary of Battista's untimely death.

A postscript: if you're not a Naxos Music Library subscriber, get on down to www.naxosmusiclibrary.com. Or ask your public library if they have a subscription for their library members to use. Every Villa-Lobos lover should have access to this great resource. Just in the past two weeks there have been four or five new VL CDs added.

Another postscript: the disc has shown up on the Naxos download site Classics Online. $3.99 will buy you the entire disc in 320 bits per second MP3 files - a real bargain!

Rádio UOL

Here is something really, really cool. Rádio UOL from Brazil gives you access to some fine recordings of Villa-Lobos. When you click on the link above, you'll get a list of VL albums. Click on the little page to the left of each album, to get a list of tracks:

Then click on the track you want to hear, or OUVIR TODAS AS MÚSICAS, at the bottom, to hear the whole album. The album above, by the way, is As Cirandas De Villa-Lobos, by pianist
Homero De Magalhães.

I also have enjoyed listening to the Three Cello Concertos, with the Orquestra Sinfõnica de Galícia, cellist Antônio Meneses, and conductor Víctor Pablo Pérez. These are beautiful pieces, not very well known.

There's lots more to explore - not the least of which would be the popular music of Brazil. Thanks to UOL!