Atterberg Symphonies

Kurt Atterberg was born in the same year (1887) as Villa-Lobos (he died 15 years after VL, in 1974.) The two composers share a knack for orchestration, and they could both write a beautiful tune. One other thing they share: the German record company cpo has recorded complete cycles of the Symphonies of each composer.

The nine symphonies of Atterberg are now available in a box set at an amazingly low price. Though he wrote lovely chamber music, and some very beautiful concertos, the symphonies represent the most important music of this composer. You can't say that about VL's symphonies, as interesting as some of them (#2, #6, #10) might be.



I'm hoping that cpo does a similar bundling job for the Carl St. Clair Stuttgart recordings of the Villa-Lobos symphonies. The broader exposure to this largely unknown music will help us unravel where they fit in Villa's musical output.

Symphony #10 from cpo

Carl St. Clair's excellent series of Villa-Lobos Symphonies on the cpo label comes to a big finish with the recent release of Symphony #10. Here's information on the new release, with some sound clips, from the German JPC online music store.

Though most of the works in the cpo series were either completely unknown, or had only a single rival on CD, there are two recent versions of Symphony #10 easily available. One is a Harmonia Mundi release from 2003, with Carmen Cruz Simo conducting the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra. The other is from Koch International, released in 2000, with Gisele Ben-Dor conducting the Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra.

I'm looking forward to listening to more than just clips from the new cpo release. The culmination of the Symphonies series is a really amazing accomplishment by St. Clair, his Stuttgart players, and cpo. It will take some time before we can properly judge Villa-Lobos as a symphonist, placing his symphonic cycles among his other great cycles: the Bachianas, the Choros, the String Quartets, the orchestral tone poems, and the concertos. This couldn't have happened without these discs.

Congratulations, Carl!

[thanks to Borris Mayer for the heads-up on this]

More New CDs

Another cpo new release contains a well-chosen concert of VL's chamber music for strings. The Deutsches Streichtrio performs three duos: the Deux Choros Bis (1929) for violin and cello, a version of the 1921 Choros #2 for violin and cello, and the 1946 Duo for violin and viola. Best of all they've included one of VL's masterworks, the String Trio written in 1945. A disc with this repertoire is pretty much self-recommending, and Bert's thumb's up clinches the deal for me.

It's a good time for new Villa-Lobos from Europe. Bert also likes the new Lorelt disc with the BBC Singers and the Ensemble Lontano, under the direction of Odaline de la Martinez. This disc also includes the Deux Choros Bis, with the addition of some other chamber works: Choros 7 (1924) and the early modernist masterpieces the Quatour Symbolique and the Sexteto Mistico. Best of all, there's the original version of Bachianas Brasileiras #9, for an "orchestra of voices." This is apparently a re-issue of a disc recorded in the early 1990's.

It's like the people at cpo and Lorelt were listening to my wish-lists. Now, if they'd turn to the Nonetto and the operas Yerma (1955) and Daughter of the Clouds (1957)....

New Symphonies CD

"A new Symphony by Heitor Villa-Lobos is a world event."

- from a review in the Christian Science Monitor of the premiere of the 11th Symphony (quoted in Vasco Mariz's Heitor Villa-Lobos: Life & Work of the Brazilian Composer (1970).

Though it hasn't shown up at Amazon.com (or the other Amazon sites around the world), the new cpo CD of Symphonies 3 & 9 conducted by Carl St. Clair can be purchased from the European site JPC. Thanks to Bert Berenschot in the Netherlands for this update. Check here for all the information, including sound samples. I haven't ordered from JPC myself, but the CD is certainly a good buy at US$11.96 (13.99 Euros). As Mariz says, "The Ninth Symphony seems to have been composed in 1951 but has never been performed, and I have no data on it." So this release is certainly of world-wide interest to music lovers.

The early 3rd Symphony makes up the bulk of the rest of the disc, which has a nice filler in the "Ouverture de l'Homme Tel." I've often seen this work in lists of Max Eschig publications, and wondered what it sounded like. The short Real Audio excerpt on the JPC site includes only a fanfare, but you can tell from the clips that the orchestral playing from St. Clair's Stuttgart forces remains of the highest quality. I'm certainly looking forward to this one!

New Symphonies Recording on its Way

Here is some interesting news from the very knowledgeable and well-connected Dutch Villa-Lobos fan Bert Berenschot:

"Some news from a spokesman of CPO: they will release the 3th and 9th symphony in september. In august they will release a cd with (a.o.) the amazing String Trio."

This is good news - the excellent Carl St. Clair Stuttgart Integral Symphonies series on cpo records is winding down. This release should be as interesting as any in the series: neither of these works is at all well-known. I've heard neither, and haven't heard of any recordings. It's also great to have a new version of the String Trio on CD.

Thanks, Bert, for this update.