The appearance here of the highly picturesque and colourful Cantata criolla, the most famous work of the Venezuelan composer Antonio Estevez (who died five years ago at the age of 72), should make us feel guilty that someone of such obvious gifts and assured technique should be virtually unknown in Europe. Written in 1954 (before he turned to electronic composition), it relates a folk legend of the devil meeting a solitary plainsman and challenging him to a song contest in which each has to improvise rhyming couplets, taking over his opponent's last line: the plainsman finally wins by spinning things out until sunrise, when the devil's power ceases. The first part, setting the scene, is couched in a sophisticated tonal idiom with brilliantly atmospheric orchestral writing: after a colossal storm sequence, the struggle takes place against a driving joropo folk rhythm (with folk instruments brought in too). It's all very exciting, and the performers include an excellent baritone, a rather tight-voiced tenor and a good chorus (for whose words, however, one has to have recourse to the booklet).
One might reasonably expect this recording of Villa-Lobos's Choros No. 10 to be far more vivid in sound than the only alternative, that conducted by the composer in 1957; but the performance is infinitely superior too, both orchestrally and chorally. The unifying cell in this fascinating but what may at first seem a chaotically heteroge-neous score is a descending tetrachord, which later becomes the basis for the primitive and increasingly wild chattering chorus ostinato through which a borrowed schottische tune appears. There are extraordinary orchestral effects, particularly the evocation (about four and a half minutes in) of the Brazilian jungle and its twittering birds; but the whole work grows on one in a hypnotic way.'