From the total absence of even a word of presentation on the works included here, it would seem that this disc is aimed either at people who have as yet still to encounter the music of this Brazilian superman and who adopt a passive, unenquiring approach, or at those who are already so familiar with it all that they need no guidance. Well, the former get a good introduction here to some of Villa-Lobos’s most popular works, performed with deep commitment and laudable orchestral technical mastery (though sometimes faced with wildly demanding and improbable difficulties and complexities): Krivine succeeds in securing a clarity in the almost suffocatingly lush textures – while still capturing their warmly romantic atmosphere – that comes as less of a surprise to me when I recall his Bach violin sonatas in which, some years ago now, I had the pleasure of accompanying him at Aix-en-Provence. Even the less familiar and more outlandish Amazonas, with its gigantic exotic orchestra (which includes all kinds of strange effects and, among the instruments, a phono-fiddle which was found for the occasion), emerges comprehensibly, thanks also to some spectacular recording. Newcomers, however, should have been informed of the work’s programmatic nature – a story of an Indian village girl bathing in the river, pursued by a monster. Come to that, no mention is made that the Toccata ending No. 2 of the Bachianas brasileiras is a wonderfully hilarious depiction of a little train bravely battling its way through the dense countryside, triumphantly tootling along until it exhaustedly wheezes to a standstill.
Some of Krivine’s clarity, it has to be conceded, comes from subjugation of the swarming detail: I should have liked to hear more of the contributory clatter of the piano, for example, which has as hard a task as the train itself; and the best-known work here, the Bachiana No. 5, is the least satisfactory because Maria Bayo, instead of being first among equals, is excessively spotlit (with some resultant shrillness) at the expense of the busy eight-part cello polyphony. But balance is excellently judged in the loosely-constructed Guitar Concerto, with Roberto Aussel (hitherto known here primarily in Piazzolla) as an accomplished and eloquent soloist – even if, in the Andantino, he is less emotional and his colours are less subtle than with Bream, who to my mind has always been unrivalled in this work.'