There exists an informal recording of the Choros No. 1 by the composer, who is said to have commented afterwards that he had played it too fast. Villa-Lobos took 3'55''; Korhonen takes 5'15''. Whilst Villa-Lobos observed the marked ritardandos he maintained a constant basic tempo throughout, but Korhonen plays the episodes at very slow tempos and with considerable freedom, and hammers home the appoggiaturas instead of leaning on them agogically. The same idiosyncrasies haunt other items, not least the Suite populaire bresilienne, robbing its movements of their dance character and introducing a sentimentality more appropriate to the Portuguese fado than to the Brazilian choro. Slow tempos persist in the Preludes – No. 3 seems to take for ever, and the ‘cello tune’ of No. 5 drags its feet. Things are happier in the various chamber items, with a polished account of the strange Sexteto mistico and the Distribuicao de flores, and Pia Freund does well with her two contributions – but why does she not sing the final section of the aria from Bachianas brasileiras No. 5 with “bocca chiusa”? So much is thus lost.
As I so often have to comment, there is much to commend this disc but there is also a good deal on the negative side. Korhonen is a very accomplished player and his tone is notably warmer than in his previous Villa-Lobos album (Ondine, 2/96), but a sojourn in the land of the composer might have equipped him to serve the music more faithfully; the shortcomings are certainly not attributable to any lack of the necessary technique.'