By Nd71016
30-Sep-2009

One of the 20th century genius  

All the Choros (and the Bachianas) to say the least are master works. No doubt that one has to be used to modern composers to some extent. A nationalistic composer, no doubt, has much of the brazilian popular music but his works have both the modern characteristics as well as much of the romantic musical ideas as the Choro n.º 5. It reminds me of some of Stravinsky's works and one may not like them the first time, but if you give him a second chance many of the Villa-Lobos works will be part of your repeated listenings.

No need to say that of the almost 2000 works attributed to Villa-Lobos some of his work have disputed values. But the same may be applied to Mozart's first works.
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By HL92671
30-Jul-2012

A Great Composer  

Heitor de Villa-Lobos is a widely underrated composer, partly because he is so Brazilian that there are few musicians outside Brazil to play his music authentically, partly because his musical language appears lightweight when compared to Stravinsky, Ravel or Bartok. It is to be hoped that the performance of his Choros by John Neschling's ensemble and the renowned pianist Cristian Ortiz will remedy, at least in Europe, this false opinion as, at least in my mind, Villa-Lobos is a consummate craftsman who puts his abilities to work on inventive and powerful musical ideas.
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