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Villa-Lobos' music is an old passion of mine and trying to write something about him is one of the very few times when I find myself tongue-tied. Fortunately, there's a wonderful web site dedicated to Villa-Lobos in, of all places, Canada. (The site is no longer being updated, but it's still there.) But some of the best recordings of his music, I'm happy to report, come out of the Brazilian label Kuarup Discos. The liner notes about the man and his music (including technical analysis of each quartet and an interview with the violinist Mariuccia Iacovino, one of his favorite interpreters) are excellent, but unfortunately you need to be able to read Portuguese! Perhaps we could convince Kuarup to translate them into English?
There's a wonderful Villa-Lobos Museum in Rio where I took the picture of his cello.
All CDs donated to our site automatically become part of the Sheila Thomson Collection of Brazilian Culture at Florida International University in Miami.
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Villa por Chorões. The music of Villa-Lobos interpreted by master chorões, including a very original version of Choros nº 1 for cavaquinho and 7-string guitar by Henrique Cazes and Marcello Gonçalves. |
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Quarteto Amazônia: Villa-Lobos Quartetos de Cordas 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Kuarup Discos KCD 080/1. |
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Heitor Villa-Lobos: Os Choros de Câmara. Kuarup Discos KCD 002. This is the CD that started the label, because there were no good recordings of this music and Mário de Aratanha decided he had to do it himself. The rest is, of course, Brazilian music history! |
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Villa-Lobos: Quartetos de Cordas. I think Kuarup Discos recorded them all. I have several of them. Go and check their site because they are very beautiful. |
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Heitor Villa-Lobos: Concertos para solista e orquestra. With Paulo Moura on saxophone and Turíbio Santos on violão. |