Villa-Lobos: Cello Concertos; Fantasia for Cello and Orchestra
Antonio Meneses (cello); São Paulo Symphony Orchestra/Isaac Karabtchevsky
Naxos 8.574531 68:19 mins
After taking charge of Naxos’s recordings of the 12 boisterous symphonies of Villa-Lobos, this composer’s output clearly holds no terrors for the Brazilian conductor Isaac Karabtchevsky. Cellist Antonio Meneses never flinches either, least of all in the early cello concerto of 1915, perhaps the most tangled of the three works presented on this enjoyable album. This was Villa-Lobos’s first substantial orchestral work, written with gusto and plenty of forceful contributions from the brass. Any concerns over balance problems between a solo cello and a busy orchestra were breezily left to another day. Concerto No. 2 finally arrived in 1953, by which time textures and construction had become notably tidier. The soloist now has much more space for manoeuvring and there’s also room for a chunky cadenza. Meneses responds to his expanded opportunities with playing both spirited and soulful, and always of considerable lustre.
But the work that really shows the composer at his most potent is the 1945 Fantasia. With no concerto rules to observe or ignore, Villa-Lobos’s inspiration and imagination take wing in three varied and concise movements, strikingly orchestrated with unusual use of the cello’s lowest register; possibly a homage, as the booklet annotator suggests, to the double-bass expertise of conductor Serge Koussevitsky, the work’s dedicatee. Yet even when the Amazon jungle seems at its most choking in this latest addition to Naxos’s series ‘The Music of Brazil’, the composer, conductor and orchestra always ensure that listening stays engaging. Geoff Brown