Over its first fifty years the São Paulo Symphony has never
yet been regarded as one of the great orchestras of the world,
despite the claims of its own publicity - though it does occupy
a high rung in South America, where it also undertakes a good
deal of worthy outreach work. Its numerous recordings on the
BIS label have brought it some degree of recognition, albeit
among mixed reviews. Its reputation will certainly grow further
under the tutelage of Marin Alsop, recently commenced, and an
appearance at the 2012 BBC Proms certainly boosted its visibility,
although that performance did clarify the amount of work still
to be done. Isaac Karabtchevsky, despite his Slavic-looking
surname, was born in Brazil, and a long and decent, if rather
low-key, career to date sets him fair to gel with the SPSO and
get this first Naxos volume of Villa-Lobos's eleven symphonies
off to a good start. Its competition is not invincible: a 7-disc
boxed set in CPO, consisting of recordings by the Radio Sinfonieorchester
Stuttgart under American conductor Carl St Clair (777 516-2,
2009).
Naxos have sagely chosen to open with the composer's
first two mature symphonies - numbers one to four are fairly
early, some claim relatively immature, works and the Fifth has
been lost (explaining why his last is numbered 12 rather than
11). After five in five years, Villa-Lobos waited 25 more before
composing his Sixth and Seventh. They are both fleshy, big-boned
works, the Seventh for its sheer length and huge orchestra,
and the Sixth for its subject matter - Brazil's mountains.
Naxos give it the rather unwieldy title 'On the Outline
of the Mountains of Brazil', though according to other
sources Villa-Lobos himself called it simply 'Mountains
of Brazil' ('Montanhas do Brasil'). For
what it’s worth, he also subtitled the Seventh 'Odyssey
of Peace' ('Odyssé da Paz') - Naxos curiously
omit that from the track-list. Either way, both symphonies are
grandly romantic and atmospheric, bursting with drama, local
colour and international appeal. In a discussion of his works
in New Grove, Villa-Lobos's symphonies are barely mentioned,
yet there is nothing in these two to account for such an omission.
Rather fancifully, Naxos's resident reviewer describes
the sound quality of this recording as "quite superb".
In fact, it is rather on the thin side - certainly in the strings
- and audio is far from vivid anywhere, despite the impressive
setting of the Sala São Paulo. Sound engineer Ulrich Scheider
has immense experience at this level, with recordings going
back twenty years, but somewhere along the way a few shortcuts
have left a sound that a good pair of ears will rate no higher
than comfortably acceptable. It may well be worth tolerating
a few such rough edges for Villa-Lobos's riveting music.
On the other hand, collectors who already possess CPO's
set will not feel compelled to duplicate any part of it just
yet, unless they would like, for sentimental reasons, a recording
by a home-grown outfit.
Good notes by Brazilian guitarist and Villa-Lobos biographer
Fábio Zanon even explain the composer's curious employment
of a surprisingly avant-garde process he called 'millimeterisation'
to come up with melodies for Symphony no.6. A footnote mentions
that this cycle project uses "revised scores", but
leaves it at that. The follow-up volume, featuring the Third
and Fourth Symphonies by the same performers, is due for release
in spring 2013 - will the necessary engineering tweaks have
been made?
Byzantion
see also review
by Dan Morgan
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São Paulo Symphony Orchestra/Isaac Karabtchevsky