Composer: Heitor Villa-Lobos, Philip Glass
Performer: Camila Provenzale
Orchestra: Philharmonia Zurich
Conductor: Simone Menezes
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Alpha
Catalogue: ALPHA990
Release: 2023
Size: 1.11 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Villa-Lobos: Floresta do Amazonas, W 551
01. I. A floresta
02. II. Em plena floresta
03. III. Pássaro da floresta – Canto I
04. IV. Dança da natureza
05. V. Conspiração e dança guerreira
06. VI. Veleiros
07. VII. Em caminhos para a caçada
08. VIII. Canção do amor
09. IX. Melodia sentimental
10. X. O fogo na floresta
11. XI. Epilogo
12. Glass: Metamorphosis I
Two Brazilian artists pay tribute to Villa-Lobos and the Amazon rainforest… Sebastiao Salgado is a world-renowned photographer who has been working since the 1990s to protect and restore the Atlantic forest and water resources of the Rio Doce valley in Brazil. The Italian-Brazilian conductor Simone Menezes is passionate about the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos and his symphonic poem Floresta do Amazonas, for which she created a suite for large orchestra and soprano. Together they travel the world to present an exhibition of Salgado’s photographs, combined with concerts conducted by Simone in which the photographs are projected, the photographer having associated each musical phrase with one of his images… The music of this monumental project has been recorded with the Philharmonia Zurich and soprano Camila Provenzale. Ten photos by Salgado, each more striking than the last, are included in the booklet that accompanies this recording, which is completed by another tribute to Amazonian nature, by Philip Glass, with an extract from his Aguas da Amazonia.
In 1958, the 70-year-old Heitor Villa-Lobos agreed to write the score for the Hollywood South American romantic adventure Green Mansions, starring Audrey Hepburn. The idea did not work out well; the film bombed, and Villa-Lobos’ score was hacked up during the production process. However, Villa-Lobos did not give up on the music, making a large suite of his own with vocal and choral numbers. The work, titled Floresta do Amazonas (“Amazon Forest”), has not often been performed, but it is well worth hearing, and this reading by the Philharmonia Zürich under up-and-comer Simone Menezes is most welcome. She extracts a mixture of vocal and instrumental sections (there is no choir). The piece is a bit splashy, with many signs of its origins as film music, and the vocal sections sound a bit like the old pop records by Yma Sumac, but the characteristic Villa-Lobos energy is there, and he seems to have warmed to the project as it proceeded. Sample the tenth movement, “O fogo da floresta” (“Forest Fire”), which cannot but raise strong emotions in the current atmosphere of threats to the Amazon. Menezes brings an idiomatic sense of rhythm to the score, and she draws a connection nicely between the Villa-Lobos and the excerpt from Philip Glass’ Aguas da Amazonia that brings down the curtain. This is probably an essential find for Villa-Lobos fans.