Danças Brasileiras (2011)

Is it ironic that Sweden's BIS label has emerged as a champion of Brazilian music? Maybe they need some tropical color to get through the months of darkness up there. More seriously, Brazilian music fits well with the label's larger attempt to revive tonal and national traditions of the early 20th century. Recorded in 2003, this album is, in a few words, a great deal of fun, and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra under Robert Minczuk offers music that has occasionally been performed in the past but has rarely been brought ... Read More

Is it ironic that Sweden's BIS label has emerged as a champion of Brazilian music? Maybe they need some tropical color to get through the months of darkness up there. More seriously, Brazilian music fits well with the label's larger attempt to revive tonal and national traditions of the early 20th century. Recorded in 2003, this album is, in a few words, a great deal of fun, and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra under Robert Minczuk offers music that has occasionally been performed in the past but has rarely been brought together to produce an hour of pulsing rhythms. The most famous Brazilian composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos, is represented by the little-known Dança frenética (1919). Villa-Lobos is in the middle of the roughly chronological sequence, and even earlier works like Alberto Nepomuceno's "Batuque" (track 2), with its odd pentatonic melody, offer a distinctive Brazilian voice. Francisco Mignone's Congada (taken, like many of these pieces, from an opera), is Brazilian Ravel, overflowing with... Read Less