VILLA-LOBOS. Ch6ros Nos. 8 and 9. Hong Kong * Philharmonic Orchestra / Kenneth Scher- merhorn. Marco Polo/D Sharp digital C) 6220322; 0 8220322.

Schermerhorn and his excellent Hong Kong orchestra (whose director he has been since September 1984) have struck an early, and substantial, blow for the Villa-Lobos centenary celebrations next year with the first recording ever, I believe, of these two works. Full marks not only for their enterprise but for their courage in tackling these enormously demanding scores and coping so successfully with their myriad problems. The ChOros were defined by Villa-Lobos as "representing a new form of musical composition synthesizing different kinds of Brazilian Indian and folk-music, having as their principal elements rhythm and all kinds of typical folk melody that appear accidentally from time to time, always transformed by the personality of the composer". Numbers 8 and 9, written in 1925 and 1929 respectively, both call for very large orchestral forces, including an array of native percussion instruments and, in thc former, two solo pianos (who incidentally have at one point to insert paper between the strings and later remove it—not that this is audible in the general ruckus). Both are characterized by a bewildering diversity of material, in which it is as vain to look for orderly development as for tidiness and restraint in the fantastic profusion of Brazilian vegetation.

The more immediately attractive is No. 9 by reason of its greater melodic nature, though its fluid structure is elusive (and the quotation from She herazade is presumably just Villa-Lobos's fun): the extravagant textures of the more barbaric No. 8, abounding in tangled rhythmic complexities (with which Schermerhorn deals clearheadedly) cause some problems of balance that are not overcome. But this is music to be listened to not intellectually but with gut reactions; and if exuberant energy, exoticism and excitement appeal to you, do not hesitate to make its acquaintance. L.S.