VILLA-LOBOS. Bachianas Brasileiras Nos. 2 and 9. French National Radio Orchestra conducted by ,Heitor Villa-Lobos. Bachiana Brasileira No. 5. Victoria de los Angeles (soprano) with eight 'cellos (solo 'cello : Fernand Benedetti), conducted by Heitor Villa - Lobos. Bachiana Brasileira No. 6. Fer- nand Dufrine (flute), Rene Plessier (bassoon). H.M.V. ALP1603 (12 in., 41s. aid.).

The best way—indeed, I think the only way—to take the Bachianas Brasileiras is to forget all that guff about integrating Bachian harmony and contrapuntal texture with Brazilian folk material which we are constantly hearing, and which the composer, in a sleeve-note remarkable for the paucity of information he offers, repeats all over again. There is precious little even faintly suggestive of Bach here, except for the charming Aria of No. 6 (and that largely because it's in tranquil two-part counterpoint), and most people would not quarrel with The Record Guide's view that the Bachian aspect of these works, even where it exists, is either incongruous or, indeed, absurd. No instead listen to the music for the colourful and truly original exotic manifestation that it is, and one can scarcely help finding it attractive. It is no use turning up a prim nose at overloaded textures. All right, so Villa-Lobos does indulge in rhythmical complexities and instrumental eccentricities; at least they're not the coldly scientific cerebral excesses favoured by the young Germans, but the natural exuberance of a composer whose background is the lush fecundity and uncontrolled vitality of the Brazilian jungles, and whose mind so teems with ideas that even when they are secondrate ones (as inevitably some of them are) they are never arid.

Only one of these Bachianas has been previously recorded in its entirety—No. 5, for soprano and eight 'cellos. In sheer seductive sound Victoria de los Angeles is way ahead of her competitors (Curtin and Albanese) : her vocalise is hauntingly beautiful, and in the difficult semiquaver passages of the Dansa she is wonderfully light and precise in intonation. Her Portuguese may not sound very authentic yet the real weakness of this performance lies not here but in the frequent inexactness of ensemble—for which I fear the conductor must be held responsible. Victoria herself makes one late entry (at Figure 11 in the Dansa), and the 'cellos have many lapses from tidiness in the first couple of pages of the Aria.

The other suites can be recommended without reserve. No. 6 is admirably played (though would someone please explain Villa-Lobos's cryptic reference to "replacing the ophicleide by the bassoon" ? What ophicleide ?), and in No. 9, the last of the series, consisting of an expressive Prelude and an immense, loosely-constructed Fugue, the strings seem (so far as can be judged without a score) to overcome the complex rhythms with assurance. Immediately captivating is No. 2, one movement of which has become quite popular ; and this is extremely well played and recorded. The composer's love of unorthodox sonorities can be heard in his use of a solo tenor saxophone in the Prelude (" Song of the Capadocio ", by the way, not as printed) and the "witchcraft' Aria, and of a solo trombone in the Dansa (whose sub-title " Memory of the Desert "has been omitted), as well as by the imposing number of native percussion instruments in the finale, the joyous "Little Country Train ". If you don't already know this little humorous gem, you should certainly take this opportunity of hearing it at its best. L.S.