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BRAZILIAN GUITAR RECITAL
MARLOS NOBRE Reminicências (world première recording),
Homenagem a Villa-Lobos
HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS 12 Etudes
AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE
«... Both Reminiscencias and (Nobre's) Homage to Villa-Lobos are rigourous stuff, serious art music but with an unabashed nod to the composer's Brazilian folk roots. I heard such meaty guitar writing this good from a new composer since maybe Leo Brouwer. Brazilian rhythms and melodies have been absorbed so well that nothing sounds cliched. Nobre's a standout voice among new South-American composers, and this appetizer makes me want to hear his orchestral and vocal music also on Léman Classics. Nobre's music is also a great teaser for the Villa-Lobos Etudes, rarely recorded as a set. For guitar exercises, these twelve pieces possess amazing character and musicality, and they are as essential to the guitarist as Chopin's are to the pianist. Léman Classics know how to pick guitarists, and Joaquim Freire is a fine, fine Brazilian player whose Villa-Lobos is rhapsodic and whose Nobre is powerful. What further recommendation do you need?»
FANFARE
The Magazine for Serious Record Collectors (USA)
«Something old, something new, all things fresh. Brazilian composer Marlos Nobre, born in 1939, is squarely in the tradition established by Villa-Lobos, that is to say, he illuminates and amplifies his ethnic roots by means of a very informed and studied compositional technique. His Homenagem a Villa-Lobos, based as it is on the opening motif of Villa-Lobos's haunting Fourth Prelude for Guitar, presents a most unifying factor in Freire's program... it is the Villa-Lobos Twelve Etudes for Guitar that collectively provide the yardstick for evaluating Nobre's technique and musicality. They start out as bachian didactic studies for the development of guitar technique, evolve into an exploration of instrumental sonority; a foray into compositional possibility; and ultimately into études of active listening. Freire is splendid from the first étude to the last... he makes a great musicological point in the closing bars of the E-minor "Etude des arpèges" ‹ with their almost bluesy affect in the wake of the preceeding Bachian austerity... Freire touches the music's nerve centers through his appreciation of its purely popular roots.
In the end, his approach is the more universal one — better encompassing the music's ethnicity and its down-and-dirty ‘pop' aspects as refracted through Villa-Lobos's most rarefied compositional technique... Freire's is the most satisfying reading of this opus yet to come my way. His recording is excellent — easily upholding with Léman Classics' fine and, I hope, ongoing guitar series. The release at hand upholds (both musically and technically) that high standard and proves to be yet another installment in what is turning out to be a distinguished and eminently collectible guitar series.»
STEREO REVIEW
«... Villa-Lobos's Twelve Etudes, combined with two attractive works by a contemporary Brazilian. Marlos Nobre's homage to his predecessor is serious, contemporary and respectful, but it is the timeless reminiscences of his home town of Recife that confirms this sometime avant-gardist as a worthy successor of Villa-Lobos»