Podcast: Music of Brazil • Villa-Lobos • Works for Cello and Orchestra

Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos was also an accomplished guitarist and cellist, and his wonderful music for the latter instrument takes full advantage of the lyrical and dramatic capabilities of the instrument. In this podcast, Raymond Bisha explores a new recording of his two Cello Concertos, together with his Fantasia for Cello and Orchestra, that features Read More …

Can I quote you?

Borrowing other people’s music and weaving it into your own composition is far from uncommon. We’re not talking plagiarism here i.e. passing other people’s music off as your own, which seems to happen far more regularly in pop music than in classical. A composer might borrow from himself, which explains why you might get a Read More …

Podcast: Villa-Lobos: Symphonies 8, 9 and 11

Heitor Villa-Lobos is probably the best known of all South American composers. His contribution to Brazilian music—in education, in community projects, in the concert hall—was all-pervasive. Raymond Bisha drops in on Naxos’ ongoing project to record all his symphonies in a new edition that was launched in 2011 by the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra’s publishing Read More …

Paper chase

The Day after Christmas Day, Boxing Day, St Stephen’s Day, the Day of the Wren. Wherever you are, and whatever event you may yourself celebrate on 26 December each year, I personally always try to spare a thought for the discarded and dispossessed. I’m thinking, for a change, not of the unfortunate condition of swathes Read More …