We badly need an excellent new recording of the complete Bachianas Brasileiras. This very mediocre, dimly recorded local production has been bouncing around on various labels long enough for most of the composer’s admirers to know to avoid it. It has one high spot: Nelson Freire’s piano playing in No. 3. Otherwise, aside from No. 6 for solo flute and bassoon, the music just dies in the rhythmically challenged hands of conductor Isaac Karabtchewsky and his second-rate orchestra. Listen to the dingy and stressful mess they make of the finale to No. 4, or the lack of sparkle in No. 2’s locomotive finale. It’s all very earnest, grim if not truly terrible, and often boring. If you can find it, Batiz on EMI is still the way to go for the complete set; but as I said, we could use something new and (hopefully) better.
