Over to Madrid this week for a soothing blast of Chamber music as performed by Ruben Reinas, violin, - Javier Albares, cello and Cameron Roberts, piano. It was recorded and broadcast live a couple weeks ago (Feb. 4th) by Radio Nacional Espana and their excellent Radio Clasica outlet.

Featured are works by Montsalvatge, Debussy and Villa-Lobos and the concert is broken up over two players with the Montsalvatge and Debussy on the top player and the Villa-Lobos taking up the bottom player.

Here's the rundown:

Los conciertos de Radio Clásica

Música de Cámara de la Orquesta y Coro de RTVE.

Transmisión directa desde el Teatro Monumental de Madrid.

MONTSALVATGE: Trío para violón, violonchelo y piano.

DEBUSSY: Trío para violín, violonchelo y piano en Sol mayor.

VILLA LOBOS: Trío para violín, violonchelo y piano nº 3.

Ruben Reina (vl.), Javier Albarés (vc.), Cameron Roberts (p.).

I realized we haven't had any chamber music on the Mid-Week concert in a while - of all things, talk about perfect Anti-Road Rage music. I promise we'll do more in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, enjoy and put down the baseball bat.

(Heitor Villa-Lobos - Composer and Poolshark)

Last week I posted a work by Morton Gould as an American ode to Latin American music. This week, I thought would take it the other way around and play a work composed by a Brazilian Composer and played for the first time to American audiences.

In 1940, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Commissioner General in Brazil co-sponsored a series of concerts featuring music by new Brazilian composers.

One of the better known was Heitor Villa-Lobos, a name that is pretty familiar to most audiences around the world. Villa-Lobos was a major force in 20th Century classical music. Subsequently, when RCA Victor decided to release a set of recordings from this concert series, they chose the music of Villa-Lobos as the most representative. That's not to say the music of Francisco Mignone, M. Camargo Guarnieri and Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez wasn't any good. It's just as Villa-Lobos had name recognition.

From the set recorded in 1940 and issued in 1941, I've included Bachiana Brasileira Number 1. Everyone is familiar with the Number 5 Bachiana, but not so much with the others. This one is scored for eight cellos and was composed in 1932. The piece is dedicated to the conductor Burle Marx, who is conductor on this recording. The group is The Brazilian Festival Orchestra (cellos). I am not sure, but I think this was reissued on lp in the early 1950s - but hasn't seen any CD reissue as far as I know.