Villa-Lobos Uirapurú and Modinha. Leopold Stokowski conducts the Stadium Orchestra of New York.

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) was a seminal figure in Brazilian music, both as a composer, conductor and musician. His compositions often included non-traditional instruments that were indigenous to Brazil. The two pieces on this recording - Uirupú and Modinha (from Bachianas Braileiras No.1) are examples of this unconventional orchestration - with the use of the tamborim, rêco-rêco, and the côco,

This recording was released by Everest Hi-Fi in 1958. The early Everest recordings were considered to be very high quality at the time as the founder of the company Harry Belock had extensive experience in recording for the film industry. This is a mono recording, and was not recorded on the 35 mm tape like the stereo recordings were. The sound however is still excellent irrespective of its age (60+ years).

The performance by the orchestra under the baton of Leopold Stokowski is outstanding. Stokowski was long a champion of 20th century music, and had a reputation of getting great music out of less than top tier orchestras. Although in this case, most of the players in the Stadium Orchestra of NY were likely to have been musicians from the NY Philharmonic.

Track list:
00:00 Uirapurú
14:01 Modinha

Details:
Album: Villa-Lobos Uirapurú (& Mirandha). Prokofiev Cinderella
Released by: Everest Recordings (LPBR 6016)
Orchestra: Stadium Orchestra of New York
Conductor: Leopold Stokowski
Year released: 1958

Cover design: Alex Steinweiss

This is a mono recording.