In 1958, the 70-year-old
Heitor Villa-Lobos
agreed to write the score for the Hollywood South American romantic adventure Green Mansions, starring
Audrey Hepburn
. The idea did not work out well; the film bombed, and
Villa-Lobos
' score was hacked up during the production process. However,
did not give up on the music, making a large suite of his own with vocal and choral numbers. The work, titled
Floresta do Amazonas ("Amazon Forest")
, has not often been performed, but it is well worth hearing, and this reading by the
Philharmonia Zuerich
under up-and-comer
Simone Menezes
is most welcome. She extracts a mixture of vocal and instrumental sections (there is no choir). The piece is a bit splashy, with many signs of its origins as film music, and the vocal sections sound a bit like the old pop records by
Yma Sumac
, but the characteristic
energy is there, and he seems to have warmed to the project as it proceeded. Sample the tenth movement, "O fogo da floresta" ("Forest Fire"), which cannot but raise strong emotions in the current atmosphere of threats to the Amazon.
Menezes
brings an idiomatic sense of rhythm to the score, and she draws a connection nicely between the
and the excerpt from
Philip Glass
'
Aguas da Amazonia
that brings down the curtain. This is probably an essential find for
fans. ~ James Manheim