Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) was Brazil’s chief contributor to the classical music canon. For shorthand, think of him as that country’s Aaron Copland, a modernist composer steeped in the folk music traditions of his land. Grammy-winning arranger Mario Adnet has worked with many of Brazil’s top musicians and assembles several of them on this Villa-Lobos tribute. Culling from the composer’s store of lesser-known pieces, Adnet fashions lush yet spare small-orchestra arrangements for melodies with a ripple of cool melancholy beneath the calm, lovely surfaces. Some of Villa-Lobos’ “chamber songs” would have been called artful pop music in a later era.
