Of Villa-Lobos enormous output I basically have only the Bachianas (the complete set on EMI), the string quartets (all the MarcoPolo isuues) and the guitar concerto (included in the EMI set). The quartets I like a lot but the orchestral music did not convince me too much. Its nicely crafted, sometimes very virtuos but it somehow did not grab me. I listened to the piano concertoes and the cello concertoes briefly, but again I had the impression that these are nothing special and left the CDs in the shop. Now I gave Villa-Lobos another chance and picked up the new recording of Choros no. 11 for piano and large orchestra (Ondine, Finish RPO). This is a huge (60 minutes) work in three sets (played without pause) V-L composed during his stay in Paris around 1928 as part of a cycle of 14 other works called choros (apparently only the score of nos. 1-12 still exist). What an impressive work! A kind of large late-romantic-impressionist-modernist piano concerto with a lot of Brasil inside. In another thread we were looking for Mahlers piano concerto...well if Mahler would have been Brasilian...here it is! I do not know if this work is V-Ls best work - as its claimed in the booklet - but its certainly a great one - I was truely impressed! The soloist is Ralf Gothoni (some might remember his recording with the Rautavara piano concertos) and the conductor Sakari Oramo, now principal conductor in Birmingham. Highly recommended! Achim Breiling