BRAZIL
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Introduction
Like many other South American countries, Brazil
had a flourishing musical life in the 19th century, centred
on opera and producing one opera composer of international
repute, Antoni Carlos Gomez (1836-1896). The next generation
(notably Alberto Nepomuceno, 1864-1920) still looked to European
and Romantic models for their music, and it was not until
the ascendance of the most famous of all South American composers,
Hector Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), that a Brazilian nationalism
was heard, reflecting parallel movements in other South American
countries.
The Brazilian folk tradition was rich, ranging
from the samba, which entered popular cultures internationally
during the 20th century, to the itinerant street-bands of
varying instrumentation, the chôros, mixed with echoes of
Portuguese popular dances and African influences (though virtually
no indigenous South American Indian music). One popular Brazilian
instrument, the marimba, also became internationally familiar
through its use in jazz and popular music. The adoption of
nationalistic themes, and the reflection of the Brazilian
landscape and culture in serious music, was most notably proclaimed
in the Week of Modern Art at Sao Paulo in 1922, with Villa-Lobos
as one of the main organisers. Villa-Lobos also introduced
his version of Brazilian primitivism to Parisian audiences
in the 1920s, generating considerable excitement and interest.
But with the revolution of October 1930 the climate for a
consciously Brazilian aesthetic became more favourable. The
movement was again led by Villa-Lobos, who organized huge
public rallies to sing popular Brazilian choruses (concentraes
civicas), and instigated both a system of music teaching
in schools and concerts in which classics of the repertoire
(from Palestrina onwards) that had not been heard in Brazil
were introduced, alongside contemporary Brazilian compositions.
A number of other composers followed Villa-Lobos' example,
notably Francisco Mignone (1897-1986), the composer of two
successful operas and a number of orchestral works with Brazilian
themes, including the Suite brasileira (1933), Oscar
Lorenzo Fernandez (also spelt Fernandos, 1897-1948) who founded
the Conservatorio Brasileiro in 1936 in Rio to rival the National
Institute of Music, and Camargo Guarnieri (born 1907), who
was at one time heard quite widely in the United States; his
output concentrates on large-scale orchestral forms (symphonies
and concertos) but he is noted for his songs.
The subsequent reaction to nationalism centred
around the group of composers called Musica Viva, led by Hans
Joachim Koellreutter who was not born in his adopted country,
but in Germany. Composers such as Cesar Guerra Peixe (born
1914) and Claudio Santoro (born 1919) introduced the 12-tone
system into Brazil. Marlos Nombre (born 1939) is the leading
composer of the following generation.
Nonetheless it remains surprising that such
a large country as Brazil should in the 20th century have
produced only one composer whose music is heard outside its
boundaries with even the minimum of frequency. One does not
find, either in quality or in quantity, the depth of compositional
talent that Mexico (with a similar musical history) has shown,
or the kind of figures that, leaving their native Argentina,
have made a mark on European music. Perhaps some of the cause
lies in the poor relative standards of music-making (with
some obvious individual exceptions who have made their careers
on the international circuit) - there is, for example, no
parallel to Chávez's work with the National Orchestra
of Mexico. Be that as it may, the almost complete absence
of performances of the works of any Brazilian other than Villa-Lobos
outside South America has limited the entries in this Guide
to merely one, outstanding, Brazilian composer.
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VILLA-LOBOS
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VILLA-LOBOS Heitor
born 5th March 1887 at Rio de Janeiro
died 17th November 1959 at Rio de Janeiro
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Villa-Lobos was one of the most prodigious
composers of the 20th century, producing around 2000 compositions
and arrangements. Inevitably his music is uneven, but not
only did he establish a nationalist musical style in Brazil,
but like his contemporary the Mexican Chávez, he introduced
to a wider audience a new kind of sound, composed of an amalgam
of popular South American influences (native Indian music
and instruments, popular songs, the South American evolution
of popular Spanish/Portuguese culture, and African elements)
and modernistic European techniques.
He eschewed formal studies for travelling in
Brazil, absorbing the indigenous music (1906-1913). Among
his earlier works were the tone-poem Amazonas (1917),
with unusual instrumental sonorities, and the marvellous ballet
Uirapurú (1917) that tells the tale of the legendary
bird of the title, the `king of love' who draws people into
the forest and who has incarnations as an old man and as a
beautiful youth. The legacy of the 19th century occasionally
strays into the score, but the driving rhythms of the opening
recall Stravinsky, the heady sensuousness Szymanowski,
the Impressionistic textures Respighi, suggesting that
Villa-Lobos had followed a parallel development, since Szymanowski's
first violin concerto and Respighi's The Pines of Rome
were written in the same year. What makes Uirapurú
so individual and appealing is the vivid evocation of the
Amazonian forest, with exotic bird-calls, Brazilian folk percussion
instruments, the effective use of the piano in the orchestra,
and a willingness to suspend conventional rhythmic progression
at these moments. It makes an interesting comparison with
a much later suite with a similar setting, the evocative Song
of the Amazons for soprano and orchestra, drawn from the
music to the film Green Mansions, where the textures
are much leaner, almost neo-classical, and the rhythms more
straightforward. The Nonetto (1922) included chorus
and percussion with Brazilian instruments and indigenous influences
in the rhythms and woodwind colours. The two piano sets A
Prole do Bebê (The Baby's Family, 1918 and 1921)
were inspired by the pianist Rubinstein (whom Villa-Lobos
had met in Rio), the first set based on children's popular
tunes in its eight pictures of dolls, while the second is
about toy animals, with Brazilian rhythms and ostinati, and
a characteristic alternation of white and black keys. The
element of a sophisticated and nationalist primitivism is
strikingly exemplified in the Suite for Voice and Violin
(1923).
The primitivism of some of these works showed
an affinity with Stravinsky, but he absorbed something
of Impressionism from his friendship with Milhaud (in
Rio during World War I), and then spent 1923-1930 mainly in
Paris, where his music was enthusiastically greeted. He also
encountered African music in Dakar. In this period his style
matured, combining an unstable harmonic language (including
bitonality and polytonality), Impressionistic touches, and
the Brazilian influences of folk-like melodies with colourful
and complex rhythms, indigenous syncopations, ostinati, polyrhythms,
and percussive dissonances. His orchestration remained generally
dense, and he delighted in unusual effects (percussive strings,
the extremes of woodwind registers, elements of the harmonic
structures in different instrumental blocks).
The centre of his huge output are two series
of works. The sixteen Chôros (1920-1929, fourteen numbered
plus an Introduction and the supplementary Chôros
Bis) are a striking and original series, broad in scope.
They are based on folk-music (without actual quotes) and on
the chôro popular form, an improvisatory serenade with a solo
instrument often taking the lead. The sources for the chôro
form are as diverse as local folk-music, spirituals, hymns,
and African rhythms. All these elements, a smattering of jazz,
and his characteristics outlined above, are to be found in
this series. It gradually expands in forces from a solo guitar
(No.1, 1920) through wind chamber forces (No.2, 1921, No.3
with male chorus, 1925, No.4, 1926, No.7, 1924) to a full
orchestra (No.6, 1926, No.8, 1925, with two pianos, No.9,
1929) with chorus (No.10 Rasga o Coracão, 1926) to
a piano concerto (No.11), and a work for orchestra, band,
and chorus with offstage fanfares (No.14, 1928, now lost along
with No.13). There is a similar expansion in duration, from
the two minutes of No.1 to over an hour in No.11. They are
all beguiling, from the intimacy of the writing of No.5 (for
piano, 1926) to the very French Impressionist flutes of the
orchestral No.12 (1929), but the finest is No.10 (Rasga
o Coracão, 1926). It opens with an Impressionistic evocation
of the Brazilian landscape, with sonorous orchestral effects
(including bird-calls), which is turned into a savage, primitive
and powerful crescendo, the chorus singing onomatopoeic lines,
before a broad melody contrasts with this aboriginal vision.
The nine highly attractive suites that form
the Bachianas brasileiras (1930-1945) are Villa-Lobos'
most popular works, intrinsically less interesting than the
Chôros, but, with their simpler harmonic language,
more immediate and general in their appeal. They are at the
same time both a tribute to Bach (in their suite forms, and
sometimes in orchestration and feel, especially in the slow
movements), and a celebration of Brazilian folklore (in their
melodies and colours). For Villa-Lobos thought the music of
Bach a universal folklore for later composers, and perceived
similarities between it and Brazilian popular music. To reinforce
the connection, each movement has both a traditional European
and a Brazilian title. The baroque influence is most overt
in the polyphony of No.1 (1930) for eight cellos, and in the
prelude and fugue of No.9 for string orchestra (1945). No.2
(1930) includes the famous Little train of the Caipira,
which exemplifies the clarity of his graphic use of complex
native rhythms. No.5 (1938-1945) for soprano and eight cellos
shows his use of broad and lovely melodies in its cantilena,
with a feeling of improvisation and irregular metres. No.3
(1938, a virtuoso piano concerto, Romantic in scale and tone)
is the largest and stylistically the most remote of the series.
Of his other works of this period, his symphonies
(including a war triptych) are rarely encountered, but the
fantasy for piano and orchestra Mômoprecóce (1930 reworked
from earlier material, its title meaning both 'precocious
lad' and 'Young Momus, King of the Carnival') is particularly
vivacious and rewarding. His music following 1945 became increasingly
abstract in inspiration and tonal in feel, and includes a
number of virtuoso concertos, notably the Guitar Concerto
(1951), whose easy-going style does not merit the frequency
with which it is performed. The Cello Concerto No.2
(1954) is equally pleasant, its opening invoking the rain-forest,
its solo-writing often harking back to Bach, but equally unremarkable.
If these large number of later works do not seem to have the
interest or the colour of his earlier, more nationalistic
music, there is still much that is fine among them, notably
the ballet Emperor Jones (1955), the sonorous, whimsical
and perky little Fantasie concertante (1953) for clarinet,
bassoon and piano, some of the choral music, and the last
quartets.
Of his seventeen string quartets (1915-1957),
No.5 (1931, with children's tunes) and No.6 (1938) use popular
Brazilian elements, while No.17 (1957) uses an uncharacteristically
spartan language. Among his other chamber music, the stylistically
related Trio (1921), Quartet (1928) and Quintet
en forme de chôros (1928), all for wind instruments, are
quirkily delightful. His piano music includes the sixteen
Cirandas (1926), nationalistic, based on children's
tunes, rhythmically unusual, and varied in their colours,
and Rudepoema (1921-1926), complex and large in scale,
dense in texture, varied in mood. His guitar music is often
to be heard, especially the gentle Suite populaire brésiliene
(1908-1912), the Twelve Études (1929), combining attractive
music in the Spanish classical tradition with technical studies,
and the Five Preludes (1939-1940 - a sixth is lost).
His many musical activities included the promotion
of both Brazilian music and his own works on foreign tours,
the organisation of music teaching in schools in Rio, and
by training and example, in the rest of Brazil, and the foundation
(1945) and directorship until his death of the Brazilian Academy
of Music.
It is still extremely difficult to assess Villa-Lobos's
overall achievement, for so much has still to be heard. Faced
with this multiplicity, together with the unfamiliarity of
idiom and style, many coming to his works for the first time
have experienced difficulty in gaining a grip on his oeuvre.
But perseverance is rewarded. Those who look for insight into
the human soul will be disappointed, for (at least in his
nationalistic music) that is not his intent. Rather it is
a fusion of the European contemporary experience with the
indigenous tradition to create a modern Brazilian reflection
in serious music of the multiplicity of his native culture.
Arriving at his music is like arriving in a new country: totally
new colours and a bewildering multiplicity of new experiences.
But, just as when one becomes familiar with a new country,
the relationships of the new elements becomes clear, so with
the music of Villa-Lobos, and in it are then found many delights.
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works include: (selected from a huge output)
- 12 symphonies (No.1. Imprevisto, No.2
Ascenção, No.3 Guerra, No.4 Vitória,
No.5 Paz, No.6 Montanhas do Brasil, No.7 America,
No.10 Sumé pater patruim)
- 2 cello concertos (No.1 Grand Concerto),
guitar concerto, harmonica concerto; harp concerto; 2 violin
concertos; fantasy Mômoprecóce for piano and orch.
- 16 Chôros for various orchestral and
chamber forces
- 9 Bachianas brasileiras for various
forces- Amazonas, Caixinha de boas festas, Dawn
in a tropical forest, Erosão Origem do rio Amazonas,
Odisséia de uma raça and many other works for orch.
- 2 Fantasia sonatas for violin and
piano; 4 violin sonatas 4 piano trios; wind trio; 17 string
quartets; wind quartet; Quintet en forme de chôros
for wind; quintet for flute violin, viola, cello and harp;
Sesteto mistico; Corrupio for bassoon and string
quartet and other chamber music
- Cirandas, Cirandinhas, Prole do Bebê,
Rudepoema and other pieces for piano
- 12 Études, 5 Preludes and Suite
populaire brésilienne for guitar
- song cycles Cansons Typiques Brésiliennes,
Serestas and many other songs and song cycles
- Nonetto (Impresão rápida de todo o Brasil)
for chorus and ensemble; series Bendita sabedoria for
chorus and many other choral works
- 4 suites from film score Descobrimento
do Brasil
- 6 ballets including Emperor Jones
and Uirapurú
- completed operas Izath and Yerma
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recommended works:
Bachianas brasileiras No.1 (1930) for
eight cellos
Bachianas brasileiras No.2 (1930) for
orchestra
Bachianas brasileiras No.3 (1938) for
piano and orchestra
Bachianas brasileiras No.5 (1938-1945)
for soprano and eight cellos
Bachianas brasileiras No.6 (1938) for
flute and bassoon
Bachianas brasileiras No.9 (1945) for
string orchestra
Chôros 3 (1925) for male chorus and
seven wind instruments
Chôros 7 (1924) for chamber ensemble
Chôros 10 (Rasga o Coracão) (1926)
for chorus and orchestra
Chôros 12 (1929) for orchestra
Mômoprecóce (1930) for piano and orchestra
A Prole do Bebê (Book 1) for piano (1918)
Quintette en forme de Chôros (1928 revised
1953)
Suite for Voice and Violin (1923)
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bibliography:
V. Mariz Heitor Villa-Lobos: Life and Work
of the Brazilian Composer, 3rd ed. (in Eng. trans.) 1970,
5th ed., 1977
A. Muricy Villa-Lobos, 1961
S.Wright Villa-Lobos, 1988
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