Sunday, May 31, 2009

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: June 2009

Here are Villa-Lobos performances upcoming on Cultura FM from Sao Paulo. Listen here on the Internet. Times are local Sao Paulo times, one hour ahead of EST.

June 4:
15:00 TARDE CULTURA - Música e Notícia:
Entre outras peças, Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - As três Marias.Nelson Freire (piano). Camargo GUARNIERI - Dança Negra. Yo-Yo-Ma (cello). Kathrin Stott (piano). Ludwig van BEETHOVEN - Aberura Leonora. Orquestra Filarmônica Promenade de Londres. Reg.: Sir Adrian Boult.

June 6:
07:00 DESPERTE COM OS CLÁSSICOS:
Jacques OFFENBACH - Barcarola de "Os Contos de Hoffman". Orquestra Filarmônica de Berlim. Reg.: Herbert von Karajan./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Élégie. Orquestra Sinfônica do Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro. Marcelo Salle (cello). Reg.: Silvio Barbato....

08:00 QUATRO ESTAÇÕES - A Música ocidental em épocas e estilos:
O BARROCO - Antoine FRANCISQUE - (1575 - 1605) - Três danças para alaúde: Courante, Pavane e Bransles. Nancy Allen (harpa). / O PERÍODO COLONIAL -ANÔNIMO - Canções recolhidas no Brasil por Von MARTIUS (1817 - 1820). Coro e Orquestra Vox Brasiliensis. Reg.: Ricardo Kanji. / O ROMANTISMO - Edvard GRIEG (1843 - 1907) - Concerto para piano e orquestra em lá menor, opus 16. Jorge Bolet (piano). Orquestra Sinfônica da Rádio de Berlin. Reg.: Riccardo Chailly. / O SÉCULO XX - Heitor VILLA-LOBOS, (1887 - 1959) - Chôros nº 5 "Alma Brasileira". Aline van Barentzen (piano). Orquestra Nacional da Radiofusão Francesa. Reg.: Heitor Villa-Lobos.

June 7 / June 8:
10:00 ENCONTRO COM O MAESTRO com João Mauricio Galindo:
A música de câmara de Villa-Lobos

June 8:
23:00 NOTURNO:
Johan Sebastian BACH - Ária (Andante) Orquestra Rádio Sinfonia de Berlim. Reg.: Jesús Lopez-Cobos. / Fuga em lá menor. Julian Bream (violão)./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Francette e Piá. Lydia Kennedy e Frans van Gurp (violões).

June 13:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
VILLA-LOBOS - Danças características africanas. Alfred Heller (piano). / O papagaio do moleque. Symphony of the Air. Dir.: Heitor Villa-Lobos. / Sérgio ASSAD - Jobiniana. Aliéksey Viana (violão). / GUERRA PEIXE - Sete Lúdicas para violão e cordas. Marcus Llerena (violão). Orquestra Brasil Consort. Dir.: David Chew. / Egberto GISMONTI - Memória e Fado. / Água e Vinho. Marcos Vinícius (violão).

June 19:
07:00 DESPERTE COM OS CLÁSSICOS:
Astor PIAZZOLLA - Tango Suíte. Yo-Yo-Ma (cello). Sergio e Odair Assad (violões)./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Choros n°1. Edelton Gloeden (violão)./ Gabriel FAURÉ - Elegia opus 24. Frederic Lodéon (violoncelo). Orquestra Filarmônica de Monte Carlo. Reg.: Armin Jordan. / SOLLIMA - Violoncelles Vibrez!. Kremerata Baltica./ Edvard GRIEG - Suíte Lírica, op. 54. Orquestra Hallé. Reg: Sir John Barbirolli./ Franz LISZT - Aleluia. Philip Thomson (piano).

June 20:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Brenno BLAUTH - Concertino para oboé e orquestra de cordas. Isaac Duarte (oboé). Orquestra de Câmara Acadêmica de Zurique. Dir.: Carlos Moreno. / Sergio BARBOZA - Ciranda I. Turíbio Santos (violão). / VILLA-LOBOS - Uirapurú. Orquestra Sinfônica da Paraíba. Dir.: Eleazar de Carvalho.

13:00 DELICATESSEN com Teresa Lima:
Claude DEBUSSY - Balada. Roberta Rust (piano). / VILLA-LOBOS - Concerto para violoncelo e orquestra n° 2. Ulrich Schmid (violoncelo). Filarmonia do Noroeste da Alemanha. Reg.: Dominique Roggen. / Giuseppe TORELLI - Concerto em ré maior. St. James Baroque Players. Reg.: Ivor Bolton.

June 22:
07:00 DESPERTE COM OS CLÁSSICOS:
Jean FRANÇAIX - O Relógio de Flores. John de Lancie (oboé). Orquestra Sinfônica de Londres. Reg.: André Previn./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Prelúdio das Bachianas Brasileiras nº 4. Orquestra Petrobrás Pró-Música. Dir.: Armando Prazeres./ Pjotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY - Variações "Rococó", op. 33. Reiner Hochmuth (violoncelo). Orquestra Filarmônica de Câmara Polonesa. Dir.: Wojciech Rajski./ Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART - Sonata para flauta e piano K. 12. Lise Daoust (flauta). Louise Bessette (piano)./ Alberto NEPOMUCENO - Serenata para cordas. Orquestra Esproarte. Dir.: Arnold Allum.

June 23:
07:00 DESPERTE COM OS CLÁSSICOS:
Maurice RAVEL - Balé "A Mamãe Gansa". Orquesta Sinfônica de Londres. Reg.: André Previn./ Marin MARAIS - Prelúdio da primeira suíte do quarto livro para três violas da gamba. Jean-Louis charbonnier, Anne-Marie Lasla e Marion Middenway (violas da gamba). Mirela Giardelli (cravo)./ Ferruccio BUSONI - Sonata para clarinete e piano. Dieter Klöcker (clarinete). Werner Genuit (piano)./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas Brasileiras nº 9. Orquestra de Câmara da Argentina. Dir.: Fernadno Hasaj.

June 24:
12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO-DIA com o Maestro Walter Lourenção:
Carl St. Clair rege a Orquestra Radio-Sinfonie de Stuttgart para a obra de VILLA-LOBOS.

June 27:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Alexandre LEVY - Variações sobre um tema popular brasileiro. Marina Brandão (piano). / VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas Brasileiras nº 1. Rondo Violoncello. Dir.: Peter Buck.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Van Cliburn Competition

There are lots of blog postings and tweets out there about the 2009 Van Cliburn Competition, which is under way right now. It's interesting that two previous winners of this competition are now major advocates of Villa-Lobos's music:
  • José Feghali: the gold medalist from the seventh competition in 1985. Feghali is best known for his involvement in the Nashville Symphony's complete Bachianas Brasileiras set from Naxos.
  • Cristina Ortiz: the gold medalist from the third competition in 1969. Ortiz plays the piano in Choros #5 and #11 in the recent BIS series of the complete Choros. Her set of the five piano concertos on Decca is a classic.
Live streaming of the competition is available on the web at http://www.cliburn.tv.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Forest of the Amazon Ballet in Recife

The music that Villa-Lobos wrote for MGM's movie The Green Mansions was first adapted for the ballet in 1975, at the Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro. The production has been revived for two performances at the Teatro Guararapes in Recife next week (May 26 & 27), with Ana Botofago dancing the role of Rima the bird-girl (played by Audrey Hepburn in the movie).

The picture is from Globo.com

Here's more information on the 1975 production in Rio de Janeiro. The production was designed by Dalal Achar, the choreographer who was born in Rio of Lebanese descent. From this page at the One Fine Art website, we see that Achar co-choreographed Forest of the Amazon with Sir Frederick Ashton. This production was created for the great ballerina Margot Fonteyn, and also featured David Wall, Doreen Wells, Georgina Parkinson, Cynthia Gregory, Desmond Kelly and Ivan Nagy.

From a website about Frederick Ashton comes this description of the Achar/Ashton ballet:
[Floresta Amazónica]
Choreography by Dalal Ashcar and Frederick Ashton
M Heitor Villa-Lobos (Suite from the film Green Mansions, 1958)
C Jose Varona
Pas de deux
D Ela: Margot Fonteyn; O Homen Blanco: David Wall
FP Ballet do Rio de Janeiro, Teatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro,
6 August 1975

ST Pas de deux only; FP Curitiba, Brazil, 20 August 1975

ST New London Ballet; pas de deux only; D Margot Fonteyn, Ivan Nagy; Teatro Nacional, Madrid, 1 October 1975

ST An Evening with Fonteyn and Nureyev; under the title Final Pas de deux from Amazon Forest; D Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev;
FP Uris Theatre, New York NY, 18 November 1975

ST Royal Ballet: under the title Amazon Forest; D Margot Fonteyn, David Wall; FP Royal Opera House, London, 23 November 1976

ST Gala Ballet Season: D Margot Fonteyn, Stephen Jefferies;
FP Royal Festival Hall, London, 10 August 1978

I will add a record about the Forest of the Amazon ballet to the Villa-Lobos Works database.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Marlos Nobre

Marlos Nobre has been called the successor of Villa-Lobos. The picture above, from the Marlos Nobre Website, shows him, in full 1980s costume, with Villa's widow, Mindinha.

Nobre certainly has as high a profile as any other Brazilian composer today. I recently came across the Marlos Nobre Channel on YouTube (thanks once again to the Audições Brasileiras blog!). There are many orchestral, chamber music, and instrumental videos to watch there. Together they'll give you a good idea of Nobre's styles, though you'll also want to check out his large, and growing, discography.

Audiences in the U.S. will have a chance to hear a new work of Nobre's during the upcoming tour of the Orquestra de São Paulo, when Evelyn Glennie performs the Percussion Concerto she commissioned from Nobre.

I'll leave you with one of my favourite Nobre pieces, the Concertante do Imaginário,from YouTube:


Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Educational Concerts with the Quarteto Radamés Gnattali

The Quarteto Radamés Gnattali will be embarking on a major tour of three Brazilian provinces - Acre in the far west, Mato Grosso in the central part of the country, and Piauí in the north-east. They'll be performing 15 educational concerts in some fairly small towns & cities, all based on arrangements of Villa-Lobos's Guia Pratico.

The model for this kind of tour is the 1931 Excursão Artistica Villa-Lobos, in which Villa and a group of musician friends (including Souza Lima, Nair Duarte and Antonieta Rudge) performed 54 concerts in the back woods of the states of São Paulo, Minas e Paraná. Things have changed a bit since 1931; I'm hoping that some YouTube videos will be posted during the 2009 tour.

Besides this huge undertaking, the Quarteto RG will also be performing all 17 Villa-Lobos string quartets at the Museu Villa-Lobos, on Aug. 12 & 13, 20 & 21, and 27 & 28. The group is taking the Ano Villa-Lobos seriously!

Thanks to Audições Brasileiras for this information.

Friday, May 15, 2009

BB#6 Audio from the Spoleto Festival


Tara Helen O’Connor (flute) and Peter Kolkay (bassoon) play Bachianas Brasileiras #6 in this concert from the Spoleto Chamber Music Festival. There are some great concerts available on the prx.org site, including many others from the 2009 festival in Charleston SC.

The Fred Flaxman Compact Discoveries progrom also available on this site are also great. Flaxman seems to be a big Villa-Lobos fan.

Free registration is required at prx.org.

Villa-Lobos- um clássico popular


The Quinteto Villa-Lobos launches its new CD this weekend at the Auditório do Ibirapuera in São Paulo. The CD, entitled "Villa-Lobos- um clássico popular", presents popular VL works - including BB#2, #4, and #5, arranged for wind quintet.

After the May 17th event, the group goes on a long road-trip in Brazil to promote the CD, visiting Belo Horizonte (May 23), Florianópolis (June 27), Porto Alegre (July 10), Curitiba (October 23-24), Campinas, and Salvador. Watch for more information on the Quinteto VL website and blog.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Parisot and the Yale Cellos


I've posted about Aldo Parisot and The Yale Cellos a few times. Here's the cover of the programme from the recent 50th Anniversary concert. You can see the whole programme at this really cool site: issuu.com. One of the excellent things inside: another painting by Parisot, of Copacabana Beach.

XII Prêmio Carlos Gomes de Ópera & Música Erudita.

The major annual classical music competition in Brazil is named for the composer Carlos Gomes. At this year's event, some musicians well-known for their Villa-Lobos recordings won awards.

The conductor John Neschling, late of the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo won the Troféu Guarany. Ironically (or not - I'm not sure if this is really ironic), the OSESP won the award for best orchestra.

Sonia Rubinsky won for best instrumentalist, while the Quarteto Villa-Lobos won for best chamber ensemble. All the details are here. Below is the Quarteto VL's trophy, from the QVL blog.


Villa-Lobos in Israel

Villa-Lobos was in Israel in June, 1952. This photo from the National Photo Collection of Israel is in the public domain - I found it at the Wikimedia Commons site.

"Composer Heitor Villa-Lobos bows to the public after his concert at the "Ohel Shem" Hall in Tel Avis," National Photo Collection [1] ,serial#-054817, photo code- D597-077, 1 June 1952(1952-06-01). The photo is by Fritz Cohen.

Villa-Lobos conducted the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert which included Choros #6 and the 2nd Piano Concerto, and works by Corelli & Bach. See Lisa Peppercorn's article "Villa-Lobos in Israel", in Villa-Lobos: Collected studies by L.M. Peppercorn, p. 242-3.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

State Music and Dictatorship

An international conference entitled "Musique d'Etat et Dictature / State Music and Dictatorship" deals with an issue that is central to the story of Villa-Lobos, but which is not at all well understood. The conference is presented by the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, from May 14-16, 2009.

Gabriel Ferraz, from the University of Florida, will make a presentation entitled "Heitor Villa-Lobos and Getúlio Vargas: Indoctrinating Children through Music Education." This sounds like a fascinating talk.

Here is my take on this. Villa-Lobos had an ambiguous relationship with Getúlio Vargas, who came to power in a bloodless coup on October 24, 1930. Vargas's long (though interrupted) reign started in reaction to the coffee oligarchs that held real power in Brazil. It was at first a liberal, populist revolution, though before the end it had turned into something closer to the contemporary fascism of Europe. When Villa took over his responsibilities in music education, he was perhaps more in tune with those liberal roots. This was all entwined with his own love of country, his deep commitment to music education, and his ideals of democracy.

In his book My Guitar & My World, Abel Carlevaro talks about how much this all meant to Villa-Lobos:
"It was his firm belief that musical education through group singing at primary level was the way to the establishment of a truly Brazilian musical conscience, and he enjoyed social and collective art of all types, particularly massive choral works involving huge choirs."
Carlevaro worships Villa-Lobos. His chapter on the composer is a long and heart-felt eulogy to Villa the man as well as Villa the musician. He doesn't go into Villa's relationship with a regime which moved fairly quickly to the dark side, coming to resemble those of Peron in Argentina, Salazar in Portugal, and Mussolini in Italy (if not quite Stalin or Hitler).

I've read few serious discussions of this issue, and I must admit that I've ducked it myself over the years. I suspect that Villa's ego was involved here: it must be hard to stand in front of forty-thousand singing children and not feel a sense of power. Villa's music often seems to be at least partly about Villa himself. Empowering children through music and building a nation from diverse races and classes is one side of the coin. Manipulating the masses through that same power, in aid of a repressive regime, is the other. It's instructive that Carlevaro ends his discussion of this period with a quote of Villa's: "My music is a reflection of sincerity." I don't know that I'm completely convinced.

In June of 1936 Villa-Lobos traveled to Prague for an International Conference on Music Education. In one of the 'Presença de Villa-Lobos' books of essays and reminiscences published by the Museu Villa-Lobos,
"...there is an anecdote of how Villa-Lobos was waiting with the other passengers in the departure lounge at Frankfurt when several officials entered, accompanying a man who had a small, black moustache. Everyone jumped to their feet and saluted - except for Villa-Lobos, who remained seated and unimpressed. The officials asked to see his passport, decided that this Brazilian national, who was described as a composer, was of no consequence to the Nazi party, and took the matter no further." [Thanks to Harold Lewis for bringing this great story to my attention.]
I love this story, but I wonder if Villa's courage in Frankfurt was a small stand against fascism in his own country, which he couldn't sustain when he got back home.

Pequena Suite score


Though Villa-Lobos scores will go into the public domain in Canada (and other countries who use death+50 years) in 2010, works written before 1923 are already in the public domain in the U.S. That's why you can download the 1913 Pequena Suite for cello and piano from the Internet Archive. This PDF file is digitized by Google, and is from the David P. Appleby collection at the University of Texas at Austin.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Gewandhaus Concert Poster


From Europeana, the European digital library, a poster for a Villa-Lobos Centennial concert in Leipzig.

Educational Concerts at the Museu Villa-Lobos

This series of educational concerts at the Museu Villa-Lobos will take place later this month, during Brazil's National Museums Week. Thanks to the Audições Brasileiras blog for this.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Alex Ross in Brazil


New Yorker music critic Alex Ross will be in Brazil in July for Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty (FLIP) 2009. In this article in today's Atarde Online, some people (including musicians Isaac Karabtchevsky, Arthur Moreira Lima, and Ricardo Castro) wonder why Ross didn't feature more Brazilian composers in his prize-winning book The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. I appreciated the mentions of Villa-Lobos in the book, but I do hope that Villa-Lobos the modernist might loom a bit larger in a future edition of the book.

Villa's stock as a modernist has risen, I think, even since Ross wrote his book. The recent BIS series of the complete Choros gives one a better feel for how important they are in the music of Villa-Lobos and more generally in the whole world of music in the 1920s. Ross focussed more on the Bachianas Brasileiras series.

As to other Brazilian composers of the 20th century, it's hard to be noticed in Villa's shadow. I look forward to reading The Rest is Noise blog during the Flip trip, and hearing what Ross thinks of the state of Brazilian classical music in this century as well as the last.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Magdalena in Paris


An exciting revival in Paris of the 1948 musical Magdalena begins later this month this time next year (May 18-22, 2010). This music certainly deserves a wider audience.

I guess the work has fared pretty well over the years. Previous runs were in Germany in 1999, and Oregon in 2000, along with the famous revivals in Ohio in 1992 and the Centennial performance at Alice Tully Hall in New York in 1987. Luckily the 1989 Boston performance with Orchestra New England was recorded; you can still track it down from used CD vendors.

Thanks to Affonso Risi Jr. for the head's-up on this.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Villa's Cabernet


When I post about wine here at The Villa-Lobos Magazine I either add the picture above, which really captures Villa's bon vivant persona, or mention that I used to work in the wine industry.

Back in those olden days, there were no easily available Brazilian wines, but the industry seems to have made some real strides lately. The Casa Valduga winery has a very impressive website; I'd love to get my hands (and corkscrew) on a bottle of this!

Thanks to this blog post for the head's-up on this.

Villa-Lobos Concerti on WGBH

Here's some great programming from one of my favourite radio stations: WGBH (it's at the top of my iPhone radio list). I've never counted before, but like nearly every genre, the Villa-Lobos concertos add up. Let's see: 5 piano concertos (plus Momoprecoce, BB#3, Choros #11, and Introduction to Choros), 3 cello concertos, the concerto grosso, and concertos for harp, bassoon, harmonica, guitar, saxophone. Looks like WGBH might be including fairly obscure works in addition to these, to come up with 21 altogether. It's so great that we get to hear something other than a few Bachianas Brasilieras or works for guitar.

Mondays–Fridays, May 1–29, 10am on 89.7
(5pm on All-Classical WGBH) Composer Heitor Villa-LobosClassics in the Morning
The music of Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959) offers a chance to explore the intertwining of European and South American roots that make up Brazil's vibrant culture. In this 50th anniversary year of the composer's death, hear one of his 21 concerti each weekday in May, including the early works, which spotlight piano and cello, as well as the later, less conventional textures of soprano saxophone and harmonica.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Naxos Music Library at InstantEncore

I've always been a fan of the Naxos Music Library. Two of the top labels for Villa-Lobos are Naxos and Marco Polo, and then there are independents like BIS, Albany Records, Chandos, and Ondine. Many public libraries (including mine) license NML for their customers, but a personal subscription is also definitely worth the money.

I also really like another, newer web service: InstantEncore. Their Villa-Lobos page is turning into an important web source, and they're constantly adding new features.

The newest feature is exciting: many upcoming concert listings at InstantEncore include a "Listen Now" feature in partnership with the Naxos Music Library. Here's an example: the Boston Symphony Chamber Players will be playing the Quinteto em forma de Choros at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival on June 28th (my birthday, as it happens). You can listen online to the NML streaming audio of the Villa-Lobos work, as well as the Poulenc and the Beethoven works in the same concert, without a subscription.

I'm looking forward to using this service in the future.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Bachianas Brasileiras blog thread

I online-overheard this very interesting blog conversation about BB#1 and BB#6:

From:

Beyond the Canon - A New Perspective on Late Music History - A Synthesis of Styles: Heitor Villa-Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras nos. 1 and 6

to:

Cons. 352 Journals by Ben Cross - Response to Hannah's Bachianas Brasilerias

to:

Nick Baker's Musical Thoughts - The Bachianas Brasileiras of Heitor Villa-Lobos - A Response to Hannah Porter's Journal Entry

It's nice to see these interesting issues being debated online. Bachian vs. Brazilian themes is a great starting point. I agree with Nick's introduction of a regional musical geography. BB#1 is a great place for this discussion. It's one of many musical tours of Brazil that Villa wrote.

I find it interesting that Villa the Carioca (urban and urbane citizen of big-city Rio) has such a feel for the North-East portion of Brazil. One minute he's in the cafe drinking his cafezinho, listening to the choroes, and the next he's in the wilds of the Sertão Nordestino. And he does it all through 8 cellos playing together.

Is there a composer with a stronger sense of place in music?