La Guitare Brésilienne Contemporaine: Label Kuarup 1977-2004.
Showing posts with label Kuarup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kuarup. Show all posts
Monday, March 23, 2009
La Guitare Brésilienne Contemporaine: Label Kuarup 1977-2004
A new complation disc from the late, lamented Kuarup company, as seen at French Amazon:
La Guitare Brésilienne Contemporaine: Label Kuarup 1977-2004.
La Guitare Brésilienne Contemporaine: Label Kuarup 1977-2004.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Villa-Lobos String Quartets
While I post this, I'm listening to the Quarteto Amazônia play Villa-Lobos's 8th and 9th String Quartets, on Radio UOL:
http://musica.busca.uol.com.br/radio/index.php?check=artista&busca=VILLA-LOBOS¶m1=homebusca
This is from a double CD Kuarup disc that finishes off the 17-work series of complete quartets begun by the Bessler-Reis Quartet (who play #1-6, and 12-17).
I have the discs at home, and feel good about having access to these great works. It's convenient to listen online as well - the Radio UOL service is great. It is low-fi, though, so you might want to buy the MP3s
from Amazon.com. And of course, you can look for the Cuarteto Latinoamericano or Danubius Quartet (on Marco Polo), on CD or MP3s. Your best bet for value, though, comes from Brilliant Classics - they've repackaged the Cuarteto Latinoamericano discs from Dorian at a very nice price. This set, by the way, shows up in a lot of eBay vendor sites. There are a few other options for these works. One is #6 played by The Hollywood String Quartet, in a historic performance now on CD. Another way to listen to VL's string quartets is at a live concert. Next Sunday, if you're in Southern California, you can hear #4 played by the Cuarteto Latinoamericano.
I don't think we can call the Villa-Lobos quartets unknown any more; not with this many CDs, MP3s, online streams, and live performances out there.
But coming back to the Kuarup set, you can read the notes online at the Kuarup site, or in Google-English-ish translation. They include an essay by Antonio Hernandez entitled "Confronto de colossos". The other colossos that Villa confronts in his String Quartet series is Bela Bartok. Are the cycles of quartets by Bartok and Villa-Lobos the greatest two of the 20th century? I would guess lots of music lovers would agree with Bartok, but they might think of Shostakovitch or ten or twelve other composers before they'd come up with Villa-Lobos.
The tendency in much of the literature about string quartets is to remind people that Villa-Lobos wrote in this genre at all, since everyone tends to write and talk about the folkloric side of his music: the Bachianas and Choros series, and the guitar music. Another common thread is to talk about Villa the innovator, as in this excerpt from Robin Stowell's 2003 Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet (p. 161):
I don't think we can call the Villa-Lobos quartets unknown any more; not with this many CDs, MP3s, online streams, and live performances out there.
But coming back to the Kuarup set, you can read the notes online at the Kuarup site, or in Google-English-ish translation. They include an essay by Antonio Hernandez entitled "Confronto de colossos". The other colossos that Villa confronts in his String Quartet series is Bela Bartok. Are the cycles of quartets by Bartok and Villa-Lobos the greatest two of the 20th century? I would guess lots of music lovers would agree with Bartok, but they might think of Shostakovitch or ten or twelve other composers before they'd come up with Villa-Lobos.
The tendency in much of the literature about string quartets is to remind people that Villa-Lobos wrote in this genre at all, since everyone tends to write and talk about the folkloric side of his music: the Bachianas and Choros series, and the guitar music. Another common thread is to talk about Villa the innovator, as in this excerpt from Robin Stowell's 2003 Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet (p. 161):
Remarkably, Villa-Lobos wrote, as early as 1916, a complete movement with left-hand pizzicatos and double harmonics, effects only rarly tapped before in the medium. His subsequent exploitation of harmonic effects in his Third Quartet is remarkable, as are, on paper at least (because they rarely sound!), the ponticello harmonics required by Berio in his Sincronie.
We'll see if the Villa-Lobos quartets can climb the ladder of composer reputations in the coming years, at least part-way as high as the Villa-Lobos devotees might think they deserve.
Tuesday, September 10, 2002
Villa-Lobos Concerts & CDs Analyzed
I've been tracking performances of Villa-Lobos works at concerts and recitals from around the world since January 1997, in the Upcoming Villa-Lobos Concerts page of the Villa-Lobos Website. I've recently put together a list of the works played at those concerts. As well, I've looked at the 445 CDs containing works by Villa-Lobos that are currently available at Amazon.com. I'll be posting a spreadsheet with this information on the Website - it's here - and I'll keep it updated as I receive new information.
In the meantime, here are some interesting results. The most commonly performed works:
Bachianas Brasileiras #5 (48)
Harmonica Concerto (20)
Unspecified Pieces for Guitar (20)
Assobio a Jato (19)
Bachianas Brasileiras #2 (17)
Bachianas Brasileiras #1 (12)
Guitar Etudes (12)
Bachianas Brasileiras #6 (8)
Bachianas Brasileiras #9 (8)
Bachianas Brasileiras #4 (7)
Guitar Preludes (7)
Saxophone Fantasia (7)
No real surprises here. The Bachianas Brasileiras series looms large in terms of the popular view of Villa-Lobos. BB#5 is one of the standards of the orchestral repertoire, and in its version for soprano and guitar for that of chamber music. Robert Bonfiglio has nearly single-handedly brought a high level of popularity to the Harmonica Concerto. The works for guitar are probably under-reported by a factor of at least three, since many concert notices do not refer to particular works.
Many of these pieces show up at the top of the CD list as well:
Bachianas Brasileiras #5 (98)
Guitar Preludes (70)
Guitar Etudes (57)
Choros 1 (33)
Suite Popular Bresilienne (32)
Bachianas Brasileiras #2 (22)
Guitar Concerto (22)
Bachianas Brasileiras #4 (20)
Choros #5 (16)
Bachianas Brasileiras #1 (14)
Song Recitals (14)
Ciclo Brasiliera (13)
Prole de Bebe #1 (13)
The guitar music is well represented on CD, with every one of the works Villa-Lobos wrote for the instrument (with the exception of the Introduction to Choros, which has unaccountably received only a single recording) in the top ten most popular works. The best works for piano are well represented as well. It's nice to see a work from the Choros series - Choros #5, subtitled Alma Brasileira - getting as many recordings as some of the Bachianas Brasileiras series.
At the other end, there are a few great works that received no performances (as reported on my page - my collection of this information is very hit and miss). These include most of the Symphonies; four of the Piano Concertos; Choros 8, 9 and 12; and the String Trio. Luckily, the list of works with no recordings in the Amazon.com list (nearly all of which are available throughout the world) is really quite short:
Cello Sonata 1
Choros 4
Choros 6
Daughter of the Clouds
Duas Lendas Amerindias
Fantasia de Movementos Mixtos
Nonetto
Sinfonietta #1
Symphony 2
Symphony 3
Symphony 7
Symphony 9
Vidapura
Yerma
From this short list, we'll soon be able to remove the 3rd and 9th Symphonies, coming soon from cpo. Symphonies 2 and 7 will presumably follow, from the same source, within a year. After that, we badly need recordings of the 6th Choros, the Fantasia de Movementos Mixtos and the Nonetto. As for the other hole in the Choros series, number 4, that's available in the indispensable CD Os Choros de Câmara from the Brazilian company Kuarup. I ordered this CD, and others, from Kuarup's website. Kuarup's CDs are very inexpensive, and the discs arrived amazingly quickly.
I think that, overall, the works of Villa-Lobos are fairly well represented both discographically, and on the concert stages of the world. The complete cycles of string quartets recently performed at the Kuhno Festival in Finland and by the Cuartetto Latinoamericano brought many hidden gems to the surface. Naxos is especially to be commended for their well-played, well-recorded budget CDs. I'm sure, though, that there are many works that I've left out in my list that need performances and recordings. Why not tell me what you think?
In the meantime, here are some interesting results. The most commonly performed works:
Bachianas Brasileiras #5 (48)
Harmonica Concerto (20)
Unspecified Pieces for Guitar (20)
Assobio a Jato (19)
Bachianas Brasileiras #2 (17)
Bachianas Brasileiras #1 (12)
Guitar Etudes (12)
Bachianas Brasileiras #6 (8)
Bachianas Brasileiras #9 (8)
Bachianas Brasileiras #4 (7)
Guitar Preludes (7)
Saxophone Fantasia (7)
No real surprises here. The Bachianas Brasileiras series looms large in terms of the popular view of Villa-Lobos. BB#5 is one of the standards of the orchestral repertoire, and in its version for soprano and guitar for that of chamber music. Robert Bonfiglio has nearly single-handedly brought a high level of popularity to the Harmonica Concerto. The works for guitar are probably under-reported by a factor of at least three, since many concert notices do not refer to particular works.
Many of these pieces show up at the top of the CD list as well:
Bachianas Brasileiras #5 (98)
Guitar Preludes (70)
Guitar Etudes (57)
Choros 1 (33)
Suite Popular Bresilienne (32)
Bachianas Brasileiras #2 (22)
Guitar Concerto (22)
Bachianas Brasileiras #4 (20)
Choros #5 (16)
Bachianas Brasileiras #1 (14)
Song Recitals (14)
Ciclo Brasiliera (13)
Prole de Bebe #1 (13)
The guitar music is well represented on CD, with every one of the works Villa-Lobos wrote for the instrument (with the exception of the Introduction to Choros, which has unaccountably received only a single recording) in the top ten most popular works. The best works for piano are well represented as well. It's nice to see a work from the Choros series - Choros #5, subtitled Alma Brasileira - getting as many recordings as some of the Bachianas Brasileiras series.
At the other end, there are a few great works that received no performances (as reported on my page - my collection of this information is very hit and miss). These include most of the Symphonies; four of the Piano Concertos; Choros 8, 9 and 12; and the String Trio. Luckily, the list of works with no recordings in the Amazon.com list (nearly all of which are available throughout the world) is really quite short:
Cello Sonata 1
Choros 4
Choros 6
Daughter of the Clouds
Duas Lendas Amerindias
Fantasia de Movementos Mixtos
Nonetto
Sinfonietta #1
Symphony 2
Symphony 3
Symphony 7
Symphony 9
Vidapura
Yerma
From this short list, we'll soon be able to remove the 3rd and 9th Symphonies, coming soon from cpo. Symphonies 2 and 7 will presumably follow, from the same source, within a year. After that, we badly need recordings of the 6th Choros, the Fantasia de Movementos Mixtos and the Nonetto. As for the other hole in the Choros series, number 4, that's available in the indispensable CD Os Choros de Câmara from the Brazilian company Kuarup. I ordered this CD, and others, from Kuarup's website. Kuarup's CDs are very inexpensive, and the discs arrived amazingly quickly.
I think that, overall, the works of Villa-Lobos are fairly well represented both discographically, and on the concert stages of the world. The complete cycles of string quartets recently performed at the Kuhno Festival in Finland and by the Cuartetto Latinoamericano brought many hidden gems to the surface. Naxos is especially to be commended for their well-played, well-recorded budget CDs. I'm sure, though, that there are many works that I've left out in my list that need performances and recordings. Why not tell me what you think?
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