Musique en Brionnais 2008

When I'm travelling, I love to combine a concert with a visit to a special place. For example, I really enjoyed a performance of the Brahms Requiem at St. Paul's Cathedral the last time I was in London. Here's a suggestion for travelers in France in early August: a concert at L'église de Bois-Sainte-Marie, a beautiful Romanesque church in Burgundy. This is part of the festival Musique en Brionnais 2008.

A chamber music concert on August 2nd will include the "Duo pour violoncelle et piano" of Villa-Lobos with pianist Juliana Steinbach and cellist Guillaume Martigné. I'm not sure exactly which piece that might be. The standard reference work Villa-Lobos Sua Obra (1972) lists a number of miscellaneous works for cello & piano, besides the "pequena sonata" from 1913 and the two sonatas from 1915.

Here's a photo of the church's interior by Jean-Pierre Gobillot (This photo is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, 2007.)

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: August 2008

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.

August 1, 2008
06:00 A ESCRITA DE CÂMARA - Solistas e pequenas formações: Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Concerto para violão e pequena orquestra. Orquestra de Câmara Brasileira. Dir. Bernado Bessler. Turíbio Santos (violão). Bachianas Brasileira n° 9. Orquestra de cordas. Fantasia para saxofone e orquestra. Orquestra de câmara Brasileira. Paulo Moura (saxofone). Ciranda das sete notas. Orquestra de câmara Brasileira. Noel Devos (fagote)

August 2, 2008
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música: VILLA-LOBOS - Momoprecoce - Fantasia para piano e orquestra. Cristina Ortiz (piano). Orquestra Nova Filarmonia. Dir.: Vladimir Ashkenazy. / A prole do bebê no. 1. Cristina Ortiz (piano).

13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leói: Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - "Ária (cantilena)" da Bachianas Brasileiras No.5. Frank Morelli (fagote). Benjamin Verdery (violão). / Frédéric CHOPIN - Sonata para piano No.3 em si bemol Op.58. Yundi Li (piano). / Jean-Phillipe RAMEAU - "Laudate Dominum" do Grande Moteto In Convertendo. Suzanne Gari (soprano). La Chapelle Royale. Reg.: Philippe Herreweghe.

August 4, 2008
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi: Arthur HONEGGER - Poema Sinfônico "Pastorale d'été". Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Reg.: Hermann Scherchen. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Suíte popular brasileira. Sérgio Assad e Odair Assad (violão). / Ignaz MOSCHELES - Bonbonnière musicale. Ivan Klánský (piano).

August 6, 2008
15:00 TARDE CULTURA - Música e Notícia com Fabio Malavoglia: Entre outras obras, as Bachianas Brasileiras n° 5 de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS, a Suíte "Mamãe Gansa" de Maurice RAVEL e o Quinteto para clarineta e cordas op. 34 de Carl Maria von WEBER.

August 9, 2008
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música: CAMARGO GUARNIERI - Choro para clarinete e orquestra. Sérgio Burgani (clarinete). Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. Dir.: John Neschling. / Dança brasileira/ Dança negra. Yo-Yo MA (violoncelo). Kathhryn Stott (piano). (aquele disco) VILLA-LOBOS - Fantasia Concertante para piano, clarinete e violoncelo. Pablo Zinger (piano). Paquito D Rivera (clarinete). Gustavo Costa (violoncelo). / PIXINGUINHA - Carinhoso. Yo-Yo MA (violoncelo). Paquito D'RIvera (clarinete). Romero Lumambo (violão) Cyro Baptista (percussão)

August 11, 2008
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi: Jean-Philippe RAMEAU - Cena 5 do balé "Anacreón". Agnès Mellon e Jill Feldman (soprano). René Schirrer (baritono). Les Arts Florissants. Reg.: William Christie. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Sinfonietta No.1. Orquestra Sinfônica da Rádio Stuttgart. Reg.: Carl St.Clair. / Antonio VIVALDI - Converto para viola d'amore, alaúde, cordas e baixo contínuo em ré menor R.540. Norbert Blum (viola d'amore). John Williams e Benjamin Verdery (violão). Orquestra de Câmara Franz Liszt. Reg.; János Rolla.

August 13, 2008
07:00 DESPERTE COM OS CLÁSSICOS: Pjotr Iyich TCHAIKOVSKY - Dumka (Cena Rústica Russa), op. 59. Lang Lang (piano)./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas Brasileiras n° 2. Orquestra Filarmônica Real Britânica. Reg.: Enrique Bátiz. / Jean SIBELIUS - O Cisne de Tuonela. Orquestra de Filadélfia. Reg.: Eugen Ormandy. / Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART - ária "Prigionier che fa ritorno, do oratório "Betulia Liberata", K. 118. Nathalie Stutzmann (contralto). Moscou Virtuosi. Dir.: Vladimir Spivakov. / Hekel TAVARES - Modinha, primeiro movimento do concerto para piano em formas brasileiras. Arnaldo Cohen (piano). Orquestra Sinfônica Petrobrás Pró-Música. Reg.: Roberto Tibiriçá.

August 15, 2008
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi. Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Prelúdios No. 1 a No.5. Sérgio Assad e Odair Assad (violão). / Gioachino ROSSINI - "Prélude Italien" e "Échantillon de blague mélodique sur les noires de la main droite". Marco Sollini (piano). / Giovanni Battista VITALI - Ciaccona em sol menor. Cléa Galhano (flauta). Vivian Montgomery (cravo).

August 18, 2008
12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO-DIA com o Maestro Walter Lourenção: Cristina Ortiz é a solista do concerto para piano n° 2 de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS.

August 21, 2008
22:00 SALA DE CONCERTO: Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Introdução ao Choros e Choro n° 1. Turíbio Santos (violão). Orquestra Sinfônica Rio. Reg.: Sílvio Barbato. / Leo BROUWER - Concerto para violão n° 5 - Helsinki. Timo Korhonen (violão). Orquestra Filarmônica Tampere. Reg.: Tuomas Ollila. / Astor PIAZZOLLA - Concerto duplo para bandoneon e violão. Orquestra Sinfônica de Montreal. Reg.: Charles Dutoit.

August 23, 2008
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música: Alexandre LEVY - Tango / Romance sem palavras. Clara Sverner (piano) / Luciano GALLET - Hieroglyfo/ Henrique OSWALD - Berceuse opus 14 n° 1. Belkiss Carneiro de Mendonça (piano) VILLA-LOBOS - Ibericabe. Sonia Rubinsky (piano). / Osvaldo LACERDA - Quarteto n° 1. Quarteto Camargo Guarnieri.

13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leói: Johann Sebastian BACH - Concerto para quatro cravos e orquestra BWV 1065. Quaternaglia. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Quarteto para cordas No.15. Cuarteto Latinoamericano. / Antonín DVORÁK - Tema e variações Op.36. Radoslav Kvapil (piano).

August 30, 2008
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música: CAMARGO GUARNIERI - Concerto para piano n° 1. Max Barros (piano). Orquestra Filarmônica de Varsóvia. Dir.: Thomas Conlin. /Hilda REIS - Valsa Fantasia. Tâmara Ujakova (piano) / Ronaldo MIRANDA - Estrela brilhante. Harlei Elbert (piano). / Alexandre BRASOLIM - Contradança / Carambola. Fernando Dissenha (trompete). Carlos Assis (piano). / VILLA-LOBOS - Suíte floral, op. 97. Anna Stella Schic (piano).

12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO DIA com o maestro Walter Lourenção: Fantasia para violoncelo e Orquestra de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS com Janos Starker e a Orquestra Sinfônica da Paraíba. Reg.: Eleazar de Carvalho.

Rio International Cello Encounter

The website of the Rio International Cello Encounter is now up. Villa's first instrument was the cello, and he featured the instrument in many of his greatest works - especially the first and fifth Bachianas Brasileiras. There are many Villa-Lobos works featured in the nearly 50 concerts during the event.

Joanna Brzezinska-Maurer plays Villa-Lobos

Pianist Joanna Brzezinska-Maurer's 2007 CD of Villa-Lobos piano music has been well-reviewed, and it's a disc I've enjoyed myself. It's nice to see that she's planning the release of a new CD this fall:

28-31 octobre, Lausanne Château Fallot
Enregistrement: CD -Villa-Lobos no.2
IV Bachianas Brasileiras, As Tres Marias, Trois Danses Africaines, Ciclo Brasileiro, Rudepoema

This well-filled disc hits some of the real high points of Villa's extraordinarily well-recorded piano music. I'm looking forward to it.

If you're going to be in Geneva earlier in October, you can hear all of this music live.

Carnaval and the Bossa Nova

I missed this NPR feature, from Performance Today, from 2005, on the Carnaval and the popular music of Brazil. Besides the Villa-Lobos piece played by pianist Luiz de Moura Castro and selections from the Obrigado Brasil project, you can listen to a quick rundown of important genres of Brazilian popular music: samba, choro, bossa nova, the music of Bahia, and capoeira.

Make sure you follow the link to the Performance Today page for Obrigado Brazil: Yo-Yo Ma's all-star Brazilian project. The Villa-Lobos piece is A Lenda do Caboclo, with Sergio & Odair Assad and Ma, but Villa's finger-prints are all over much of this music.

You can buy the original CD of Obrigado Brazil from Amazon.com:

Atterberg Symphonies

Kurt Atterberg was born in the same year (1887) as Villa-Lobos (he died 15 years after VL, in 1974.) The two composers share a knack for orchestration, and they could both write a beautiful tune. One other thing they share: the German record company cpo has recorded complete cycles of the Symphonies of each composer.

The nine symphonies of Atterberg are now available in a box set at an amazingly low price. Though he wrote lovely chamber music, and some very beautiful concertos, the symphonies represent the most important music of this composer. You can't say that about VL's symphonies, as interesting as some of them (#2, #6, #10) might be.



I'm hoping that cpo does a similar bundling job for the Carl St. Clair Stuttgart recordings of the Villa-Lobos symphonies. The broader exposure to this largely unknown music will help us unravel where they fit in Villa's musical output.

Nonetto CD released

I've been complaining for a long time about the lack of an easy-to-buy CD of the great chamber work from 1924, the Nonetto, subtitled "Impressao rapida de todo o Brasil". There's a interesting recent Brazilian CD "Villa-Lobos em Paris", conducted by Gil Jardem, but I haven't been able to get a copy here in the Red Deer bat-cave.

So I was excited to see that the famous Roger Wagner Chorale disc from the 1950s has finally been re-released on CD:



Villa-Lobos: Nonetto, for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Saxophone, Bassoon, Harp, Celesta, Battery, and Mixed Chorus; Quatuor, for Flute, Harp, Celesta, Alto Saxophone, and Women's Voices by The Roger Wagner Chorale and the Concert Arts Players, Roger Wagner, Villa-Lobos

Here's the blurb from the Amazon site:

"Precocious and full of wonderment, the Nonetto and Quatuor, written by Villa-Lobos in 1924 and 1921 respectively, are surely two of the unsung minor masterpieces of the early 20th Century. In its fusion of pagan rhythms and chanting with the brittle harmonies of the avant garde, Nonetto brings to mind Stravinsky's Les Noces and Prokofiev's Scythian Suite. Yet the piece is also characterised by a freewheeling playfulness more suggestive of jazz and folk music than the concert hall.This edition restores to print two historic performances of the Nonetto and Quatuor from 1941 and 1957 combining them with a set of exquisite Villa-Lobos guitar works performed by the great masters Andrés Segovia, Julian Bream and Laurindo Almeida."

This is great, but it under-states the importance of the Nonetto. I'd characterize the Nonetto as an unsung major masterpiece of the early 20th Century. The jury is still out on the Quatuor, but this disc will provide some welcome exposure.

So pre-order this disc - I highly recommend it.

I'll give the last word to Villa-Lobos, who gave was a big fan:

"Roger Wagner deserves all my admiration for his dedicated work...a notable achievement in technique and sound as well as perfect interpretation."

Rio Cello Encounter 2008

The Fourteenth Rio International Cello Encounter begins on August 9, 2008. This year the festival, which David Chew began in 1995, will include 58 concerts and recitals, with cellists, ensembles and orchestras from around the world. One that jumps out for me is I Musici de Montreal, an awesome group with an award-winning Latin American CD. The preliminary information for the I Musici concert is here.



Until the festival's website is up and running, there's some useful information at the excellent Rio website Carioca Forever.

The Healing Art of Music in London & Basingstoke

It's nice to see BB#5 included in two of the concerts that Boston's Longwood Symphony Orchestra performed in the UK this summer, as part of their Healing Art of Music series.

The Longwood Symphony Orchestra brings its unique blend of music and medicine from Boston for its first international "Healing Art of Music" tour, focusing on the care and treatment of patients with cancer. The concerts will raise funds for the new support centre at Barts for patients with cancer and for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

I've long been a fan of music therapy - using the power of music to enhance healing and wellness. There are lots of references in the Wikipedia article if you'd like to learn more. Also check out the Longwood SO's Healing Art of Music blog.

Marsalis Brasilianos

I'm going to re-post this, since there have been a couple of concerts added to the list. Thanks for the input, all - please feel free to comment on any of these posts! [In the past few days I've added the UConn and Newport News concerts. Talk about a punishing schedule!]

There's an exciting series of Villa-Lobos concerts coming in the fall of 2008 to concert halls across the U.S. According to the tour publicity,

Marsalis Brasilianos is a celebration of the music of Heitor Villa-Lobos, featuring Branford Marsalis and members of the Philarmonia Brasilera (Gil Jardim, Conductor). This fascinating new project commemorates the 50th Anniversary of the revered Brazilian composers death.

Bringing together Grammy Award-winning saxophonist Branford Marsalis with a Brazilian orchestra known for it's remarkable work with Villa-Lobos' music, the program is uniquely suited to Marsalis' mastery of both jazz and classical music, allowing the language of Villa-Lovos' compositions to truly shine.

Featured in the tour are three Villa-Lobos works: the Fantasia for Solo Saxophone, the (2nd) Suite for Strings, and Bachianas Brasileiras #5 (which I assume will feature Marsalis on soprano saxophone as the soloist). The project also includes two works by Darius Mihaud: La Creation du Monde, and Scaramouche.

Marsalis's official website doesn't feature this project yet, but I've been coming across information about individual concerts on the web. UPDATE: go here for the latest info on the tour.

Here's what I've found so far: an updated list:

October 2 - Eugene OR
October 3 - Seattle WA
October 5 - Stanford CA
October 6 - Modesto CA
October 8 - San Bernardino CA
October 9 - San Luis Obispo CA
October 10 - Los Angeles CA
October 11 - Orange County CA
October 13 - Santa Fe NM
October 14 - Albuquerque NM
October 16 - Lufkin TX
October 18 - Fayetteville AR
October 19 - Overland Park KS
October 20 - Conway AR
October 22 - Milwaukee WI
October 23 - Detroit MI
October 24 - Wheaton IL
October 25 - Minneapolis MN
October 26 - Winona MN
October 28 - Storrs CT
October 30 - Ithaca NY
November 1 - Bronx NY
November 2 - Stony Brook NY
November 5 - Newport News VA
November 6 - Durham NC
November 7 - Rockville MD
November 9 - Birmingham AL

By the way, the actual 50th anniversary of the death of Villa-Lobos is November 17, 2009.

Marsalis's arrangement of BB#5 for soprano saxophone is now a classic. One of the most successful of many, many similar projects, it's included in his album Romances for Saxophone. You can buy the CD: