Review: French Flute Chamber Music

Mirage Quintet: French Flute Chamber Music (Naxos 8.570444)

This year is not only the Ano Villa-Lobos in Brazil (the 50th Anniversary of his death), but also the Ano da França no Brasil, the Year of France. Villa-Lobos had a close relationship with France; Paris was his second home in the 1920s and the 1950s. He had many close friends amongst the musicians of France: Edgard Varèse, Olivier Messiaen, Florent Schmitt.

This new CD of French Flute Chamber Music from Naxos contains music from many of the composers Villa hung out with in Paris, and more importantly, the music on this disc participates in a certain style and sound from that time that Villa made his own, in works like the Nonetto, the Choros series, and the great early piano works.

The 1970s pop/rock group E.L.O. (Electric Light Orchestra) was famously formed to "pick up where [The Beatles'] 'I Am the Walrus' left off." Similarly, all the works on this CD come out of the sound world created by a single piece: Maurice Ravel's 1905 Introduction et Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet, and String Quartet. This lineup of composers comes from Ravel's generation, except for the youngster Francaix, who is 30-40 years younger than the rest. The pieces were all written in the 1920s or 1930s, all of them for flute, harp, and strings.

Though the music exists in that same sound world, subtle differences in the personalities of the composers emerge. Francaix is playful, Roussel muscular, and Schmitt nostalgic and a bit sentimental. Marcel Tournier's Suite, Op. 34 is a special treat. I knew, and enjoyed, the piece from a Hanssler Classic CD with the Linos Harp Quintet, but the Mirage Quintet give the work a forward momentum and depth that really makes it stand out. You can get a feel for this from the Mirage Quintet's YouTube video of the 3rd Movement (Lied: Assez Lent, Avec Melancolie) filmed during the CD recording in Toronto in 2007.



This recording took place under the watchful eyes and ears of the great team of Bonnie Silver & Norbert Kraft, who between them share producer, engineer, and editor functions. Kraft, by the way, is the very same guitarist who completely nailed the Villa-Lobos guitar music for Naxos in 2000. The sound on the new disc is predictably excellent, though some might argue that Robert Aitken's flute is too forward in the mix. It's hard to see how this music could be played or presented any better.

In 1957 Villa-Lobos wrote his Quintette Instrumental for Flute, violin, viola, cello, and harp, which looks back to the Ravel and Debussy models, and perhaps also to works like the Roussel Serenade and the Quintet by Guy Ropartz. But Villa's distinctive voice comes out very strongly in this late masterpiece. I would move the Villa-Lobos work to the top of the list of the pieces I've discussed in this review (all right, second after the Ravel!) Listen to the Quintette as played by the group mobius (also on Naxos, and available on the Naxos Music Library) and tell me if you agree.

Review: Klang der Welt - Brasilien

Here's a CD I took notice of back in July, when it showed up in the Naxos Music Library. Now that I've had a chance to listen more closely to it, I'm posting a fuller review here.

Klang der Welt: Brasilien

Heitor Villa-Lobos looms large in Brazil, and not just in the classical music world. In Brazilian popular music, jazz, and popular culture, and especially in this Ano Villa-Lobos (the 50th anniversary of his death), Villa-Lobos is everywhere. This makes it hard for the composers of Villa's generation, and those who followed him, to get noticed. This disc is a welcome introduction to some names that might not be well known to music lovers. Perhaps the new interest in Villa-Lobos in Brazil and around the world will be the tide that raises all boats.

The one fairly well-known work in this chronologically organized CD is Villa-Lobos's Quinteto em forma de Choros, written in 1928. It's a masterpiece, closely related to the Choros series that many (including myself) believe constitutes Villa's greatest achievement.

Luciano Gallet's Turuna for Clarinet, Violin, Viola, & Percussion is from 1926, and it's a real find. The work reflects Gallet's expertise in Brazilian folklore and popular music. It has the same fresh sound of the urban serenaders known as Choroes that permeates Villa-Lobos's music of the 1920s. The music really swings. But the Turuna shares with the Quinteto and the following work, Camargo Guarnieri's Two Songs for Flute and Voice, a sophisticated, modernist voice that relates to Villa-Lobos's strongest influences: Stravinsky, Debussy, and the many composers Villa met in Paris. You can hear in both the Gallet and Guarnieri, for example, the flute and clarinet sounds of Choros #02 of 1924. These works show that the international modernist style of Paris had found fertile ground in Brazil.

Francisco Mignone, who worked in both the nationalist and modernist styles and even flirted with serialism in the 1950s, wrote the Five Songs for Voice & Bassoon relatively late in a very long and productive career. The songs look back to the 1920s, and earlier, to the salon music of the late nineteenth century. There are few composers who write better for the bassoon - bassoonists should take up these songs in the same way they have adopted the witty Waltzes for Solo Bassoon.

Claudio Santoro's Mini Concerto Grosso is a gorgeous piece. It's a stylized work that looks back on neo-classicism in the same way that neo-classicism looked back on earlier music. It looks back to the new Brazilian style that Villa-Lobos took up in the 1930s. Santoro, like Mignone, had gone through a variety of styles (he shared a teacher, Hans Joachim Koellreutter, with Antonio Carlos Jobim, and also studied with Nadia Boulanger). Ronaldo Miranda's Variations also look back to an earlier period in Brazilian music: to a much-loved song by Anacleto de Medeiros, whose choros and schottisches from the turn of the century had a major influence on Brazilian popular music and art music alike.

Joao Guilherme Ripper was born in the year that Villa-Lobos died, and his star has risen very high in the last few years, with major triumphs in choral music and opera. Matinas, from 1996, is another strong work to close this enjoyable and illuminating programme from the very capable musicians of the Deutschen Oper Berlin.