Mobius Ens - Villa-Lobos - Chamber Music [CD]

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Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) Chamber Music   It is no underestimation to say that Heitor Villa-Lobos put Brazilian, and South American music as a whole, on the cultural map, through an output that he himself compared to the vastness and diversity of his own country. Yet the composer who travelled widely in Brazil and the Caribbean, absorbing ethnic idioms at first hand, also won immediate and lasting respect from many European musicians for his innovative and stylistically inclusive music. Although his output is as expansive as it is diverse, many of his works fall into well-defined groups or series. Primary among these are twelve symphonies, seventeen string quartets and two titled series - the fourteen Ch??ros and the nine Bachianas brasileiras (Naxos 8.557460-62), which latter are the most significant fruits of his desire to synthesize aspects of contemporary Western music with the idioms of his native Brazil. On a generally more modest scale, but equally characteristic of his creativity, are the numerous chamber works that inform his output at all stages, reaching, in his later years, a very considerable level of refinement that sacrifices nothing either in formal clarity or expressive immediacy. The Jet Whistle (1950) is a perfect example of Villa-Lobos's chamber composition from his last years. The first movement opens with an expressive cello melody, variously commented on by the flute, which then embarks upon its own continuation. The process is repeated as before, bringing with it a decisive closing cadence. The slow second movement finds the instruments wistfully intertwined, then, in the finale, the ruminative is made boisterous as the two voices embark on an engaging, even capricious dialogue that culminates with flute vanishing off the top of its compass while cello remains unmoved. Quintette instrumental (1957) is among the composer's very last chamber works, though it shows no sign of fatigue. It opens with a moderately paced movement that makes the most of the lush sonorities inherent in the ensemble. Harmonically too this is a good deal more elaborate than the previous work, the music proceeding as an intricate network of counterpoint, in which strings share the thematic material against spirited arabesques from flute and harp. The middle movement has the distinct character of a nocturne, with harmonics in the strings and flecks of tone from other instruments evoking a calm, moonlit atmosphere. The music takes on a definite modal quality as the textures become fuller, culminating in a lyrical outpouring that at length returns to the inward musing heard at the outset. The finale opens with the greatest contrast, its lithe vigour drawing all five instruments into animated discussion, though a more relaxed melody soon emerges on cello. These themes are then freely combined, before the second returns on viola, and the first presently re-emerges to end the work with a spirited flourish. Song of the Black Swan (1917) is

Allegro Non Troppo

Adagio

Vivo

Allegro Non Troppo

Lento

Allegro Poco Moderato

Adagio Non Troppo

Allegro

Adagio

Allegro Agitato

Beautiful Life

On This Street

Modinha

Song Of Crystal

The Sailor Song