Heitor Villa-Lobos

[Ian Thumwood]

Thanks for posting this thread Ian, which has prompted me to reacquaint myself with Villa-Lobos, a composer I enjoy greatly.
I guess he had advantages over other South American composers in that he spent several years in pre-war Paris, a time of great musical activity.. Rubinstein was a great ally
Tending towards his smaller scale pieces, I am not a fan in general of large scale works, no matter the composer. However I did note there is a recent release of his last major work Suite Floresta do Amazonas, and this was reviewed in the Guardian.

Quarky

Good evening

Ihave acquired all but rwo of the "Piano Music" series on Naxos by Sonia Rubinsky. There discs are territic. I do find it difficult trying to imagine where Villa Lobos should be in the piano pantheon and whilst there are huge swathes of his music which seems to take it's cues from popular music, I think that the way he treated the piano was highly original. So many famous composer gravitated to Paris whether it is Prokokiev or Martinu. I feel that with Villa Lobos it probably helped liberate his perception of what the piano can do - maybe because it was not his first instrument and perhaps did not appreciate what should not be done. All of these volumes by Sonia Rubinsky are enjoyable. At his best, I just feel that Villa Lobos is highly original and seriously under-valued. I am also a fan of Bartok and just feel that HVB did for Brazilin music what Bartok did for Hungarian .

[Serial_Apologist]

Quarky

Good evening

Ihave acquired all but rwo of the "Piano Music" series on Naxos by Sonia Rubinsky. There discs are territic. I do find it difficult trying to imagine where Villa Lobos should be in the piano pantheon and whilst there are huge swathes of his music which seems to take it's cues from popular music, I think that the way he treated the piano was highly original. So many famous composer gravitated to Paris whether it is Prokokiev or Martinu. I feel that with Villa Lobos it probably helped liberate his perception of what the piano can do - maybe because it was not his first instrument and perhaps did not appreciate what should not be done. All of these volumes by Sonia Rubinsky are enjoyable. At his best, I just feel that Villa Lobos is highly original and seriously under-valued. I am also a fan of Bartok and just feel that HVB did for Brazilian music what Bartok did for Hungarian .

I would think the Argentinian Ginastera or the Mexican Revueltas would be closer to being described as Latin American equivalents of Bartok; Villa-Lobos was in many ways a Post Impressionist like Milhaud, both in his adoption of specifically Brazilian folk idioms (though he never actually met Milhaud, one learns) and in extending a harmonic language inherited from Debussy, Ravel, and quite possibly Falla, whose influence was all over S American modern music between the wars. V-L spent some time in Paris in the 1920s or 30s so was imbibing the ethos of that post-Debussy generation - "The Little Train of the Kai Piri" (1930) is too obviously indebted to Honegger's "Pacific 231" (1923). Sharing the French harmonic orbit of that time, which had taken the Stravinsky of the Diaghilev era on board and to a lesser extent the Russian's Neo-Classicism, would have led him in the direction of Messiaen - or, more possibly in reverse, Messiaen took from V-L's early " primitivism" (gv. the latter's extraordinarily extravagant "Rudepoema" for piano of 1928) and applied its rhythmic drive and polytonal opulence to his own sensational piano works of the mid-1940s such as the "Vingt Regards" and "Visions de L'Amen", maybe even "Turangalila".

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

I am really impressed by the Amazonias. I think I have an disc somewehere with Revueltas and Ginastera compositions on it. It is a Naxo compilation and includes the composition about the snake. It is a good mixture of compositions which also includes the famous HVB BB dedicated to the train. This reminds me a bit of Ellington.

Your comments about Messaien and Milhaud are interesting. I would never have made the connection with the former although I agree somewhat regarding HVB's harmonic language. The piano music is varied although it seems to occupy the two extremes of simple, children's pieces to pieces where the pianist needs three hands. Although his music sounds nothing like him, the immediate connection I made between HVL was with jazz pianist Don Pullen. In post instances they tend to make the piano produce unorthodox sounds. In the Brazilian's case, I believe that this was partly due to his initial lack of familiarity with the instrument. I find HVL to be very much a maverick. He was not a game-changer nor someone who seems to have as much influence outside of South America as he should have enjoyed. However, I feel he was producing piano works which did not conform to norms from both how he made the piano sound and also the form his music took. For me, he is a one off.

[gurnemanz]

Quarky

Good evening

Ihave acquired all but rwo of the "Piano Music" series on Naxos by Sonia Rubinsky. There discs are territic. I do find it difficult trying to imagine where Villa Lobos should be in the piano pantheon and whilst there are huge swathes of his music which seems to take it's cues from popular music, I think that the way he treated the piano was highly original. So many famous composer gravitated to Paris whether it is Prokokiev or Martinu. I feel that with Villa Lobos it probably helped liberate his perception of what the piano can do - maybe because it was not his first instrument and perhaps did not appreciate what should not be done. All of these volumes by Sonia Rubinsky are enjoyable. At his best, I just feel that Villa Lobos is highly original and seriously under-valued.

Nearly all the Villa-Lobos I have is on that excellent BIS box and I'm grateful to Ian for mentioning the piano music. His recommendation + very enthusiastic online reviews led me to seek out those Naxos recordings. It was hard to decide which one or ones to get. I found the complete set of 8 on Amazon for £32 (via Rarewaves - it seems to be nla otherwise). I have tried to cut down on CD purchases of late but this set at a decent price solved my dilemma. I am thoroughly enjoying getting to know some music previously entirely unknown to me.