legoru
04-23-2014, 12:56 PM
On this CD presented popular piano pieces of Villa-Lobos. The Prole do Beb� (The Baby's Family) suites represent in the first suite various dolls and in the second toy animals. These are not children's pieces, though, but adult reflections on these images. The music has a certain Ravelian clarity but again coloured with the rhythms of South America. As Tr�s Marias (The Three Marys), three delightful miniatures that actually represent the three stars in the 'belt' of the constellation Orion. Rudepoema (Savage Poem); written in the 1920's for Artur Rubinstein it was said by the composer to be a portrait in music of the dedicatee. The work is a virtuosic tour-de-force and certainly captures the larger than life exuberance of the then young virtuoso.
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
As tr�s Marias (1939)
1. Alnitah [0'53]
2. Alnilam [1'29]
3. Mintika [0'54]
Prole do beb� 1 (1918)
4. Branquinha [2'06]
5. Moreninha [1'24]
6. Caboclinha [2'07]
7. Mulatinha [1'38]
8. Negrinha [1'08]
9. A Pobrezinha [1'38]
10. O Polichinelo [1'18]
11. A Bruxa [2'16]
Prole do beb� 2 (1921)
12. A baratinha de papel [2'07]
13. O gatinho de papel�o [3'36]
14. O camundongo de massa [2'53]
15. O cachorrinho de borracha [3'03]
16. O Cavalinho de pau [2'21]
17. O boizinho de chumbo [3'44]
18. O passarinho de pano [3'09]
19. O Ursinho de algod�o [2'32]
20. O lobinho de vidro [4'16]
21. Rudepoema (1923)
Marc-Andr� Hamelin , piano
https://mega.co.nz/#!BA1SDLAZ!YNOM6CTopZuajESO8uPUIy12RE0YR_hQ5rEdS8Z 9OYM
flac + booklet
The little suite As Tr�s Marias was composed at the suggestion of Edgar Var�se, whom Villa-Lobos had met in New York in 1939. At the time, Villa-Lobos had composed New York Skyline for orchestra, which arose from a suggestion from a journalist that Villa-Lobos project a photograph onto manuscript paper and use the outline of the image as a melodic line, which he then harmonised and later orchestrated. The resultant score fascinated Var�se, who asked for a similar experiment with regard to the night sky. ‘The Three Marys’ (Tr�s Marias) is the name sometimes given to the three Belt stars (Alnilam, Alnitak and Mintaka—though the spellings vary) in the constellation Orion. In terms of texture and tessitura, the Tr�s Marias are heard at their best when played consecutively, and when their additional pulse connections can be better appreciated. It should come as no surprise to learn that this little suite soon became one of the most frequently played solo piano works of this composer.
Prole do Beb� suites for piano, written in Rio three years apart, show the composer to have been equally a master of smaller forms. Prole do Beb� (‘The Baby’s Family’) brings together seventeen little pieces in two suites, the first devoted to dolls, and the second to animals. It should be understood that these pieces are not meant for children to play themselves (unless they are very advanced young pianists), but are recollections of childhood, like Schumann’s Kinderszenen. Some of these pieces require a virtuoso technique and a great deal of musical understanding to project them properly. A third suite, with the same title, was apparently written in 1916, but has long been lost. It was never published.
The first suite (1918) is dedicated to Lucilia Villa-Lobos, the composer’s wife whom he had married in 1912. There are strong elements of polytonality—which Villa-Lobos concurrently developed after Milhaud’s lead—in that in various places in the music the right hand plays on the white keys, with the left hand on the black, and the influence of Stravinsky’s Petrushka may not be far away.
Branquinha: The first suite opens with a delicate texture, high on the keyboard, which soon reveals a lyrical theme that seems to contradict the Tr�s anim� et gai marking. The form is a simple ABAB with a brief vivo codetta.
Moreninha: This lively little piece, whose dynamic is always half-stated, is akin to a moto perpetuo and is based upon a favourite Villa-Lobos tonality of C sharp. The simplicity of the ABA structure conceals some brilliant and original keyboard writing, and the final chord thwarts all expectations.
Caboclinha: A simple 3+3+2 accompaniment figure sustains this beautifully atmospheric, authentically Brazilian—in its evocation of folksong—piece, with its almost sensuous dance-like melodic fragments creating a crescendo-diminuendo structure.
Mulatinha: The mulatto figure is almost literally a colourful mixture of ideas, mainly pentatonic, but a built-in accelerando does not hide the underlying polytonal basis.
Negrinha: A brilliant toccata-like study similarly contrasts A flat major and C major.
A Pobrezinha: Here our sympathies are invoked, Lentement et m�lancolique, for this waif, her soft yet uncertain B–C sharp–E chords supporting rather than troubling her.
O Polichinelo: This was the last music Arthur Rubinstein played in public—his final encore. It was a piece he played—and altered slightly—often, and it recalls, more than any other item in this Suite, Petrushka, three movements from which Stravinsky arranged and dedicated to the virtuoso in 1921, despite one of them being virtually unplayable as written. Villa-Lobos’s ‘Punch’ is playable, and became one of the most famous of all the Brazilian’s shorter works.
A Bruxa: This is a very different piece. The uncertain, troubled atmosphere is all-pervasive, and the three sections—Lente, Preste, Lente—are not wholly organic, except for the consistency of Villa-Lobos’s favourite key of C sharp.
The second suite—1921, pictures of toy animals—is dedicated to the American pianist Aline von B�rentzen, who was born in a suburb of Boston in 1897 and who, as a child prodigy and pupil of Leschetizky in Vienna, gained an excellent reputation as a specialist in Hispanic music. (She went on to make the first-ever recording of Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain, for HMV, with Piero Coppola conducting.) So far as this suite is concerned, in harmonic terms, we note Villa-Lobos’s growing use of tonal custers, rather than polytonality as such. Despite these technicalities, the music continues the charm of the first suite.
A baratinha de papel: The little cockroach here is not very lively; this is a highly atmospheric opening to the suite, slowly unfolding before a spicy tonal cluster ends the piece.
O gatinho de papelao: The cat is dozing, Lentement, and only gradually stretches itself before settling down to a soft cluster of B flat and its adjacent keys.
O camundongo de massa: The mouse has the field to himself—running about, Tr�s anim�, here is a toccata-like and relatively extended piece that coalesces into C octaves at the end, as though he has finally been caught.
O cachorrindho de borracha: The dog here is not to be disturbed. This highly imaginative piece is like a brown study, with the animal quietly musing over the day’s events, recollected in serene tranquillity.
O Cavalinho de pau: The horse will not be still. Here, this lively little animal is all-action, getting faster as the time signature changes from 3/4 to 2/4 before a breathless conclusion in an individual G tonality.
O boizinho de chumbo: In contrast, the young ox will not be hurried. Un peu mod�r� is the order of the day before it ambles to the shed where it retires for the night.
O passarinho de pano: Set almost entirely in the treble, but not hurrying too much, this brilliant piece anticipates Messiaen in extraordinary fashion.
O Ursinho de algod�o: The little bear is both playful and gracious, if the composer’s tempo indications are faithfully followed to conjure the appropriate mood of this tonally simple piece in C.
O lobinho de vidro: Finally, the suite concludes with an extended study, very difficult to play, the wolf anticipating Peter’s animal—‘this way, and that’—before a tonal cluster, centred upon E, brings this suite to a wondrous conclusion.
Rudepoema (‘Savage Poem’, 1921–1926) is Villa-Lobos’s largest, most virtuosic and most immediately powerful work for solo piano. It was composed, as we can see, partly during his Paris years, and owes something to the prevailing mood among the avant-garde of the day—most notably Stravinsky, with further Russian influences (Scriabin, Mosolov, Alexander Tcherepnin) alongside aspects of music of the American ‘futurists’ (Ornstein and Antheil) with a polytonalism more especially derived from Milhaud and Martinu.
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
As tr�s Marias (1939)
1. Alnitah [0'53]
2. Alnilam [1'29]
3. Mintika [0'54]
Prole do beb� 1 (1918)
4. Branquinha [2'06]
5. Moreninha [1'24]
6. Caboclinha [2'07]
7. Mulatinha [1'38]
8. Negrinha [1'08]
9. A Pobrezinha [1'38]
10. O Polichinelo [1'18]
11. A Bruxa [2'16]
Prole do beb� 2 (1921)
12. A baratinha de papel [2'07]
13. O gatinho de papel�o [3'36]
14. O camundongo de massa [2'53]
15. O cachorrinho de borracha [3'03]
16. O Cavalinho de pau [2'21]
17. O boizinho de chumbo [3'44]
18. O passarinho de pano [3'09]
19. O Ursinho de algod�o [2'32]
20. O lobinho de vidro [4'16]
21. Rudepoema (1923)
Marc-Andr� Hamelin , piano
https://mega.co.nz/#!BA1SDLAZ!YNOM6CTopZuajESO8uPUIy12RE0YR_hQ5rEdS8Z 9OYM
flac + booklet
The little suite As Tr�s Marias was composed at the suggestion of Edgar Var�se, whom Villa-Lobos had met in New York in 1939. At the time, Villa-Lobos had composed New York Skyline for orchestra, which arose from a suggestion from a journalist that Villa-Lobos project a photograph onto manuscript paper and use the outline of the image as a melodic line, which he then harmonised and later orchestrated. The resultant score fascinated Var�se, who asked for a similar experiment with regard to the night sky. ‘The Three Marys’ (Tr�s Marias) is the name sometimes given to the three Belt stars (Alnilam, Alnitak and Mintaka—though the spellings vary) in the constellation Orion. In terms of texture and tessitura, the Tr�s Marias are heard at their best when played consecutively, and when their additional pulse connections can be better appreciated. It should come as no surprise to learn that this little suite soon became one of the most frequently played solo piano works of this composer.
Prole do Beb� suites for piano, written in Rio three years apart, show the composer to have been equally a master of smaller forms. Prole do Beb� (‘The Baby’s Family’) brings together seventeen little pieces in two suites, the first devoted to dolls, and the second to animals. It should be understood that these pieces are not meant for children to play themselves (unless they are very advanced young pianists), but are recollections of childhood, like Schumann’s Kinderszenen. Some of these pieces require a virtuoso technique and a great deal of musical understanding to project them properly. A third suite, with the same title, was apparently written in 1916, but has long been lost. It was never published.
The first suite (1918) is dedicated to Lucilia Villa-Lobos, the composer’s wife whom he had married in 1912. There are strong elements of polytonality—which Villa-Lobos concurrently developed after Milhaud’s lead—in that in various places in the music the right hand plays on the white keys, with the left hand on the black, and the influence of Stravinsky’s Petrushka may not be far away.
Branquinha: The first suite opens with a delicate texture, high on the keyboard, which soon reveals a lyrical theme that seems to contradict the Tr�s anim� et gai marking. The form is a simple ABAB with a brief vivo codetta.
Moreninha: This lively little piece, whose dynamic is always half-stated, is akin to a moto perpetuo and is based upon a favourite Villa-Lobos tonality of C sharp. The simplicity of the ABA structure conceals some brilliant and original keyboard writing, and the final chord thwarts all expectations.
Caboclinha: A simple 3+3+2 accompaniment figure sustains this beautifully atmospheric, authentically Brazilian—in its evocation of folksong—piece, with its almost sensuous dance-like melodic fragments creating a crescendo-diminuendo structure.
Mulatinha: The mulatto figure is almost literally a colourful mixture of ideas, mainly pentatonic, but a built-in accelerando does not hide the underlying polytonal basis.
Negrinha: A brilliant toccata-like study similarly contrasts A flat major and C major.
A Pobrezinha: Here our sympathies are invoked, Lentement et m�lancolique, for this waif, her soft yet uncertain B–C sharp–E chords supporting rather than troubling her.
O Polichinelo: This was the last music Arthur Rubinstein played in public—his final encore. It was a piece he played—and altered slightly—often, and it recalls, more than any other item in this Suite, Petrushka, three movements from which Stravinsky arranged and dedicated to the virtuoso in 1921, despite one of them being virtually unplayable as written. Villa-Lobos’s ‘Punch’ is playable, and became one of the most famous of all the Brazilian’s shorter works.
A Bruxa: This is a very different piece. The uncertain, troubled atmosphere is all-pervasive, and the three sections—Lente, Preste, Lente—are not wholly organic, except for the consistency of Villa-Lobos’s favourite key of C sharp.
The second suite—1921, pictures of toy animals—is dedicated to the American pianist Aline von B�rentzen, who was born in a suburb of Boston in 1897 and who, as a child prodigy and pupil of Leschetizky in Vienna, gained an excellent reputation as a specialist in Hispanic music. (She went on to make the first-ever recording of Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain, for HMV, with Piero Coppola conducting.) So far as this suite is concerned, in harmonic terms, we note Villa-Lobos’s growing use of tonal custers, rather than polytonality as such. Despite these technicalities, the music continues the charm of the first suite.
A baratinha de papel: The little cockroach here is not very lively; this is a highly atmospheric opening to the suite, slowly unfolding before a spicy tonal cluster ends the piece.
O gatinho de papelao: The cat is dozing, Lentement, and only gradually stretches itself before settling down to a soft cluster of B flat and its adjacent keys.
O camundongo de massa: The mouse has the field to himself—running about, Tr�s anim�, here is a toccata-like and relatively extended piece that coalesces into C octaves at the end, as though he has finally been caught.
O cachorrindho de borracha: The dog here is not to be disturbed. This highly imaginative piece is like a brown study, with the animal quietly musing over the day’s events, recollected in serene tranquillity.
O Cavalinho de pau: The horse will not be still. Here, this lively little animal is all-action, getting faster as the time signature changes from 3/4 to 2/4 before a breathless conclusion in an individual G tonality.
O boizinho de chumbo: In contrast, the young ox will not be hurried. Un peu mod�r� is the order of the day before it ambles to the shed where it retires for the night.
O passarinho de pano: Set almost entirely in the treble, but not hurrying too much, this brilliant piece anticipates Messiaen in extraordinary fashion.
O Ursinho de algod�o: The little bear is both playful and gracious, if the composer’s tempo indications are faithfully followed to conjure the appropriate mood of this tonally simple piece in C.
O lobinho de vidro: Finally, the suite concludes with an extended study, very difficult to play, the wolf anticipating Peter’s animal—‘this way, and that’—before a tonal cluster, centred upon E, brings this suite to a wondrous conclusion.
Rudepoema (‘Savage Poem’, 1921–1926) is Villa-Lobos’s largest, most virtuosic and most immediately powerful work for solo piano. It was composed, as we can see, partly during his Paris years, and owes something to the prevailing mood among the avant-garde of the day—most notably Stravinsky, with further Russian influences (Scriabin, Mosolov, Alexander Tcherepnin) alongside aspects of music of the American ‘futurists’ (Ornstein and Antheil) with a polytonalism more especially derived from Milhaud and Martinu.