Kevin Sweet
Music History
3-17-08
Listening Journal
Heitor Villa Lobos was born March 5, 1887 in Rio de Janeiro Brazil. He had little formal training as a child but learned to play cello, guitar and clarinet with his father as his teacher. Villa Lobos became one the most well known classical composers from South America, fusing together Brazilian elements with a modernist approach. Between 1930 and 1945, he composed nine works entitled Bachianas Brasileiras (Brazilian Bach pieces,) and they contain some of his most popular work. The works combine influences from Brazilian folk music and stylistic elements of the European classical tradition.
Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1 is written for cello ensemble and exemplifies the composer’s love for the tonal qualities of the cello. It consists of three movements, an introduction, preludio and fugue, and it is around twenty minutes long. Embolada, incorporates cellos playing a light, percussive ostinato pattern followed by moments of counterpoint. The use of dissonance within the movement, are slight, and it utilizes thematic material and sequences as the main compositional devices.
Modinha, is a lyrical, slow moving middle section that paints an intense landscape of moods by introducing sweet melodies that slowly melt into darker harmonies. Villa Lobos is possibly utilizing elements of the German empfindsam style, featuring surprising turns of harmony, chromaticism and speech-like melodies. Villa Lobos skillfully incorporates Brazilian harmonic composition into a German sentimental style. The third movement is a fugue and uses a subject that contains dotted rhythms and swung eighth notes that are undeniably aspects of the Brazilian musical vocabulary.
Bachianas Brasileiras No. 6 is a duet between the flute and bassoon and it consists of two movements, an Aria and a Fantasia. The Aria is a choro, a Brazilian form that Villa Lobos helped popularize, composing dozens of works with this title for various instruments. The second movement is pulling inspiration from the Italian process of instrumental composition by not sticking to a strict form and writing subjects that more resemble improvisation.
This was my first introduction to the Bachianas Brasileiras or any Villa Lobos that was not composed for the guitar. I have played several Villa Lobos compositions for the guitar, and I never felt connected to the pieces emotionally. Even though that Villa Lobos has composed works for the guitar that are among the most well known pieces in the repertoire, I felt they were mediocre. His guitar pieces address crucial technical and mechanical elements of classical guitar playing but the harmonic structure and melodic content of his preludes and etudes sound too much like exercises, leaving the listener unfulfilled.
My opinion of Villa Lobos was tainted simply because I was not familiar with how versatile of a composer he was. The Bachianas Brasileiras showcases his craftsmanship and skill for writing moving harmony and beautiful melodies. Villa Lobos should be associated with the standard repertoire of the time because he provided a unique voice that has one foot rooted in Brazilian tradition and another in past European traditions.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Listening Journal
Kevin Sweet
Music History
3-18-08
Listening Journal
For my sixth entry, I chose Vivaldiana by Gian Francesco Malipiero. When I saw the title, I did not think much of it. Within the first few moments of listening, I thought to myself, “Wow...I should have known.” Vivaldiana is a group of works for small orchestra, similar to the core group of instruments that Vivaldi composed many of his concertos, which consist of strings, flutes, oboes, bassoons and horns.
Gian Francesco Malipiero was born in Venice, also the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi, on March 18, 1882. Early in Malipiero’s musical training, he would copy the scores of composers like Claudio Monteverdi and Girolamo Frescobaldi, providing the musical blueprint for his career.
Vivaldiana is constructed of three movements in fast-slow-fast plan which was taken from the Italian opera overture. This format became the standard pattern for concertos, introduced by the Venetian composer Tomaso Albinoni. Vivaldiana’s first movement has a slow introduction, utilizing imitation and harmonic movement of going up a fourth, down a fifth. This harmonic progression is similar to approaches to harmony throughout the eighteenth century. The opening ritornello is composed of fast small units, establishing the key to which the music will later modulate. A great deal of imitation is utilized throughout the movement.
The slow movement entitled Adante piu lento un poco, is my favorite movement of the three because it has expressive, long breathed melodies. Similar to Vivaldi, Malipiero is made the slow movement equally as important to the fast movements. The movement modulates to the relative minor strengthening the return to the tonic.
The last movement is playful and has the strings using coloristic effects like pizzicato and muted strings. The ritornello contains segments of two or four measures that are varied by repeating in different instruments with altered dynamic levels. Malipiero makes use of short motives that are stretched by taking them through strong chord progressions, linking them together with sequences.
The works utilize rhythmic vibrancy, clear formal structure and skillful use of variation by grouping different sets of orchestral instruments. This recording of Vivaldiana is performed by the Veneto Philharmonic Orchestra and the movements come to a little under fifteen minutes long.
Vivaldiana by Gian Francesco Malipiero is rightfully not a part of the standard canon because it does not reflect the attitude of the twentieth-century. Composers of the time reacted to Romanticism, trying to develop to new ways and concepts of expression. Malipiero does represent a school of thinking that grasps on to past traditions and nationalistic claims which could be viewed as against the grain, but the clear formal structures and assured harmonies are more representative of the eighteenth century rather than the early twentieth.
Music History
3-18-08
Listening Journal
For my sixth entry, I chose Vivaldiana by Gian Francesco Malipiero. When I saw the title, I did not think much of it. Within the first few moments of listening, I thought to myself, “Wow...I should have known.” Vivaldiana is a group of works for small orchestra, similar to the core group of instruments that Vivaldi composed many of his concertos, which consist of strings, flutes, oboes, bassoons and horns.
Gian Francesco Malipiero was born in Venice, also the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi, on March 18, 1882. Early in Malipiero’s musical training, he would copy the scores of composers like Claudio Monteverdi and Girolamo Frescobaldi, providing the musical blueprint for his career.
Vivaldiana is constructed of three movements in fast-slow-fast plan which was taken from the Italian opera overture. This format became the standard pattern for concertos, introduced by the Venetian composer Tomaso Albinoni. Vivaldiana’s first movement has a slow introduction, utilizing imitation and harmonic movement of going up a fourth, down a fifth. This harmonic progression is similar to approaches to harmony throughout the eighteenth century. The opening ritornello is composed of fast small units, establishing the key to which the music will later modulate. A great deal of imitation is utilized throughout the movement.
The slow movement entitled Adante piu lento un poco, is my favorite movement of the three because it has expressive, long breathed melodies. Similar to Vivaldi, Malipiero is made the slow movement equally as important to the fast movements. The movement modulates to the relative minor strengthening the return to the tonic.
The last movement is playful and has the strings using coloristic effects like pizzicato and muted strings. The ritornello contains segments of two or four measures that are varied by repeating in different instruments with altered dynamic levels. Malipiero makes use of short motives that are stretched by taking them through strong chord progressions, linking them together with sequences.
The works utilize rhythmic vibrancy, clear formal structure and skillful use of variation by grouping different sets of orchestral instruments. This recording of Vivaldiana is performed by the Veneto Philharmonic Orchestra and the movements come to a little under fifteen minutes long.
Vivaldiana by Gian Francesco Malipiero is rightfully not a part of the standard canon because it does not reflect the attitude of the twentieth-century. Composers of the time reacted to Romanticism, trying to develop to new ways and concepts of expression. Malipiero does represent a school of thinking that grasps on to past traditions and nationalistic claims which could be viewed as against the grain, but the clear formal structures and assured harmonies are more representative of the eighteenth century rather than the early twentieth.
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