Ravinia 2025 Issue 6

HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS (1887–1959) Prelúdio from Bachianas Brasileiras No. 4 (arranged by Sérgio Assad) One of the foremost Brazilian composers, Vil- la-Lobos never lost touch with the popular mu- sic of his native country. A cellist and guitarist who played popular music, he spent a lifetime collecting popular tunes of Brazil. The charac- teristic rhythms and melodic shapes of the in- digenous styles permeated his compositions. The nine pieces comprising the series Bachianas Brasileiras —works modeled on Bach in a Brazil- ian style—exhibit Villa-Lobos’s love for his own musical heritage as well as his admiration for Johann Sebastian Bach. Villa-Lobos believed that Brazilian music possessed the same inde- pendent melodic quality of Bach’s counterpoint. Bachianas Brasileiras No. 4 was originally com- posed between 1930 and 1941 for solo piano. Each movement is dedicated to one of his Bra- zilian friends: pianist Tomás Gutiérrez de Terán ( Prelúdio ), pianist and composer José Vieira Brandão, who played the premiere ( Coral ), sing- er-songwriter Sílvio Salema ( né Sylvio Salema Garção Ribeiro; Ária ), and pianist Antonieta Rudge ( Dansa ). Instead of a Baroque-style, fig- ural prelude, Villa-Lobos composed a lyrical, in- trospective Prelúdio that borrows a motif from the “royal theme” in Bach’s Musical Offering . The Coral references the hymn-based compositions of Bach; its subtitle, Canto do Sertão , evokes the desert Sertão region on the northeastern horn of Brazil. The repeated treble notes allegedly rep- resent the call of the araponga , a white bellbird with an emerald facemask native to the Sertão. The final two movements incorporate actual Brazilian folksong: “Ó, mana, deixa eu ir” (also known as “Caicó”; Oh, sister, let me go) in Ária and “Vamos, maruca, vamos!” in Dansa . Villa-Lobos later orchestrated this four-move- ment composition and conducted the premiere with the Orquestra do Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro on July 15, 1942. A string ensemble plays the Prelúdio , while the other movements are scored for full orchestra. Heitor Villa-Lobos JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685–1750) Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro in E-flat major, BWV 998 The lute enjoyed peak popularity in Germany during Bach’s lifetime, an example—along with the dance suite—of the widespread French in- fluence on German musical culture. Aristo- cratic courts maintained lutenists on staff as an emblem of their cultural attainment. Several court musicians working in Germany built in- ternational reputations, and composers were quick to create new works for their repertoire. Bach knew several lutenists, including the most famous of the era, the Dresden court musician Silvius Leopold Weiß (1686–1750). An uncommonly gifted player and prolific composer, Weiß penned over 600 original works and performed many more written by other musicians. This court lutenist spent four weeks in Leipzig in 1739, frequently visiting the Bach household. His ability to extemporize was well-known, and the Thomaskantor must have enjoyed hearing another skilled improviser. The personal interaction between musicians has prompted a commonplace assertion that Bach wrote mmany of his lute pieces for Weiß. However, there is little solid evidence to sup- port the claim, and manuscript dating in some cases argues against it. Bach employed the lute in three solemn large- scale choral works— St. John Passion (1724), St. Matthew Passion (1727), and the Trauer-Ode (1727)—years before Weiß’s Leipzig visit. He also left seven solo works originating at differ- ent points in his career. Bach composed the Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro in E-flat major, BWV 998, “pour la Luth. ò Cembal.” (for lute or harpsichord) sometime around 1735. Notat- ed for keyboard, this magnificent three-section composition might have been created on the lute-harpsichord ( Lautenwerk ). The general- ly low pitch range suited the lute, with some adjustments. Johann Sebastian Bach by Johann Jacob Ihle (c.1720) HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS Five Preludes Villa-Lobos grew up in a secure middle-class environment in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His fa- ther, Raúl, worked for the National Library and was an amateur musician. Raúl taught his son cello and drilled him in Western classical mu- sical forms and styles. Rio’s bustling cultural melting pot offered endless opportunities for an up-and-coming cellist, and Heitor seemed destined for a classical performing career. However, popular music also exerted a mag- netic attraction over the impressionable young man. A self-taught guitarist, Villa-Lobos sub- merged himself in the culture of the chorões , the popular urban instrumentalists who played European dance music (polkas, waltzes, qua- drilles, and others) in a Brazilian style. For eight years (1905–13), Villa-Lobos toured remote regions of Brazil collecting folk melo- dies. His analyses of these melodies proceeded with a distinctly Western classical bias, through comparisons with Beethoven, Bach, and Chopin. Later, he absorbed distinctive rhythms and melodic shapes of Brazilian mu- sic into his own compositions. Oftentimes, as in the familiar series of Bachianas Brasileiras , native sounds merged with “classical” forms and textures. Villa-Lobos attributed much of his phenomenal precocity to the Brazilian mu- sical and natural landscape: “My musical work is the consequence of predestination. If it is in large quantity, it is the fruit of an extensive, generous, and warm land.” Significant European musicians—among them Polish pianist Artur Rubinstein and French composer Darius Milhaud—began to champi- on the career of this little-known Brazilian ge- nius during the late 1910s. To expand his grow- ing reputation, Villa-Lobos spent seven years (1923–30) shuttling between Paris and Brazil, conducting and performing his own works. Af- ter returning to Brazil for good, he dedicated himself to the advancement of musical edu- cation in his native country. His far-reaching Andrés Segovia (1962) RAVINIA.ORG  • RAVINIAMAGAZINE 77 JACKDENIJS(SEGOVIA)