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Chôros No. 8

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Chôros No. 8
Chôros by Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos
CatalogueW208
Composed1925 (1925): Rio de Janeiro
DedicationTomás Terán
Published1928 (1928): Paris
PublisherMax Eschig
RecordedFebruary 1945 (1945-02) Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York; Heitor Villa-Lobos, cond. (2 sound discs: analog, 33⅓ rpm, monaural, 16 in. Américas Unidas: matrix CH413 and CH416. Distributed electrical transcription recordings, with labels and announcements for Spanish-speaking audiences. Also includes Chôros No. 9.)
Duration22 mins.
Scoring
  • orchestra
  • two pianos
Premiere
Date24 October 1927 (1927-10-24):
LocationSalle Gaveau, Paris
ConductorHeitor Villa-Lobos
PerformersOrchestre des Concerts Colonne, Aline van Barentzen and Tomás Terán, pianos

Chôros No. 8 is a work for orchestra and two pianos, written in 1925 by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. It is part of a series of fourteen numbered compositions collectively titled Chôros, ranging from solos for guitar and for piano up to works scored for soloist or chorus with orchestra or multiple orchestras, and in duration up to over an hour. A recording of Chôros No. 8 conducted by the composer lasts 22 minutes.

History

The Salle Gaveau, where Chôros No. 8 was premiered in 1927

Chôros No. 8 was composed in Rio de Janeiro in 1925, and the score is dedicated to the pianist Tomás Terán. It was premiered in Paris on 24 October 1927, at the Salle Gaveau, with the composer conducting the Orchestra of the Concerts Colonne and Aline van Barentzen and Tomás Terán, pianos. The first American performance took place on 12 April 1929 in Philadelphia, again with Barentzen and Terán playing the pianos, and the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski. Despite these documented performances, the year of composition has been called into question by one scholar, who asserts that the work was conceived in Paris in 1925, but completed only after the composer's return to Rio de Janeiro in 1930.

The work was never performed in Latin America in the composer's lifetime. The first performance in Brazil took place in the context of a Villa-Lobos Festival at the Theatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro on 23 November 1963, with Luiz Carlos de Moura Castro and Luiz Medalha, pianos, and the Orquestra Sinfônica Nacional, conducted by Isaac Karabtchevsky.

Instrumentation

Chôros No. 8 is scored for two pianos and an orchestra consisting of piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 4 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, tam-tam, tambourine, tamborim, snare drum, triangle, cymbals, 2 metal chocalhos (small and large), reco-reco, caracaxá, caraxá, puíta, ratchet, xylophone), celesta, 2 harps, and strings.

Analysis

At the time of its Paris premiere, this Chôros was called "Le fou huitième" (The Mad Eighth), for its extravagant scoring and unconventional performing techniques, as well as for its superimposition of multiple opposing rhythms and tonalities. It has been described as Villa-Lobos's most fauvist and "modern" composition from the 1920s, formally the most irregular, most violent, and "tropical" of all Villa-Lobos's works, whose leading feature is its almost complete atonality and dissonance. It has been claimed there is virtually nothing in this work that could be called a "theme", and the work "is not about thematic groups and their symphonic development". Instead, its material consists of motifs, phrases, and thematic fragments, mostly consisting of between three and five diatonic or chromatic notes and note repetitions.

Both of these positions have been challenged. While it is conceded to be Villa-Lobos's most dissonant work, analysis shows this is a case of polytonality, rather than atonality, and while the use of short repeated motifs with variations and rhythmic transformations are the essence of primitivist rhythmic animation, these procedures are also the very definition of symphonic thematic development.

The composer characterised the work as the "Dance Chôros", and construed the fragmented and contrapuntally intertwined opening themes as "sensually complex and atonal in order to deliberately give the feeling of nervousness of a crowd that is gathering to dance". The work appears to be conceived as an exploration of the possibilities of concatenation of sound blocks assembled from ostinato figurations. In fact, there are something like thirty-six different ostinatos, which are used to coordinate a complex stream of sounds.

References

  • Béhague, Gerard. 1994. Villa-Lobos: The Search for Brazil's Musical Soul. Austin: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin. ISBN 0-292-70823-8.
  • Béhague, Gerard. 2001. "Villa-Lobos, Heitor". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Villa-Lobos, sua obra. 2009. Version 1.0. MinC / IBRAM, and the Museu Villa-Lobos. Based on the third edition, 1989. p. 24.
  2. Mellers, Wilfrid. 2001. Singing in the Wilderness: Music and Ecology in the Twentieth Century. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. p. 88. ISBN 0-252-02529-6.
  3. Appleby, David. 2002. Heitor Villa-Lobos: A Life (1887–1959). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. pp. 85-6. ISBN 978-0-8108-4149-9.
  4. Tarasti, Eero. 1995. Heitor Villa-Lobos: The Life and Works, 1887–1959, translated from the Finnish by the author. Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. p. 118. ISBN 0-7864-0013-7.
  5. Peppercorn, Lisa M. 1991. Villa-Lobos: The Music: An Analysis of His Style, translated by Stefan de Haan. London: Kahn & Averill; White Plains, NY: Pro/Am Music Resources. pp. 95-6. ISBN 1-871082-15-3 (Kahn & Averill); ISBN 0-912483-36-9.
  6. Seixas, Guilherme Bernstein. 2007. “Procedimentos Composicionais nos Choros Orquestrais de Heitor Villa-Lobos”. PhD diss. Rio de Janeiro: Universidade Federal do Estado de Rio de Janeiro. pp. 104–5.
  7. Villa-Lobos, Heitor. 1972. "Choros: Estudo técnico, estético e psicológico", edited in 1950 by Adhemar Nóbrega. In Villa-Lobos, sua obra, second edition, 198–210. Rio de Janeiro: MEC/DAC/Museu Villa-Lobos. p. 201.
  8. Salles, Paulo de Tarso. 2009. Villa-Lobos: processos composicionais. Campinas, SP: Editora da Unicamp. p. 216. ISBN 978-85-268-0853-9.

Further reading

  • Demarquez, Suzanne. 1929a. "Les Choros de Villa-Lobos". Musique: Revue mensuelle de critique, d'histoire, d'esthétique et d'information musicales, No. 4 (15 January): 707–13.
  • Demarquez, Suzanne. 1929b. "Villa-Lobos". Revue Musicale 10, no. 10 (November): 1–22.
  • Moreira, Gabriel Ferrão. 2014. "A construção da sonoridade modernista de Heitor Villa-Lobos por meio de processos harmônicos: um estudo sobre os Choros". PhD diss. São Paulo: Universidade do Estado de São Paulo.
  • Negwer, Manuel. 2008. Villa-Lobos: Der Aufbruch der brasilianischen Musik. Mainz: Schott Music. ISBN 3-7957-0168-6. Portuguese version as Villa Lobos e o florescimento da música brasileira. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2009. ISBN 978-85-61635-40-4.
  • Neves, José Maria. 1977. Villa-Lobos, o choro e os choros. São Paulo: Musicália S.A.
  • Nóbrega, Adhemar Alves da. 1975. Os chôros de Villa-Lobos. Rio de Janeiro: Museu Villa-Lobos.
  • Peppercorn, Lisa M. 1980. "A Villa-Lobos Autograph Letter at the Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris)". Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana 1, no. 2 (Autumn–Winter): 253–64.

External links

Chôros by Heitor Villa-Lobos
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