Chôros No. 8
| Chôros No. 8 | |
|---|---|
| by Heitor Villa-Lobos | |
.jpg) Heitor Villa-Lobos | |
| Catalogue | W208 |
| Genre | Chôros |
| Form | Chôros |
| Composed | 1925: Rio de Janeiro |
| Dedication | Tomás Terán |
| Published | 1928: Paris |
| Publisher | Max Eschig |
| Recorded | February 1945 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.) |
| Duration | 22 mins. |
| Movements | 1 |
| Scoring | Orchestra |
| Premiere | |
| Date | 24 October 1927: |
| Location | Salle Gaveau, Paris |
| Conductor | Heitor Villa-Lobos |
| Performers | Orchestre 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
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 Orchestre des 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 (Villa-Lobos, sua obra 2009, 24). 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 (Mellers 2001, 88).
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 (Appleby 2002, 85–86). 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 (Tarasti 1995, 118). 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 (Peppercorn 1991, 95–96).
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 (Seixas 2007, 104–105).
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" (Villa-Lobos 1972, 201). 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 (Salles 2009, 216).
References
- Appleby, David. 2002. Heitor Villa-Lobos: A Life (1887–1959). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-4149-9.
- Béhague, Gerard. 1994. Villa-Lobos: The Search for Brazil's Musical Soul. Austin: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 1994. 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.
- Mellers, Wilfrid. 2001. Singing in the Wilderness: Music and Ecology in the Twentieth Century. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-02529-6.
- 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 Inc. ISBN 1-871082-15-3 (Kahn & Averill); ISBN 0-912483-36-9.
- Salles, Paulo de Tarso. 2009. Villa-Lobos: processos composicionais. Campinas, SP: Editora da Unicamp. ISBN 978-85-268-0853-9.
- 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.
- 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. ISBN 0-7864-0013-7.
- 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.
- Villa-Lobos, sua obra. 2009. Version 1.0. MinC / IBRAM, and the Museu Villa-Lobos. Based on the third edition, 1989.
Further reading
- 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
- villalobos.iu.edu Villa-Lobos site at Indiana University: Maintained by the Latin American Music Center