Música de feria

Silvestre Revueltas in 1930

Música de feria (Fair Music) is a composition for string quartet by the Mexican composer and violinist Silvestre Revueltas, written in 1932. Though not so titled by the composer, it is sometimes referred to as his String Quartet No. 4. A performance lasts a little more than nine minutes.

History

Música de feria was completed on 25 March 1932 and first performed on 7 November 1933 by the Cuarteto Clásico (violinists Ezequiel Sierra and David Saloma, violist David Elizarrarás, and cellist Teófilo Ariza) at the Teatro Hidalgo in Mexico City (Keller 2011, 381). Revueltas had previously composed three numbered quartets in rapid succession in 1930–31, but this work was only first designated his String Quartet No. 4 in 1984, by the Cuarteto Latinoamericano and Juan Arturo Brennan. It is regarded as one of Revueltas's most important works (Contreras Soto 2000). Of his four quartets, Música de feria is without question the one that has most often been performed and recorded (Bitrán 2001, 71).

Analysis

Fair at the Plaza de la Constitución, Mexico City

Música de feria is written in a single movement which nevertheless incorporates the structure and development of a traditional quartet. A distinctive feature is the simultaneous presentation of independent melodic lines in each part but within a single rhythmic pattern (Contreras Soto 2000).

There is considerable disagreement about the musical structure.

According to one interpretation, the quartet is seen as clearly falling into four main sections, corresponding in miniature to the structure of a traditional four-movement string quartet: Allegro (first movement), Lento (slow movement), Allegro giocoso (scherzo), and Allegro tempo I (finale) (Bitrán 2001, 77).

Alternatively, the quartet is regarded as falling into just three large sections, each of which consists of a succession of three contrasting subsections. The opening section (Allegro–Vivo allegro) returns in slightly modified form at the end, thereby forming an overall ABC-DEF-ABC pattern. The central section is marked at its onset (D) by a slow tempo (Lento) employing ostinato patterns, but this gives way to increasingly faster material in the second and third subsections (E and F, Allegro tempo I and Giocoso, respectively). The recurrence of the opening section is almost literal in its A and B subsections, with the C section in an accelerated tempo, Presto y frenético (Leclair 1995, 121–25).

Discography

In chronological order of recording.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, January 30, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.