Recalling a Brazilian Master: Villa-Lobos

The music of the prolific and once-hugely popular Heitor Villa-Lobos fell into near oblivion after his death in 1959--outside of his native Brazil, at any rate.

Lately, however, there have been signs of a revival, sparked perhaps by the Columbus quincentennial and the sometimes accidental bringing to light of hidden aspects of Latin-American culture.

Villa-Lobos produced at least four kinds of music: at the beginning of his career, before World War I, partaking of early 20th-Century European cosmopolitanism; then creating his flashy “jungle music,” drawing on the African and native aspects of Brazilian culture, abetted by his own flair for showmanship; then, a much more rigorous and personal neoclassical style (folk-like melodies, tricked out in Baroque forms).

In his final decade, Villa-Lobos shuttled between writing conventional virtuoso vehicles and rich, stimulating chamber music devoid of obvious ethnic influences, with the occasional piece of, by now, rather tired-sounding jungle music thrown in.

A good place to start an appreciation of Villa-Lobos is with some of the 17 quartets that have spanned his career and have been all but unknown outside of Brazil until recently.

The composer at his most folksily endearing is on display in the disingenuous Fifth Quartet (1931), a score of the most beguiling tunefulness and rhythmicity, inspired by street songs of Rio de Janeiro’s children.

Two dissimilar recorded interpretations of this work come from Rio’s Bessler-Reis Quartet, whose cycle of all 17 quartets for the French Chant du Monde label is nearing completion, and from the Cuarteto Latinoamericano of Mexico.

The Brazilians produce a deep, mahogany tone while projecting the sinuous lilt of the composer’s rhythms with sly suggestiveness (CDM 278 901).

The brighter-toned Cuarteto Latinoamericano, on the other hand, is all nerve endings and dash in an interpretation that, without downplaying the folk elements, makes clearer the connections between Villa-Lobos and the 20th-Century mainstream.

Both versions come in enticing packages--Bessler-Reis’ with the composer’s Fourth and Sixth quartets, the Cuarteto’s (Elan 2234) as part of a panoramic, superbly executed Latin-American program that includes the powerhouse Second Quartet of Argentina’s Alberto Ginastera; “Reflejos de la noche,” a gorgeously evocative study in haronics by the contemporary Mexican Mario Lavista, and the 1951 Quartet by Cuban composer Julian Orbon.

In contrast to the earlier work, Quartet No. 17 (1957) is by turns nostalgically sorrowing (with a recurring lament oddly suggestive of Grieg) and fierily energetic, veering with gracefulness between austerity and open-heart-edness.

Of its three available recordings (the others being by Bessler-Reis and Cuarteto Latinoamericano),the one that most tellingly captures its mood swings comes from the Danubius Quartet. The four gifted young women operating not out of Rio, Mexico City or anywhere else south of the border but from Budapest, are currently engaged in recording all the Villa-Lobos quartets for the Hong Kong-based Marco Polo label.

The Danubius’ playing of the composer’s last quartet (8.23390, with Nos. 11 and 16) exhibits a lyric intensity and degree of technical polish beyond that of the present competition. Splendid music, splendidly presented.

In a very different vein, the gut-thumping “Choros” No. 10 for chorus and orchestra, the splashiest of Villa-Lobos’ Amazonian jungle evocations, has at last received a modern recording (Dorian 80101). The fittingly brilliant performance is by the Simon Bolivar Symphony of Venezuela and a lusty choral ensemble, under the practiced hand of Eduardo Mata.

The coupling, from the same accomplished forces, offers a rare glimpse of modern Venezuelan art music: “Cantata Criolla” by Antonio Estevez (1916-1988), an ambitious, sometimes (unintentionally) amusing creation reminiscent in its syncopated rhythms of Hungarian music (Kodaly’s “Psalmus Hungaricus”), with bits derived from Stravinsky’s “Les Noces” and stretches possibly meant to evoke Copland-like big people and landscapes. Curious and fascinating.

Also worth exploring is a two-CD collection issued by Inter-American Musical Editions of the Organization of American States, devoted to modern Brazilian composers, among them Villa-Lobos, represented by his lovely “Bachianas Brasileiras” No. 4; the serialist Claudio Santoro (1919-1989), and Marlos Nobre (b. 1939), whose “In Memoriam” rejects native influences in favor of dense textures and great, Messiaen-like washes of sound.

For more information: Inter-American Musical Editions, 1889 F St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20006.