May 22, 2015

  • The End of the Line: Villa-Lobos' Last Symphony

     

    Villa-Lobos: Symphony No. 12; Uirapuru; Manda-Cara
    Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra, Choir & Children’s Choir/Isaac Karabtchevsky
    Naxos 8.573451
    Total Time:  57:42
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: (*)***/****

    Over the last couple years, there have been several releases of Villa-Lobos’ symphonies from Naxos.  Those reviews delved into the composer’s life and music to help give it more perspective and readers are encouraged to check those blog posts out as well.

    Some of the recordings with the Sao Paulo orchestra have obviously been a bit better than others.  The present release creates some additional interest by adding in an early modernist work coupled with his last symphony as well as a rarer secular cantata.

    First up on the disc is Uirapuru.  This 1917 work is smack in the height of the modernist aesthetic movement growing out of a host of influences from Wagner, Debussy, and perhaps Stravinsky, but then adding in some uniquely Brazilian sound without specifically intimating folk elements.  The rhythmic ideas that appear early on certainly have Stravinsky’s style in mind often, though with slightly different orchestration approaches.  Some believe that the piece is based on an earlier work and then reworked to create the more modern style in the hopes that it might be considered by Dhiagelev.  The title is also the name of an Amazonian bird with an amazing sound when it calls that can be rather seductive thus lending it a more mythical feel.  Once the work was recorded by Stokowski, it became the composer’s first success, and most popular works.

    Completed on his 70th birthday, the twelfth symphony looked to the great masters of the form.  In this respect it ran counter to contemporary musical trends in 1957.  Not quite the “modernist” any longer, the piece seems perhaps closer aligned with Classicism, or the grand symphonic gestures that the Neo-Romantics were exploring.  The work is cast in a traditional four-movement format, though each one has unique aspects.  The opening movement blends a traditional sonata form thematically, but is treated more imaginatively often deconstructing aspects of a theme down to motives that grow back into more traditional lines.  It ends rather suddenly.  The slow movement seems to have a little Wagner and Stravinsky on its mind as an opening bassoon theme appears.  A fake flirtation with twelve-tone ideas never full materializes here.  But, there are several intriguing explorations of alternative harmonic ideas that explore quartal, chromatic and pandiatonic ideas.  Perhaps it is a more serious reflection on the progression of music during the composer’s lifetime?  The music does seem to bear a more mystical quality at times with its more dissonant reflective lines and solos.  The very brief scherzo seems almost a trifle by comparison, though it is in its own way a brilliant little showpiece for orchestra.  A rondo format is the underlying structure for the final movement.  Thematic transformation of an opening martial idea is one of the key marks of the movement.  A variety of themes and sounds seem to toss in all the ideas that Villa-Lobos perhaps feels he will never get to really explore in his remaining lifetime.  The result though is that the work overall seems to just meander a lot.  The ideas can be interesting and fortunately the whole piece runs less than 30 minutes.  It is less successful than some of the American symphonists writing in similar aesthetics of the time (Creston, Diamond, Harris).

    Finally, the disc concludes with an odd secular cantata, Mandu-Carara from 1940.  The piano score suggests it might have been conceived as a ballet though no such performance appears to have occurred.  It was premiered in 1946 in Rio de Janiero and two years later in the US.  The concepts are taken from legends in the Solimoes River region collected by Barbosa Sobrinho.  The title is the name of the god of dance and so the piece does have this interesting folkloric quality.  Sometimes the music itself feels more like it takes a few pages from Jazz rhythms and styles.  The adult choral writing is more solemn with the children’s chorus adding contrast with lighter musical styles.  The music is rather fascinating if sometimes grandly scored with many lines creating often interesting musical textures.  The train-like section towards the end is filled with exciting sounds and techniques.

    I am not quite sure that this recording will supercede Carl St. Clair’s cycle.  What the Naxos disc has going for it is the program itself: three distinct works from different periods in  Villa-Lobos’ life.  The opening piece is well played.  The symphony sometimes feels a bit underwhelming at times, which may be part of the music’s trouble as well, but it feels a bit more like a run through and a bit distant—though again, this is also part of the general aesthetic inherent in the work itself.  So it may leave you a bit cold at first.  The final piece certainly brings us back to more familiar musical territory with lots of color and is well recorded.  Overall, an interesting release for Villa-Lobos enthusiasts but not necessarily the place to start exploring the composer’s symphony output.