Guitar Forum 2 (2004)
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(2) g u i ta r f o ru m 2 WINTER 2003 issn 1 4 7 5 – 4 7 8 9. very welcome, and should be sent in the first place to the editor, who will pass on relevant material to the contributors. Substantial exchanges will be published in Guitar Forum or on our website, www.egtaguitarforum.org.. uk £8.49 · Europe €14.25 · us $14.95 · rest of world £14.95. Reviews. Editor Jonathan Leathwood. A limited number of reviews and article-reviews may be published in future issues or on our website. Material for review should be sent to the editor.. Editorial board Stephen Dodgson, Angelo Gilardino, Stephen Goss, Ricardo Iznaola, Stanley Yates, Fabio Zanon Cover design by Philip Atkins Printed and bound in the uk by the Alden Press, Osney Mead, Oxford, ox2 0ef Published annually by the European Guitar Teachers Association uk (egta uk), London ∞ Website Additional articles and discussion may be found at the Guitar Forum website, www.egtaguitarforum.org, free to read and download. The website is regularly updated with information about present and forthcoming issues and how to order, together with a list of any errata discovered since going to press. Purchase The prices above include shipping and handling. Make cheques or money orders payable to egta uk and send to Guitar Forum at The Moorings, Horn Lane, New Mill, Holmfirth, Huddersfield, hd7 7dd, uk, or at 833 East 14th Avenue #6, Denver, co 80218, usa. We hope to provide online purchase at www.egtaguitarforum.org/Order.html. Contributions All contributions to Guitar Forum will be gratefully considered by the editorial board, and should be sent to Jonathan Leathwood, 833 East 14th Avenue #6, Denver, co 802i8, usa · [email protected]. Some style guidelines for the journal are available on request from the editor. Correspondence This journal is an open forum for the presentation of scholarly work relating to the guitar. The views expressed in the articles are not necessarily the views of egta uk, the editor or the editorial board. Letters and emails are. Advertising uk Anthony Dodds, 75 East Street, Bridport, Dorset, dt6 3lb, uk · [email protected] usa Jonathan Leathwood, 833 East 14th Avenue #6, Denver, co 80218, usa · [email protected] Advertisements help to support this journal. When answering advertisements, please mention Guitar Forum. Acknowledgements We are very grateful to Heidi Brende and Rebekah Billings for their meticulous proofreading; to Sarn Dyer for providing some of the illustrations; to Luis Zea and Christian Roche for checking Spanish and French translations; and to Andrew Hopwood of Alden Press for shepherding this issue to print. ∞ The text face of this journal is Minion, designed by Robert Slimbach and issued in digital form by Adobe Systems in 1989. The chancery italic used in article titles, Poetica, was also designed by Robert Slimbach (Adobe Systems, 1992). Scala Sans is used in the illustrations, and was designed by Martin Majoor (FontShop International, 1994). Guitar Forum was designed and produced by the editor on the Macintosh computer. In the articles, the layout and proportions of the page are based on a tenth-century manuscript book of short poems by the Roman poet Horace, copied in Caroline minuscule and now held in the Laurentian Library, Florence (Ms. Plut. 34.1). The fore-edge of this manuscript was left free for sidenotes. The page is analysed in Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style (Point Roberts & Vancouver: Hartley & Marks, 2nd edn, 1996), p 176. The drawing used on the cover is by Kevin Coates, © Kevin Coates, 1985. It is reprinted from his book, Geometry, Proportion and the Art of Lutherie (Oxford University Press, 1985), p 152, by permission of Oxford University Press. The guitar shown is by Cristopher Cocho, Venice 1602, Conservatoire de Musique, Paris..
(3) contents. How to Write for the Guitar, page 1 Julian Bream. Mignone, Fernandez, Guarnieri: Brazilian guitar music after Villa-Lobos, page 9 Fabio Zanon. A Lesson with Ida: an imaginary interview with Ida Presti, page 33 Sarn Dyer. Mauro Giuliani’s Guitar Technique & Early Nineteenth-Century Pedagogy, page 45 Lorenzo Micheli. On Teaching the Unteachable, page 71 Luis Zea. Contributors, page 99.
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(5) How to Write for the Guitar (1957) julian bream. This article first appeared in The Score & i.m.a. Magazine, ed. William Glock, nº 19 (March 1957), pp 19–26. It is reprinted here as a tribute to Julian Bream on his seventieth birthday. The Score last appeared in 1961, and we have been unable to trace its current copyright holders. We are very grateful to Mr Bream for granting us his permission to reprint the present article, and especially for providing the introduction.. int ro duc t ion ne of the more attractive places to wine and dine in London during the late 1950s was a little club in Mayfair called the International Music Association. For its premises it had use of a beautiful Georgian house in South Audley Street, and it soon established itself as a fashionable meeting place and watering hole for musicians from far and wide. Apart from the excellent bar and restaurant, there was, in the heart of the building, a charming Recital Room (complete with a little stage and grand piano), which could be hired for informal concerts, lectures or rehearsals. It could boast a library, and even had its own in-house magazine called The Score. The magazine was edited by the late William Glock, himself a fine concert pianist whose career mysteriously never really materialised, but whose love, knowledge and enthusiasm for music never diminished. Instead of pursuing a performing career he eventually became a musical coach, an encourager, an enabler, and impressively, an indefatigable champion of contemporary music. I used to bump into him at the club from time to time, and on one occasion he asked me why my programmes on the guitar were so conservative, containing so little contemporary music, and none of it British. My reply to him was quite straightforward: it was that most British composers hadn’t a clue how to write for the instrument. It was then that he suggested I should write an article on how to write for the guitar. I got down to it at once, and it was duly included in the next issue of The Score. Looking back on the article some forty-six years later, it does appear rather conservative, and very much of its period. Nevertheless, many of the principles expressed are, in my opinion, still pertinent, in spite of the fact that the style and language of much contemporary concert music has changed considerably.. O. Julian Bream, August 2003. Copyright © 1957 by The Score & i.m.a Magazine Introduction copyright © 2003 by Julian Bream. 1.
(6) h o w t o w r i t e f o r t h e g u i ta r the most important thing to bear in mind when writing for an instrument is the texture and character of its sound. The guitar is more suggestive and intimate than almost any other instrument, and therefore demands from the composer great imagination and feeling for colour – especially since it is nearly always solo, and succeeds or falls purely on its own merits of musical expression. My advice to composers trying to write suitable music for the guitar is: ‘refer to Bach’. A detailed study of the unaccompanied violin sonatas would serve admirably as a guide to the application of harmony and counterpoint to the guitar, as well as to the suggestiveness that I mentioned just now; better still, compare Bach’s own lute arrangements of the G minor Fugue from the First Violin Sonata or of the whole C minor Cello Suite, and one will notice that with the added advantage of more strings (and a closer tuning in fourths and thirds as on the guitar), he has slightly elaborated the harmony and in some cases developed the counterpoint. It is an interesting fact that whilst all the unaccompanied violin and cello music (not forgetting the lute suites) can be played on the guitar, the same can hardly be said of a single keyboard work. the tuning of the guitar is a curiosity in itself. y. & œ. t. œ. r. œ. e. œ. w. œ. q. œ. Example 1 The tuning remains constant, with the possible exception of the sixth string, which is occasionally lowered a tone in pieces where the prevailing tonality is D. Occasionally the fifth string is also retuned a tone lower for special effects in the key of G, but this should only be done on the advice of a guitarist. Although guitar music is written in the treble clef, it actually sounds an octave lower than written; thus the range of the guitar is similar to that of the cello, though quite often the ear is deceived into thinking that it is considerably higher. This can probably be attributed to the fact that the sound-chamber is somewhat smaller than that of the cello, and therefore the overtones and natural resonances are of a higher pitch. The guitar fingerboard, unlike that of the violin, is divisioned off by thin strips of metal (frets) placed a semitone apart. Since the notes are predetermined, the instrument is obviously tempered, though enharmonic differences can be achieved by the finger pushing into or pulling away from the fret. The Spanish Guitar (as opposed to the Plectrum Guitar) is always plucked with the fingers of the right hand and never with a plectrum or quill. Danceband players have developed the plectrum technique over the last thirty years or so in order to obtain more power and drive in their rhythmic chord-playing, but this method is artistically very limited since it cannot manage counterpoint, and every chord is, and must be, slightly arpeggiated. With the thumb and three fingers, the classical (Spanish) guitarist has in fact four plectra and can therefore play four notes simultaneously.. 2. julian bream.
(7) The guitar has a range of three octaves and a fifth. inferior quality. œ. œ. & œ Example 2 As with most stringed instruments, the very high notes of the guitar tend to have less quality, and complicated passagework in the highest register sometimes sounds thin and unconvincing; nevertheless, I am all in favour of mountaineering, if a composition really demands it. The chief thing to remember is that while the top two strings generally sound well in extreme high positions – if the instrument is a good one – the bottom four, on the whole, tend to sound rather ‘boxy’ and dead above the twelfth fret, i.e. above the octave, and I would generally advise composers against writing six-note chords right up in the ‘dust’ if they really desire a musical sound! By no means the least important point to bear in mind when writing for the guitar is the span which the left hand is capable of stretching. For instance, it is obviously impossible to play a chord in a high position, and also expect to play a low F (first fret) on the sixth string; the composer must either bring the chord down to the low F or else the low F up to the chord – whichever is more vital to the musical logic. Example 3 should give some idea of the limits which the average left hand can stretch. Although five or six frets is the average stretch between the first and. œ. & œ y 1 (1st fret). q 4œ (16th fret). q œ4 (10th fret). q 4 (5th fret). œ y 1 (5th fret). œ y 1 (10th fret). Example 3 fourth finger, this does not rule out the possibility of playing chords in the high positions of the treble strings, and plucking open bass strings at the same time. Many a good pedal is built up in this way, especially if the bass note is given a little rhythmical interest.. j j j j œœ œœ œœ œœ œ œ œ œ ‰ n œ œ n œ œ ‰ œœœ œœœ œœœ œœœ ‰ œœœ œœœ n œœœ œœœ ### œ œ & ‰ ‰ œ œ. ‰ ‰ œ œ. ‰ ‰ œ œ. ‰ ‰ œ J J J J Example 4 most instruments have their natural keys and resonances, the guitar being no exception. It is, indeed, essentially a keybound instrument. This being so, atonal works may present certain problems, though they can be entirely successful if the composer has acquainted himself thoroughly with the fingerboard, and realised the importance of keeping the texture compact. When using the conventional tonal system, the composer must select his key or overall key feeling according to the natural resonances of the instrument.. how to write for the guitar. 3.
(8) Since most of the natural harmonics and resonances are built up, as it were, from the open strings, it is important to use the unstopped strings as much as possible, particularly the lower three, which add a considerable lustre to the timbre when harmonically employed in conjunction with a phrase or figuration in high positions on the treble strings. Often an open string may be harmonically incorrect (academically speaking), but in a great many cases the unstopped bass strings are so rich in natural harmonics that they often sound more convincing in the harmony they suggest than a more harmonically conventional stopped note that might hinder the fluency of a phrase simultaneously played above it. Nevertheless, the first necessity is to choose a key that will give aesthetic satisfaction to the composer and that will also take into account the instrument’s technical attributes and limitations. The natural keys of the guitar are A, E, D, G, C, F and the tonic minors. As can be observed, the three best keys have an open bass note, particularly if in the key of D the sixth string is tuned a tone lower, thereby giving the composer two open D strings, a dominant A and a subdominant G – all to ease the performer’s burden! the guitar has always been admired for its harmonic resources and it is in this respect that the contemporary composer can use his imagination to the full, unfettered by the technical limitations of the instrument where counterpoint or melody and accompaniment are concerned. Although the guitar has six strings and can therefore play chords of up to six notes, the technique of the right hand, as already observed, limits the number of notes simultaneously playable to four (i.e. thumb and three fingers). Hence fiveand six-note chords are always slightly arpeggiated. If the composer requires fast repeated chords, say at a moderate semiquaver speed, it would be advisable to condense all the harmonic interest into four-note chords, or better still, if fluent fingerboard facility is also needed, into chords of three notes. However, a composition may sometimes demand fast reiterated six-string thrumming, perhaps to give a sustained tremolando effect; here it is imperative that all six strings be employed, as it is impossible, say, to miss out the third – or any other inside string for that matter – when the performer is thrumming backwards and forwards across the six strings with the forefinger of the right hand. The layout of harmony on the guitar is a comparatively simple thing, if a few rules are observed. For instance, in common chords of four notes, the conventional rule of keeping the bottom note of the chord relatively far away from the triad above it works particularly well, since the major third between the second and third strings facilitates the close grouping of a triad, whilst a largish interval between the tenor and bass parts gives a certain size and richness to a chord, because of the sympathetic harmonics arising from the bass – as would happen in example 5. j j œ. œ œ .. œœ . n œœ œ œœ # # # 6 œœ .. # œœœ œ #œ & 8 œ. œ . #œ. œ œ. Example 5 It is of prime importance to remember this rule, when employing the guitar for accompaniments or in chamber ensembles. Triads in the extreme low positions. 4. julian bream.
(9) sound extremely sonorous, but somehow lack brilliance and definition and get lost in the general ensemble. As I have explained earlier, I cannot sufficiently stress the importance of using the open strings. This applies particularly to the writing of the more progressive kind of harmony on the guitar. Villa-Lobos, for example, has achieved a brilliant harmonic system, using stopped notes high up on the inside strings, in conjunction with open (unstopped) notes. Here is a typical example: a). œ œ 0 œ & 00 bœœœœ n œœ # œœ # # œœ œœ. b) bœ # œ nœ bœ 0 # œœ n œœœ # œ œœ # œœœ 0 œ œ œ œ 0 œ. Example 6 One might argue that artistically this is rather a naïve system of chordal construction, but I can assure the reader that while three notes of every chord (a) remain constant, each chord has its own harmonic character and bears little or no resemblance to the preceding one. The technical device known as the grand barré has great importance in the construction of ‘fingerboard harmony’. This is achieved by placing the forefinger of the left hand over all six strings, and so producing, as it were, an adjustable nut. Most common six-note chords are stopped in this manner, and when a phrase or chord moves up, say, a major third, all the player has to do is to shift the grand barré four frets higher, which can be done with the minimum of thought and effort. Incidentally, whilst the forefinger might be engaged in performing the grand barré it is worth while to remember that the other three fingers can articulate and stop notes at the same time, providing that they are not required to stretch more than four frets higher than the point at which the barré is fixed; and never, never expect a guitarist to perform the barré above the tenth fret – he probably would never physically recover if he tried! although the lute (forerunner of the modern guitar with exactly the same technique and similar tuning) reached the height of its development during a great period of contrapuntal writing, it is interesting to note that the lute and the guitar have considerable limitations in playing this kind of music. Neither Dowland nor Bach, in their three- and four-part fugal expositions, ever required the lute to perform counterpoint at more than moderate quaver speed, and they were both very careful to choose diatonic outlines, so as to eliminate unnecessary movement on the fingerboard. By the very nature of the instrument, two-part counterpoint at moderate semiquaver speed, with the parts in contrary motion, is never wholly successful, nor in parallel motion, which is just as difficult to perform unless at a moderate quaver tempo. Once again, as in so many cases when writing for the guitar, the composer must simplify the counterpoint, which the instrument finds difficult to project. For instance, if the top part is the more important of the two, the secondary, or lower, part must undergo slight adjustment; losing some of its contrapuntal significance it takes on a somewhat harmonic character, at the same time giving the performer more facility to shape and phrase the figuration above it. This system, which one might term harmonic counterpoint, also applies in reverse, i.e. with the top part in a simplified form supporting the figuration of the lower part.. how to write for the guitar. 5.
(10) Some composers may argue that since there are so many limitations in twopart writing, how on earth are they to compose in three or four parts if the musical conception of a composition requires it? To this I would answer that two parts played on the guitar have an effect of peculiar fullness and completion. However, a discreet and fragmentary use of a third and fourth part, in the form of harmonic punctuation, is often playable, as well as being suitable to the instrument. This technique is exploited to perfection in the fugues and other compositions of J.S. Bach. trills and ornamentation are all embodied in a technique peculiar to the guitar, known as the ‘slur’ or legato. For instance, in example 7 the right hand. &. ↓ ↓ œœœœœœœœœ œ œ œ œ J. # # ↓œ œ œ. 3. Example 7 plucks no fewer than three times, the other unplucked notes being either hammered (ascending) or plucked (descending) by the left hand alone. This technique obviously gives shape to a phrase as well as giving considerable ease to articulation, as the notes sounded by the right hand have slightly more rhythmical impetus and sonority than those plucked or hammered on the fingerboard. All the same, a guitarist cannot go on plucking with his left hand for ever, unless the string is given a new lease of vibration from the right hand; hence elongated trills are to be avoided at all costs in favour of shorter figuration. The mordent, double-mordent, and the elaborated turn can serve adequately the composer who indulges in baroque niceties. of all the musical techniques most suited to the instrument, the arpeggio is probably the most beautiful and evocative. There are many varieties of arpeggi; in fact, as many permutations between six strings and four plucking fingers as you would like to use. Here, as examples, are a few basic ones on the open strings. a). &. b). ##. 5. c). d). 6. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ. Example 8 Arpeggi as a general rule must sound fluent and facile. The guitarist would be more than delighted if the ‘core’ of the arpeggio fell on adjacent strings, thus enabling him to ‘throw it off ’ and concentrate on other things, particularly if melodic interest is also involved, as in example 9. a). œ ### œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ nœ œ & œ œ. Example 9 6. julian bream. b). nnn œ œ œ. #œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ.
(11) In determining the form of an arpeggio, it is worth while to note that the righthand thumb generally controls the fourth, fifth and sixth strings, and the remaining three fingers the third, second and first strings respectively. This explains why there is often a gap of one or two strings between the tenor and bass notes of a guitar arpeggio, because the thumb has greater manœuvrability than the fingers and is physically more independent. Occasionally, however, it is necessary for the fingers to work in conjunction with the thumb on the bass strings, as, for example, in these arpeggio figures which require such rapidity over all six strings that the thumb would fail to cope over its bass territory. a). b) œ œ œ & œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ. Example 10 Another delightful technique on the guitar is the tremolo. This effect should be used very sparingly, and I would advise composers to limit their use of it to extended compositions such as a sonata, suite, or concerto, where it can effectively be used to give textural variety, when all the other ‘stops’ have been pulled! Here are two examples: a). b). # # ® œ œ œ ® œ œ œ ®œ œ œ œ ® œ œ œn ®œ œ œ œ ® œ œ œ ® œ œ œ ® œ œ œ ® œ œ œ ® œ œ œ ® œ œ œ & # nœ œ œ œ œ #œ nœ œ œ J Example 11 In the first example, the melodic interest is in the tremolo itself while the thumb plucks a simple accompaniment underneath it. When played at a reasonably fast speed, it can achieve a highly sustained musical line. The second example, with the tune in the bass register, is rather unusual in guitar composition, but can nevertheless be most effective. harmonics on the guitar never cease to intrigue both composer and performer. They can be either ‘natural’ or ‘artificial’. The most successful sounds are the open ‘natural’ harmonics playable on every string at the octave (12th fret), the fifth above (7th fret), the octave above (5th fret), and the tenth above (4th fret). (This last harmonic can also be found on the 9th fret.) Other harmonics of higher partials do exist, but fail to resonate sufficiently to cover the actual percussive noise made when plucking the string. A very exciting sound is obtained by the chordal treatment of harmonics. This, of course, can be successful only if the left hand can stretch to the harmonics desired. Care and taste should be exercised when constructing chords in this manner, as fussiness can often occur, easily disrupting the flow of a composition. Artificial harmonics can be sounded on any required note and a whole phrase can sometimes be played with this type of harmonic. Personally, I find the sound rather thin in comparison with the natural kind, but of course this can vary with the characteristics of different guitars. When indicating harmonics, it is advisable to write the open string with the fret position above it, thus: how to write for the guitar. 7.
(12) q. [Works subsequently commissioned and edited by Julian Bream have tended to show not the open string, but the note desired with a diamond-shaped notehead, the notation being the same for natural and artificial harmonics. See for example Benjamin Britten, Nocturnal after John Dowland, op. 70 (London: Faber, 1965), or Hans Werner Henze, Royal Winter Music: first sonata on Shakespearean characters (Mainz: Schott, 1976). – Editor]. [‘Of all the fretted and bowed string’ instruments, the guitar is the richest and’ most complete in its harmonic and’ contrapuntal possibilities.’]. &. # # # XII ·. Example 12 Another interesting tone colour is the pizzicato note, plucked by the thumb whilst the palm of the right hand is clamped down on the strings so as to produce a muffled effect not unlike the sound made by the ‘harp stop’ on the harpsichord. This is particularly effective in phrases of single notes in the bass register, or in two- and three-note chords in the upper register of the instrument. The sound is curiously pathetic and humorous! – but nevertheless quite wholesome. In concluding, I would like to mention one other characteristic of guitar playing, known as the ‘slide’ or portamento. Although this technique is often abused by instrumentalists, it can, when performed for sincere artistic ends, create a feeling of pathos and emotional intensity. I sincerely hope that this short essay on writing for the guitar has not given the impression that the difficulties are insuperable. Falla wrote:‘Parmi les instruments à corde avec manche, la guitare est le plus complet et le plus riche d’après ses possibilités harmoniques et polyphoniques.’ May this encourage composers to create a literature for an instrument that has been unduly neglected. . note The following are well worth studying: Bach: Lute works (Zimmerman) Villa-Lobos: Douze études pour guitare (Max Eschig), Cinq préludes pour guitare (Max Eschig) Falla: Homenaje ‘le tombeau de Claude Debussy’ (Chester) Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Sonata (Schott) Fernando Sor: 25 Studies (Chester). 8. julian bream.
(13) Mignone,Fernandez,Guarnieri: Brazilian guitar music aer Via-Lobos fa b i o z a n o n. int ro duc t ion he guitar works of Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959) certainly count among the most performed of the twentieth-century repertoire. Of all composers who were initially persuaded to write for the instrument by Andrés Segovia – and whose music found a way into his repertoire – the Brazilian is probably the only one who tried to create an individual language for the instrument, one which is (at least in some of the Twelve Studies and the Guitar Concerto) informed by an enlarged palette of harmonic possibilities and a commitment to innovation in the musical discourse, inspired by an insider’s knowledge of the fingerboard. Some writers would go so far as to say that the Twelve Studies of 1928–9 are a genuine watershed in the history of guitar writing, a referential work in which an established composer of symphonic music managed to elaborate a specifically guitar-oriented language, taking as a point of departure the factual possibilities of the instrument in order to devise a unique and untranslatable harmonic, melodic, figurational and developmental style. Even though Segovia shied away from placing Villa-Lobos’s works at the centre of his repertoire – he performed only Studies 1, 7 and 8 and Preludes 1 and 3 with any regularity, and the Guitar Concerto only at its premiere – subsequent generations of players have embraced all of his works. The relative accessibility of the Preludes and the Suite populaire, and the maximised effect of guitaristic commonplaces in the Studies, have made them extraordinarily popular with students and amateur players. They have also become – with various degrees of artistic success – compositional models for the more recent and widespread phenomenon of the semiamateur guitarist-composer. Over the last twenty years or so, some items of twentieth-century Brazilian popular music have entered the repertoire of classical guitarists as well. This is not surprising if we consider that the guitar is the instrumental basis of most Brazilian folkloric and popular urban musical manifestations, and that many of the players and composers who work in that sphere also have a classical training. Many of these musicians will readily invoke the name of Villa-Lobos as an inspiration, on the grounds that the great composer used the guitar as a private instrument, one which he would take up in order to share experiences with musicians from the popular realms – most notably the choros players who indeed played a significant part in his musical upbringing.. T. Copyright © 2003 by Fabio Zanon. The solo guitar works of Villa-Lobos are all published by Max Eschig (Paris): Suite populaire brésilienne (1908–1923) Chôros nº 1 (1920) 12 études (1928–9) 5 préludes (1940) Concerto pour guitare et petit orchestre (1951). 9.
(14) The overwhelming presence of a composer of Villa-Lobos’s standard in Brazilian musical life might lead one to assume that younger generations of classical composers, inspired by the international acceptance of his guitar works, would also embrace, during the last fifty years or so, the cause of the guitar repertoire and provide the instrument with a large and meritorious body of works for the instrument. The assumption is right to a certain extent. The generation of nationalist composers which succeeded Villa-Lobos has endowed the instrument with works of lasting importance and is the subject of this article. Younger composers have also frequently visited the guitar, and a list of compositions can be found at the end of this article. Nevertheless, a superficial examination of guitar recital programmes around the world is discouraging. In the orchestral and chamber fields, none of these composers has so far enjoyed the international exposure of Villa-Lobos. The absence of Brazilian classical composers of any standing in the repertoire of established and amateur players alike is almost total. Brazilian guitarists of international prominence tend either to create a repertoire of their own, consisting of commissioned new music, or to rearrange and dress up some of the best items of the popular tradition for wider consumption as a cross-over. Symphonic, opera, chamber and piano series around the world also rarely bring any Brazilian music at all into their programmes, with the exception of a few works of Villa-Lobos. One might conclude, then, that either Villa-Lobos’s legacy was not sufficient to let a culture of serious guitar composition flourish, or that his was an exceptional case, an isolated surge of creative power in an otherwise non-existent culture for classical music. A superficial evaluation might lead one to conclude that the focus of composition – and of guitar composition – moved north to other countries, and that Villa-Lobos’s example is to be seen at its best in the works of composers like the Venezuelan Lauro or the Cuban Brouwer. None of this is quite the case. International criticism and musicology has granted little attention to the production of Brazilian classical music after VillaLobos. There are many reasons for that, some of them of an artistic, some of a sociological, historical and geo-political nature. In fact, the three most important Brazilian composers of the generation following Villa-Lobos – Francisco Mignone (1897–1986), Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez (1897–1948) and Camargo Guarnieri (1907–1993), all of them established composers with a large catalogue of symphonic and chamber music – have left guitar works of great quality. In the case of Mignone, this production rivals VillaLobos’s own in number of works and standard of craftsmanship. If one prefers to accept the often-repeated motto about the guitar having a precarious repertoire, an explanation for the disappointing international career of Mignone and Guarnieri as guitar composers is even more elusive. The purpose of this article is to bring attention to the guitar output of the second generation of Brazilian nationalist composers and to investigate the reasons for their restricted dissemination among guitar students and professionals. It will also include a shortlist of the major Brazilian compositions of the last fifty years or so which I consider worthy of wider dissemination. In such a relatively young country as Brazil, questions of national identity have always been at the core of artistic creation. Thus, an overview of the history of nationalism in Brazilian music is our point of departure.. 10. fabio zanon.
(15) br azilian nationalism Chopin and Liszt, eastern European composers, were probably the first to bring to their work a consistent exploration of specifically national features in early Romanticism, but, after the revolution year of 1848, rapid political changes and the ensuing need to define national values put intense pressure on composers of the second Romantic generation. ‘Classical’ music, which is in essence an international style, can trace its origins back to the ecclesiastical and courtly music of a handful of Central European countries. Slavonic, Scandinavian and Iberian composers, following the example of their literary forerunners, brought to the centre of their creative methods the search for a vernacular that would ideally express both the consecrated classical forms and the specificity of their respective national characters. It follows naturally that the Americas and other ex-colonies which were large and rich enough to have a classical music culture would tread, after a considerable gap, the same path. But that is not necessarily the case, because the mechanism of the creative mind in a colonised environment is not the same. Whereas countries such as Russia, Poland or Bohemia have had a continuous tradition of folk and religious music for centuries – a tradition which is concomitant with the formation of the international style in classical music – the process of colonisation has left the scar of a split identity. The artist of a colonised mentality is forever trying to come to terms with the fact that most tools of the trade are imported, and that the sense of collective identity is not so clear cut: the societies that once populated that particular environment either have been displaced or have disappeared. These scars are still present today, not only in artistic realms but also in the very constitution of society: the questionable attitude towards technological and global issues and the several levels of ethnic and social conflict all bear witness to this fact. It is also important to remark that there is a strong discrepancy between the ways this process of colonisation took in North and South America. The commonly encountered definition of Brazilian society as a confluence of European, black African and native Indian cultures seems to imply that these three branches had all the same relative cultural weight; in fact, native Indian elements played a very modest role in the forging of a characteristically Brazilian artistic idiom. From the very beginning of the sixteenth century, Jesuit missionaries explored their musical inclinations as a strong tool for conversion. If at the beginning some of the elements of plainchant may have been ignored and Christian texts adapted to Indian melodies, by the end of that century Indian culture had already capsized under the powerful apparatus of catechism, a process often called deculturation: Indian children were already performing Christian plays, playing the flute, violin and even harpsichord, and being graduated as ‘Masters of Arts’ in the first capital, Salvador in Bahia, where they were entitled to play several instruments and organise choral singing. Cultural (and physical) survival was a hard task for those Indian groups who refused to submit to the Portuguese; they tended to run away, deeper and deeper into the hinterland, and lose much of their vitality as the groups became smaller and less powerful. Two and a half centuries later, the Rousseau-tinged myth of the savage as an icon of purity and virtue impregnated the imagination of Romantic writers, and the. mignone, fernandez, guarnieri. The Colonial Period. 11.
(16) Mário de Andrade, Música, doce música (São Paulo: Livraria Martins, 1963), p 13. In all quotations, translations from the Portuguese are my own.. 12. first steps in the affirmation of a Brazilian national cultural identity adopted the ‘good savage’ as the symbolic Brazilian individual, notwithstanding the smallness of the Indians’ actual share in their own cultural profile. Although there is no music surviving from the first decades of colonisation, one can safely assume that it was not of the same outstanding level as that being performed in Mexico or Lima: conversion of such sophisticated civilisations as the Aztecs and Incas required superior efforts of artistic persuasion. Brazilian music in the Colonial period (which ended with the flight of the Royal family from Portugal to Rio de Janeiro in 1808) was essentially Portuguese, in spite of the fact that it was composed and performed almost exclusively by black and mulato (mixed white and black race) people. To this day, this interaction is one of the decisive factors in the establishment of a specifically Brazilian idiom. Poet, writer and musicologist Mário de Andrade said that ‘the Portuguese crystallised our harmonic tonality, gave us the strophic squareness – probably the syncopation as well, which we have taken charge of developing, in contact with the rhythmic fidgetry of the African’. It must be added that this symbiosis between elements of African music and the overwhelming power of European culture was very slow and almost imperceptible at the beginning. It was taken for granted that the status quo could only be maintained if the culture of enslaved black people was treated with contempt. The progressive social ascent of mulatos did nothing to benefit the acceptance of African cultural elements. Quite the contrary: in their anxiety to belong to the mainstream of society, free people of mixed race tried to negate any feature that could betray their origins. This behaviour is quite understandable and still present not only in Brazil but also in the Andinian countries, where mestizos from the town tend to reject the rural traditions. There are records of Portuguese sacred music and Italian opera being performed in the major towns of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Paraná in the south and Pernambuco, Bahia, Maranhão and Pará in the north of the country already in the sixteenth century. What is so far the first important manuscript by a Brazilian composer is a Recitativo e aria by Caetano Mello Jesus, dated 1759, from Salvador, but the first consistent movement of Brazilian musicians and composers happened in the state of Minas Gerais in the last decades of the eighteenth century. Minas Gerais had quickly become one of the wealthiest and most enlightened parts of the country, thanks to its seemingly never-ending sources of gold and precious stones. Splendid Baroque churches were erected in its major towns, and at one time over a thousand musicians were working in a handful of neighbouring towns. At first these composers were imported from Bahia or Pernambuco, but local talent quickly flourished and the first Brazilian composers who can boast a corpus of works are Emerico Lobo de Mesquita (1746– 1805), Francisco Gomes da Rocha (?–1808) and Manuel Dias de Oliveira (1745– 1813), among others whose surviving work is not so extended. All these composers, like most players and choir and orchestra directors of the period, were probably of black or mulato origin. Practically the totality of this music is composed for the church, and characteristically Brazilian traces are non-existent. The individual features that can be perceived are of an utterly practical nature – harmonic complexity is usually proportional to the category of musicians available at a certain church; the choices of instruments for certain scores might seem unusual, but probably owed as much to the current availability of instruments and capable players. So strongly attached was this music to the Baroque. fabio zanon.
(17) churches of Minas Gerais that, by association, it has been called ‘Brazilian Baroque’ – a completely misleading label. This tentative beginning of a Brazilian music history is much more akin to the early classical style of a Johann Christian Bach, Pergolesi or a young Haydn, whose music was certainly imported by the Church during the period. The arrival of the Portuguese Royal family in 1808 – they were running away from the Napoleonic invasions – shifted the cultural focus back again to Rio de Janeiro. It was a brief period of thirteen years, but a decisive one for the country, as the court was avid for entertainment of every nature. Opera composers were brought from Portugal and a Royal Chapel was reorganised. This sudden surge of activity revealed the uncommon talent of Father José Maurício Nunes Garcia (1767–1830), another mulato who can safely be called the first major Brazilian composer. Author of a wide variety of religious works and of a method for pianoforte, his compositions display a detailed knowledge of Haydn; his masses and especially his Requiem make a good showing alongside the average sacred music composed in Europe at the time. Once again there is the individuality of a gifted composer but no trace of a national style. Independence was declared in 1822, and the return of the Royal Family to Portugal meant a pronounced scaling down of resources for the performing arts. Nevertheless, the newly crowned Emperor, Pedro I, was a music enthusiast and a composer himself, and under his aegis Francisco Manuel da Silva (1785– 1865), a former pupil of Nunes Garcia and the author of the National Anthem, founded the National Conservatory. The return of Pedro I to Portugal cast a shadow over this musical activity but there was still an extraordinary interest in Italian opera, which must be regarded as a second important European influence towards the formulation of a Brazilian national style. The bel canto style of Rossini and Bellini was adopted by composers of light and popular songs, and the arias performed at social functions in the houses of well-to-do people became the basis for the formation of the Brazilian serenade style, the modinha, which was to have a very important role in the works of Villa-Lobos and Mignone decades later. The reign of Pedro II marked an unusual flourishing of Brazilian culture. A genuine erudite himself, an expert in linguistics, architecture and environmental issues, and admirer of poetry and literature, he was also very musical. Wagner was one of his passions: he was present at the opening of the Bayreuth festival and even invited Wagner to make a base for his activities in Rio de Janeiro. The support he gave to the creation of a national press, to the translation and publication of books, to scientific research, etc, is inestimable, but music will always be grateful to him for promoting Carlos Gomes (1836–1896), another composer of vaguely mulato origin and possibly the major opera composer of the Americas. Opera in Brazil at the time, in spite of a few attempts to create opera in the vernacular, meant Italian opera. Gomes, coming from a background as a bandmaster, had already composed works of major consequence when he was sent with a scholarship to Milan. There he met with great success: his opera Il guarany was performed in every major opera house in the world. As his style became more sophisticated, however, his initial success declined. A few years after his death he was already forgotten except for a few extroverted arias. With the hindsight of a century, one could today safely say that Gomes is the natural link between Verdi’s mature style (Verdi was a great admirer of Gomes) and the. mignone, fernandez, guarnieri. End of the Colonial Period: Nunes Garcia, da Silva, Gomes. 13.
(18) young Puccini. Fashion in opera operates in mysterious ways, but revivals of Gomes’s operas have kept the taste of isolated attempts – in spite of the splendid music and superior treatment of the voice; the less successful dramatic construction might be the reason. But there is one important feature in Gomes’s otherwise purely Italian style. There is a Brazilian national theme in at least two of his operas: the successful Il guarany (The Guarani), based on the romantic novel by Alencar, in which the main character is a Guarani Indian; and the most artistic, Lo schiavo (The Slave). It might seem a timid start, but this would prove to be the slit through which subsequent composers would peep. Gomes also composed popular songs at the beginning of his career, some of which are still performed; even though he was not a major agent in the development of national song, they are characteristic of their times and can already be classified as genuinely Brazilian modinhas and lundus. The Abolition: birth of a popular style:. 14. The abolition of slavery finally came in 1888 and the fall of the monarchic system could only follow suit in 1889, when the Republic was proclaimed and Pedro II and his family were sent to exile in France. These are two very important events which exposed an undercurrent that had been present already in the 1870s. The presence of European musicians in Rio de Janeiro had encouraged the wealthy society to adopt European dances – waltzes, schottisches, polkas, etc – as their favourite light entertainment. Professional musicians, the majority of whom, as has already been said, were of black origin, had the benefit of an insider’s knowledge of the formal requirements of European dance music. With the sudden freedom of expression allowed by the Abolition of 1888, these musicians were legally allowed to gather for their own pleasure and to adopt musical elements of African origin for their interpretation – a distinctive way of avoiding the strong part of the beat, an incorporation of choreographic elements, the use of melodic repetition to achieve a certain periodic recurrence of rhythmic features in the melody. This is the first real division between the activity of a ‘classical’ composer and the birth of a ‘popular’ musical expression. It marked the gradual replacement of the old-fashioned vocal style of the modinha with the more expansive seresta, and the birth of the choro as the dominant urban instrumental dance form. This new kind of expression was solemnly ignored by a few composers of an exclusively European education – some of them quite extraordinary composers like Henrique Oswald (1852–1931) or Leopoldo Miguéz (1850–1902) – but started to attract the attention of a few others, composers of a very high calibre such as Alexandre Levy (1864–1892) and Alberto Nepomuceno (1864–1920). Perhaps Nepomuceno will be best remembered for his splendid, if rather Germanic, Symphony, but following the example of other minor composers he wrote in 1891 his Série brasileira, a work that suffers from the composer’s lack of experience but is the first symphonic piece whose main thematic material is derived from Brazilian folklore. He was also a leader in the maintenance of musical education of high quality and a champion of the use of Portuguese as the language for national song. Nepomuceno is a transitional composer in many ways: between the internationalism of his education and the strong impulse towards a music of national character (probably prompted by his close relationship with Edvard Grieg); between the conventionally scholastic and the innovative and personal; between the symphonism of the nineteenth century and the new necessities of the twentieth; between the old monarchic order and the Republic. fabio zanon.
(19) Concomitantly, some interesting things were happening in the realms of popular and light music. Ernesto Nazareth (1863–1934), the ubiquitous pianist of cafés and cinemas, started to write light piano pieces of exquisite workmanship but of an unmistakably Brazilian character. His numerous waltzes had already incorporated the intense melodic style of Chopin and the wide leaps of Italian opera; his even more numerous tangos were only so called because the real name of those dances, maxixes and choros, could not be pronounced in the respectable households of the rich people who bought his music. His eloquent talent was idolised by generations of composers, from Villa-Lobos and Mignone to Gnatalli and Nobre. In the realm of operetta, a woman, Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847–1935), was making history by being, against the furore of public opinion, a professional musician, and by incorporating the new choreographic style, derived from the lundu, the polka and the habanera, into her stage works. The birth of a new nation on the philosophic grounds of Positivism created the right environment for a discussion of the national cultural identity and where it was to be found. The acknowledgement of a superimposed diversity in opposition to an idealised, Rousseau-like aboriginal identity, corrupted and violated by the white man, as the one found in the Romantic poets and writers like José de Alencar and Castro Alves, was imminent. In a certain sense, the volcanic personality of Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959) managed to reconcile both visions. His Indian ancestry was probably very remote if it ever existed, his musical upbringing was in accordance with the petit-bourgeois expectations of his milieu, but the desire to translate into sound the zeitgeist and the saturated aural experience of his early years pressed him to become a musical cannibal, who would chew and digest a plethora of foreign influences from César Franck to Stravinsky. His intellectual basis – encyclopedic and geographic knowledge from his father, sentimental Catholicism, Positivism and, later, a certain dictatorial rigidity and the dangerous self-confidence of one who won’t be outdone – was much weaker than his privileged ear and unique power of synthesis. Villa-Lobos can be better understood in the light of the Week of Modern Art which took place in São Paulo in 1922. In a series of three performances, lectures and exhibitions in the Theatro Municipal, what was generally regarded as a subterranean movement of a group of insane enfants terribles became the platform for a deep discussion about the updating of Brazilian artistic intelligence, the right to permanent aesthetic research and the establishment of a national creative awareness. Seminal art works were ridiculed by the press, Villa-Lobos was frequently greeted with catcalls, and the literary mentors of the movement, Graça Aranha and Mário de Andrade, had to deliver lectures under verbal insult. But the magnetic personality and erudition of Mário de Andrade – poet, writer, scholar, essayist and the most influential musicologist of the period – had a strong impact not only on Villa-Lobos but on scores of younger composers: two of his intellectual siblings who admitted they owed more to Andrade’s teaching than to anybody else’s were Mignone and Guarnieri. There was certainly an element of aesthetic shock in the proceedings: after all, the Theatro Municipal was an opera house, and the taste of the wealthy audience could not go much beyond Puccini or Saint-Saëns; but there was also a tremendously conservative denial of the legitimacy of national – folk or popular – elements as a basis for the elaboration of serious works of art. Academicism in many ways meant the glorification of the white man’s dominance. In that sense, the complete success of Villa-Lobos’s music in France in the twenties and in the mignone, fernandez, guarnieri. Villa-Lobos. 15.
(20) whole world after the Second War (most notably in the usa), did the most for the acknowledgement of the cultural role of aboriginal and black African elements. For the obtuse, once-aristocratic, coffee and industrial elites of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, the niche that this music gained in Paris was testimony to its artistic value; the enormous curiosity for the way the lower classes lived and entertained themselves overtook any aristocratic prurience. Another important contribution made by Villa-Lobos’s astonishing intuition and creative power (and also by Mário de Andrade’s thoroughness as a musicologist) was a second discovery of Brazil, one that extended beyond the urban realms of the major southern towns like Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Precarious transport and means of communication meant that the vast extensions of land of the northern coast, Amazon and far south were a closed book. Folklore in these regions was and is extraordinarily complex and unexpected, but the artistic circles in the capital could only suspect that. Villa-Lobos and Andrade mapped out, the former with his vast production, the latter in his musicological and literary writings, the vehement presence of Indian, Hispanic and African elements in these local cultures, many of which could be traced back almost intact to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This proved to be a tremendous encouragement for the creation of not only a national literary culture, but a regional one as well. Curiously the generation of composers who most benefited from this wider common ground came from immigrant families who had only recently arrived in Brazil: Mignone, Guarnieri, Gnatalli and Santoro came from an Italian background, and Fernandez from a Spanish one. Reception. Mário de Andrade, Ensaio sobre a música brasileira (São Paulo: Livraria Martins, 1928), p 19.. Critical and academic reception has undergone dramatic swings in the last eighty years or so. A first reactionary generation of critics would simply dismiss Villa-Lobos as savage and incompetent: Oscar Guanabarino, the implacable critic in Rio de Janeiro, would go so far as to classify all folkloric culture as a corruption and simplification of classical models and unworthy of serious attention. Andrade, an active critic himself, and scores of other writers schooled under his wing, would develop a school of criticism informed by a Marxist view which would exclude any aesthetic possibilities outside the sphere of nationalism. Andrade’s own assessment synthesises this line of aesthetic thought: If a Brazilian artist feels within himself the strength of a genius like Beethoven or Dante, it is obvious he must write national music. Because as a genius he will certainly know how to find the essential elements of nationality. He will have, therefore, an enormous social value…And if the artist belongs to the ninety-nine per cent recognised not to be a genius, then this is an even stronger reason to make national art. Because attaching himself to the Italian or French school he will be only another one in the oven, where in the beginner’s school he will be meritorious and necessary…The one who makes international or foreign art, if he is not a genius, is useless, nil. This premise leads to the logical conclusion that composers like Nunes Garcia or Carlos Gomes had prompted little repercussion at international level for the simple reason that they had not imprinted national values in their music and. 16. fabio zanon.
(21) would always be second-raters in a culture that had never belonged to them in the first place, which is a scandalously unfair statement. Great hope was deposited on the shoulders of the second generation of nationalist composers. Mignone, Fernandez and Guarnieri, as the leading lights of this nationalistic upsurge, were frequently cast in the role of cultural ambassadors to Europe and North America. Their failure to find a niche in the international repertoire coincided with a second wave of European immigrants, who arrived in Brazil around the time of the Second War. Among them was the intelligent and persuasive German composer and theorist H.J. Koellreutter, who instructed generations of Brazilian composers, many of whom had at first embraced nationalist ideals, in the art of the Second Viennese School. The ensuing discussion between those faithful to Andrade’s ideas and a new wave of international avant-garde was certainly beneficial to the aesthetic formation of composers, but it was at the same time harmful for the musical institutions which were still in a formative period. Such an enormously popular essayist as the Argentine Juan Carlos Paz affirms that the formulation, in the Americas, of a concrete musical reality reveals the delay that logically must exist…[it is] manifested especially in the diverse and limited localisms within which it has locked itself… A simple comparison of art music produced in Latin America with the one developed under similar conditions in Europe…reveals the causes of its retard – spiritual, technical, speculative and aesthetic – and the lack of synchronicity.. Juan Carlos Paz, Introducción a la música de nuestro tiempo (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1971); translated into Portuguese by Diva Ribeiro de Toledo Piza as Introducão à música de nosso tempo (São Paulo: Livraria Duas Cidades, 1977), p 314.. This statement, obviously aimed at the various nationalisms still in vogue in the sixties, takes into account neither the abject lack of institutional interest and technological and factual support, nor the precarious state of general and musical education in the continent as a whole, which latter also prevents the appearance of a consistent production of an avant-garde which is synchronically attached to European and North American production. The ensuing development of composition and of musical institutions in Brazil has followed, in very general lines, that of other countries, especially the United States. Nationalists and internationalists feuded for government subsidy along with command of concert societies and newly created music departments at major universities. General lack of public and critical interest in the more forbidding experiments, and failure to achieve any degree of international recognition, impelled younger composers towards a purely academic path, where they could work under the protective shield of research grants and a monthly wage, and remain oblivious to the reality of a professional composer who has to get his works published and performed. Political contingencies have also played an important part in the present configuration of musical life in Brazil and its perception abroad. The military coup of 1964, followed by a considerable repression of public expression from 1968 to 1980, required a definite political position from all sectors of society, and classical composers were no exception. Composers of a governmentalist inclination failed to persuade the military commanders of the need for a sustained development of classical music and were later punished by the opinion of the cultural. mignone, fernandez, guarnieri. Music & Politics. 17.
(22) establishment for their opportunistic attachment, while composers in the opposition tended to retreat to the relative security of university posts which are, in effect, public servant jobs. Their participation in this turbulent period of struggle for the right of expression and a breach in the prevailing political attitude was insignificant. This difficult phase coincided with the gradual but ultimately all-powerful ascension of pop music as the sole subject of interest for the mass media. From a purely technical and aesthetic point of view, Brazilian popular music is of a generally higher musical and literary interest than, say, rock-and-roll. Bossanova represented the current aspirations to a modern society, and the huge festivals in the sixties and seventies brought to the fore a generation of educated upper-middle-class singer-songwriters, who could envelop their protest songs in a subtle involocrum of contemporary poetry and eclectic nationalist music. This led many of them to temporary exile, and their status as manipulators of public opinion grew exponentially after their irrefutable role in the gradual political opening in the late seventies and early eighties. A whole generation of new journalists, but also of academic researchers, displaced their focus of interest from a classical music that was being composed just for itself to a cultural experience of major sociological relevance. mpb (Música popular brasileira) became an emblem of a puissant cultural and social movement with the capacity to engage vast numbers of people in social causes – a role that had been fulfilled by Villa-Lobos and his vast ‘patriotic concerts’ fifty years earlier. In a short period of twenty years, classical composers were excluded from the major cultural decisions and mpb, frequently marketed as ‘Brazilian jazz’, became the favoured cultural export. It is no accident that singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil was chosen for the Ministry of Culture at the beginning of 2003 – even long established literary intellectuals were neglected in the choice of this important position. Political events since 1964 have been of incalculable importance for the current development of Brazilian musical affairs and for its lack of inception in musical circles abroad. Composers of earlier nationalist schools, such as Mignone, Guarnieri and Villa-Lobos himself, have been forgotten by major institutions like symphony orchestras and opera houses for their excess of local colour and assumed lack of relevance within an international cultural network. Progressive composers who came to the fore from the 1960s onwards lack the logistic support to develop a language and to produce a corpus of works that might win them entry into the international circuit of contemporary music. And possibly above all, interest in the major composers of Latin America is generally perceived to be so tightly bound to sociological and political circumstances that the European audiences would probably not be as sympathetic to a conflict of cultural identity that does not belong to them. Future Prospects. 18. Aesthetic judgement of music of a national character has its own problems. The first wave of romantic nationalism was easily digested by the philharmonic public because the classical essence of its construction was never doubted: Dvorˇák, Grieg, Rimsky-Korsakov, Sibelius and many others were still composing coherent symphonic and operatic designs and national features acted almost exclusively as local colour. Whenever folkloric elements became determinant in the elaboration of a musical language, as in Mussorgsky and Janácˇek, the acceptance was much slower – it requires a leap of faith on the listener’s part, and a keenness to educate oneself to a culture that is not as central to the understanding. fabio zanon.
(23) of a continuous line of classical development as, say, Bruckner and Mahler are. Colonised cultures, moreover, as has already been explained, keep the search for a sharper musical fingerprint at the core of their psychological configuration, a type of personal conflict that is not shared by most developed nations. Nevertheless, a recent upsurge of international interest in the music of composers such as Villa-Lobos and Ginastera might mean that this state of affairs is walking towards a turning point. International recording companies have kept in their catalogues complete recordings of all the major cycles by Villa-Lobos, and critical reception has been surprisingly good. Recent developments in the musical life in Brazil – stabilisation of several concert series in all major capitals, renovation and general improvement of technical standards of the major symphonic orchestras, solidification of the international careers of performers on various instruments, renewed interest in the research of three hundred years of music history as a consequence of a general rise in academic standards at the universities – these have all made a contribution in prompting the public to take pains to investigate the unknown heritage of national classical music. An unbiased assessment of this heritage is bound, in my opinion, to lead to a progressive increase in international standing for the operas of Carlos Gomes and for the composers belonging to the second nationalist generation. Composers of such superlative interest as Guarnieri, Mignone and Fernandez cannot remain forgotten when the ground is so favourable for a gradual enlargement of the classical music canon in cultural centres which are now supposed to encourage multiculturalism.. fr ancisco mig none (1897–1986) ‘Mignone is possibly the most complete musician we have ever had.’ A brief description of the varied activities Mignone performed in the musical life of Brazil is enough to support a statement that otherwise might seem rather facile. On top of an extensive production of symphonic, chamber, vocal and piano music, he excelled also as a conductor, pianist, writer and teacher. His numerous collections of waltzes – for the piano, bassoon and guitar – are possibly his best-loved works in Brazil, but there are two areas where his reputation seems to rest more firmly: art song, a genre in which his popularity amongst Brazilian composers is unchallenged, and ballets and symphonic pieces, where the contribution of African elements to Brazilian music is best expressed. This might seem rather surprising, coming from a son of Italian immigrants who was born in a town of a decidedly Italian character (São Paulo), and whose upbringing and technical preparation were uncannily Italian and French. Influenced by his father, a professional flautist, Mignone learned both the flute and the piano. At the age of twenty-three he went to Milan, where he completed his studies with Vincenzo Ferroni, a student of Massenet who applied French methods of teaching. After spending two years in Spain, he returned to Brazil for good in 1929 and lived in Rio de Janeiro, where he became the director of the National Institute of Music and was active in musical life at large until his death in 1986. He first came to public attention in 1923, when Richard Strauss, touring South America as conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic, included Congada, an excerpt from Mignone’s opera O contratador de diamantes, in his programmes. In the late twenties, when his technical training had already reached a mature. mignone, fernandez, guarnieri. Vasco Mariz, Francisco Mignone, o homem e a obra (Rio de Janeiro: funarteeduerj, 1997).. 19.
(24) Francisco Mignone, A parte do anjo: autocrítica de um cinqüentenário (São Paulo: Editora Mangione, 1947).. Vasco Mariz, História da música no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 5th edn, 2000), p 240.. stage, he increased contact with Mário de Andrade, and that led to a succession of major orchestral works of Afro-Brazilian inspiration: Maracatu de chico rei, Batucajé, Babaloxá, Quadros amazônicos, Iara and Festa das igrejas (of which only the first and last have so far been recorded) consolidated his reputation and won him regular invitations to conduct his works in Europe and North America. Arturo Toscanini conducted Festa das igrejas quite frequently and recorded it with his nbc orchestra. In the late forties Mignone underwent a long period of infirmity and of aesthetic crisis, vividly discussed in the book A parte do anjo. Very few composers have managed to face criticism so lucidly and justify their aesthetic choices with such honesty: Mignone admitted to a certain artificiality in his first nationalist phase and the irresistible pull of Italian traces in his cultural upbringing, which led him to study, practise and later discard atonality and twelve-tone technique. He came out of this crisis with renewed vigour, and to his late period belong a series of large works for piano, several concertos, three string quartets and most of his guitar works, not to mention another three operas. He had already made some attempts at writing for the guitar in the forties and fifties – some of them belonging to the realm of popular music and written under a pseudonym – but Mignone’s meeting with the young guitarist Carlos Barbosa Lima in 1970 (when the composer was already seventy-three) seems to have been the catalysing factor for his interest in the instrument. In that year he composed two large series of solo works, the Twelve Waltzes in all minor keys, dedicated to Isaías Savio, and the Twelve Studies, dedicated to Barbosa Lima. Six years later he would write his Guitar Concerto, which was premiered in the usa but has remained unpublished and little performed. In this essay we shall concentrate on the two major sets of solo works. Any approach to Mignone has to come to terms with the fact that he is a tonal composer living in a decidedly non-tonal period of the twentieth century. In a letter written in 1980, he says that at my respectable age I can assert that I am the master, by right and fact, of all the processes of composition and decomposition in use today and tomorrow…I feel capable of writing without any trouble a piece in C major, as well as of elaborating concepts of traditional, impressionistic, expressionistic, dodecaphonic, serial, chromatic, atonal, bitonal, polytonal music, and – who knows? – if it crosses my mind, avant-garde with concrete and electronic touches. Anything can be done in art, as long as the work can bring a message of beauty and leave in the listener a desire to hear the work again. Of course the tone of this letter is jocose, but it testifies to the fact that he had come to terms with his strengths and limitations. Mignone’s work is strong in craftsmanship, harmonic invention and instrumental colour; it is not music of concept, it is music made by a professional craftsman. Many times I have compared him to Rimsky-Korsakov, a comparison which many people might find derogatory – in fact, it is an acknowledgement that a composer who nurtures preoccupations of national identity, local colour and instrumental realisation is also entitled to create work of real permanence, even though other aspects of musical language might at first seem more crucial. In other words, if the work is not profound or innovative that doesn’t necessarily mean it is empty. In the case. 20. fabio zanon.
(25) of Mignone, the psychological complexity of his works is considerable, despite the fact that he chose not to embrace the conflicts inherent in the various kinds of departure from tonality. The Twelve Waltzes (valsas) of 1970 (published in Brazil in the same year by Irmãos Vitale), in all minor keys, explore one of Mignone’s passions. They are music of nostalgia – of longing for a lost youth, for the serenades he had played with choro musicians in São Paulo during the 1910s, for a certain tenderness of everyday life which had been lost during the ensuing decades. They are, for the most part, waltzes of a dark, bitter and afflicted tone, a character which is enhanced by the relative discomfort of certain keys like A b or E b minor. As a cycle, variety might have been compromised by a certain sameness of expression derived from the absence of major keys. Nevertheless, as one can already perceive in his Valsas de esquina for piano of 1938–42, Mignone works very carefully on details of expression, richness of texture and harmonic ambiguity. The formal plan, still derived from the regular a b a with coda of the traditional urban waltz (where b is a contrasting section in major key), is frequently bent for expressive purposes. Thus, one can find exceptions to the model already in Valsa nº 1 in C minor, where the first section is of a languid and nostalgic character, section b is also in C minor but much more volatile in expression, and the coda is a spirited precipitato – an ingenious scheme also employed in Valsa nº 9 in A b minor. Valsa nº 2 in C # minor is a long descending chromatic theme with a variation, followed by a shorter coda with variation, and Valsa nº 3 is a passacaglia. Valsas 4 in E b minor, 5 in E minor and 8 in G minor follow the traditional plan, but 6 in F minor and 7 in F # minor are more concise – a theme repeated with a variation and a short coda, in accordance with the stark and exhausted character of these pieces. Valsa nº 10 in A minor is a prelude and toccata, where an episode in A major has a strong feeling of the viola caipira, the Brazilian folk instrument derived from the five-course Baroque guitar; Valsa nº 11 in B b minor follows the palindromic form of a b c b a, and the last, in B minor, utilises the form of a Chopinesque study to highlight its cheerful and brilliant style. One might think that the profusion of awkward flat keys would naturally lend greater prominence to the pieces written in ‘guitaristic’ keys such as E, A or D minor. Quite the opposite: Mignone’s harmonic language, frequently exploring chromatic embellishments, chromatic descending sequences, diminished chords in various textural situations and ‘sighing’ suspensions, not to speak of a very cunning control of part-writing within a restricted compass, manages to avoid the disturbances provoked by the infrequent appearance of chords based on open strings. Another characteristic feature of his harmonic style is the preference for tight chords and the free employment of inversions, maybe as a vestige of a chordal style suitable for bowed instruments. One is tempted to say that a waltz is always a waltz, but different nations have underlined some aspects of this flexible dance form and imprinted it with what can be called national characteristics. While the Viennese waltz has kept the bouncing and gentle flow of the earlier ländler, French waltzes tend to be more fluid and spry, Russian waltzes brighter and more athletic. Brazilian waltzes are essentially serenade music, not necessarily intended for dance; they have incorporated the Portuguese feeling of nostalgia and the wide leaps borrowed from Italian bel canto arias. Ornamental elaboration has, moreover, a strong leaning towards chromaticism, as we can hear in many waltzes by Ernesto Nazareth (the. mignone, fernandez, guarnieri. 12 Waltzes Francisco Mignone, 12 valsas [1970] (Irmãos Vitale, 1970).. 21.
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