String Quartet No. 12 is the part of a series of seventeen works in the genre by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was written in 1950. A performance lasts approximately twenty-two minutes.
String Quartet No. 12 is the part of a series of seventeen works in the genre by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was written in 1950. A performance lasts approximately twenty-two minutes.
Villa-Lobos began composing his Twelfth Quartet in New York in 1950, during a stay in Memorial Hospital following kidney surgery, completing the score at the Hotel Weston on 15 September. [1] According to the catalogue published by the Museu Villa-Lobos, it was first performed by the Quarteto Haydn in the Auditório do MEC, Rio de Janeiro, on 3 November 1951. [2] According to another authority, the first performance was given that same year by the São Paulo Quartet. [3] The score is dedicated to Mindinha (Arminda Neves d'Almeida), the composer's companion for the last 23 years of his life.
As in all of Villa-Lobos's string quartets except the first, there are the traditional four movements:
Departing from the traditional sonata-allegro form, Villa-Lobos casts the opening movement of this quartet in a simple ABA ternary form. Each section is thirty-two bars in length, subdivided into sixteen- , eight- , and four-bars segments, and this main body of the movement is followed by a sixteen-bar coda. An interesting detail of the manuscript score is that Villa-Lobos uses the Portuguese tempo marking Alegro, instead of the Italian spelling which is his normal habit. [4] The middle, B section is marked meno, and is in the rhythm of a modinha. [5] The composer's biographer, Eero Tarasti, regards this as a regression to Villa-Lobos's earlier, clumsier style of quartet writing, and finds the texture "considerably more complicated than in previous quartets and the sound lacks transparency". [6] Juan José Gutiérrez, on the contrary, views the quartet as relatively simple and concise, marking the beginnings of a neoclassical concern with balance and symmetry of structure in the composer's late period. [7]
Like the opening movement's central section, the second, slow movement has the character of a modinha. Like the first movement, it is also in an ABA ternary form, in this case preceded by a thirty-two-bar introduction. [8]
The third movement is a scherzo (explicitly marked as such in the manuscript, but not in the printed score). [9] At rehearsal-number five the cello introduces a quotation from Villa-Lobos's 1940 cantata Mandú-Çárárá, played in parallel fifths. [10]
The finale is once again a ternary ABA form, with a twenty-one bar coda. [11] The composer described one theme from this movement as being "à la Spanish". [12]
Música de feria 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.
String Quartet No. 2 (Magueyes) is a chamber-music work by the Mexican composer and violinist Silvestre Revueltas from 1931. The score is dedicated to Aurora Murguía and a performance of it lasts between ten and eleven minutes.
String Quartet No. 1 is the first of seventeen works in the genre by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, originally written in Nova Friburgo in 1915 and extensively revised in 1946. A performance lasts approximately eighteen minutes.
String Quartet No. 2 is the one of a series of seventeen works in the genre by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was written in 1915. A performance lasts approximately twenty minutes.
String Quartet No. 3 is the third of seventeen works in the medium by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was written in 1916. A performance lasts approximately twenty-three minutes.
String Quartet No. 4 is the fourth of seventeen works in the genre by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, written in 1917 and revised in 1949. A performance lasts approximately 23 minutes.
String Quartet No. 5 is the fifth of seventeen works in the genre by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, written in 1931. A performance lasts approximately 17 minutes.
String Quartet No. 6 ("Brazilian") is one of seventeen works in the genre by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was written in 1938, in between his early and late periods. Villa-Lobos considered naming it "Quartet Popular No. 2" as opposed to "Brazilian," and while the work is indeed one of his more nationalist pieces, it also bears direct connections to the Viennese tradition of string quartet composition. A performance lasts approximately 24 minutes.
String Quartet No. 7 is the seventh of seventeen works in the genre by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, written in 1942. With a performance lasting approximately 37 minutes, it is the longest of Villa-Lobos's string quartets
String Quartet No. 8 is one of seventeen works in the genre by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, written in 1944. A performance lasts approximately twenty-five minutes.
String Quartet No. 9 is part of a series of seventeen works in the medium by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was written in 1945. A performance lasts approximately 25 minutes.
String Quartet No. 10 is one of a series of seventeen works in the genre by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was written in 1946. A performance lasts approximately 23 minutes.
String Quartet No. 11 is a 1947 string quartet, part of a 17-work series in the medium by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. A performance lasts approximately 27 minutes.
String Quartet No. 13 is one of a series of seventeen works in the medium by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was written in 1951. A performance of it lasts approximately twenty minutes.
String Quartet No. 14 is the one of a series of seventeen works in the medium by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was written in 1953. A performance lasts approximately seventeen minutes.
String Quartet No. 15 is one of a series of seventeen works in the medium by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was written in 1954. A performance lasts approximately nineteen minutes.
String Quartet No. 16 is the penultimate of seventeen quartets by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was written in 1955. A performance lasts approximately twenty minutes.
String Quartet No. 17 is the last of seventeen quartets by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was written in 1957. A performance lasts approximately twenty minutes.
The Piano Concerto No. 2, W487, is a piano concerto by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, written in 1948. A performance lasts about 28 minutes.