String Quartet No. 2 (Revueltas)

Last updated • 4 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Silvestre Revueltas in 1930 Silvestre-revueltas.jpg
Silvestre Revueltas in 1930

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.

Contents

History

The quartet is the second of four composed in rapid succession in the initial stage of Revueltas's serious turn to composition. It was written in 1931, and is dedicated to Aurora Murguía, a woman with whom Revueltas had a relationship from 1926 to 1930. [1] Revueltas also dedicated the contemporaneous score of the first version of Cuauhnáhuac to her.

The score was not published during the composer's lifetime, first appearing only in 1953 in an edition by Peer–Southern Music. The printed score differs so greatly from the composer's autograph manuscript that it can only be supposed that it was prepared from a different manuscript version, not presently known to exist. [2]

Analysis

Agave (maguey) blossoms Maguey Agave Blossoms.JPG
Agave (maguey) blossoms

The quartet is in three movements:

  1. Allegro giocoso
  2. Molto vivace
  3. Allegro molto sostenuto

The subtitle, Magueyes (the plural form of maguey, also known as the agave, or century plant), is somewhat cryptic. It has been suggested that it may refer to the song of the tlachiquero, a peasant who extracts the juice of the maguey to make the alcoholic drink pulque. [3] Two other suggestions are that the cactus may be a metaphor for a political critique of the Mexican ruling bourgeoisie's strong preference for imported European music over the domestic product, or else a symbol of the expression of a composer's independent and prickly self-confident will to survive a confrontation with the highly demanding genre of the string quartet, along with an urge for nationalist music. [4]

However, an even simpler solution (with possible autobiographic allusions) may lie in the fact that, at the very opening of the quartet, Revueltas quotes a famous song of the time, known as "Los Magueyes". One version of the lyrics begins: [5]

Le pido al cielo que se sequen los magueyes
Porque esos magueyes son causa de mi desgracias;
Soy muy borracho y nada me causa gracia,
Porque no me ama la mujer que tanto amé.

I pray to heaven to dry up the magueys,
Because these agaves are the cause of my misfortune;
I am very drunk and nothing gives me satisfaction,
Because the woman I loved so much does not love me.

The first movement is in four sections displaying an A–B–A′–B′ binary-form pattern, which alternatively can be described as a sonata form without a development. [6]

The second movement is divided into three sections, in a fast-slow-fast relationship. The central, slow section quotes a lento interpolation found in the first movement. [7] In fact, most of the motivic material in this "angry scherzo" is held in common with the first movement. [8]

The concluding movement is very short, only thirty-seven bars. It opens with a brief subject in quintuple meter, presented in stretto imitations, and continues in a busy and noisy fashion to the end. [9] The characteristic staggered rhythms of the beginning are gradually brought together into unison rhythms over the course of the movement. [10]

Discography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silvestre Revueltas</span> Mexican composer

Silvestre Revueltas Sánchez was a Mexican composer of classical music, a violinist and a conductor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cuarteto Latinoamericano</span>

Cuarteto Latinoamericano is one of the world's most renowned string quartets and, for forty years, the leading proponent of Latin American music for the genre. Founded in Mexico in 1982, the Cuarteto has toured extensively throughout Europe, North and South America, Israel, China, Japan, and New Zealand. They have premiered over a hundred works written for them, and they continue to introduce new and neglected composers to the genre. Winners of two Latin Grammy Award for Best Classical Album, they have also been awarded the prestigious Diapason d'Or, have been recognized with the Mexican Music Critics Association Award, and have received three "Most Adventurous Programming" Awards from Chamber Music America/ASCAP.

<i>Cuauhnáhuac</i> Orchestral composition by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas

Cuauhnáhuac is an orchestral composition by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas. It exists in three versions, the first for string orchestra, the other two for full orchestra with winds and percussion. The first version takes nearly 15 minutes to perform, while the third lasts only about 11 minutes.

<i>Música de feria</i>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 1 (Revueltas)</span>

String Quartet No. 1 by the Mexican composer and violinist Silvestre Revueltas was composed in 1930.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 3 (Revueltas)</span>

String Quartet No. 3 is a chamber-music work written in 1931 by the Mexican composer and violinist Silvestre Revueltas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 1 (Villa-Lobos)</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 2 (Villa-Lobos)</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 4 (Villa-Lobos)</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 5 (Villa-Lobos)</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 7 (Villa-Lobos)</span> 1942 work by Heitor Villa-Lobos

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

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 8 (Villa-Lobos)</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 9 (Villa-Lobos)</span> Works by Heitor Villa-Lobos

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 10 (Villa-Lobos)</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 11 (Villa-Lobos)</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 13 (Villa-Lobos)</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 15 (Villa-Lobos)</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 16 (Villa-Lobos)</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 17 (Villa-Lobos)</span>

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.

References

  1. Baldassarre 2015, 464–465.
  2. Bitrán 2001, 72.
  3. Estrada 2012, 79n51.
  4. Baldassarre 2015, 470, 473.
  5. Baldassarre 2015, 476–477.
  6. Baldassarre 2015, 465, 470.
  7. Baldassarre 2015, 467.
  8. Livingston 1953, 154–155.
  9. Livingston 1953, 155.
  10. Leclair 1995, 115.

Sources

Further reading