String Quartet No. 12 (Villa-Lobos)
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String Quartet No. 12 is the part of a series of seventeen works in the genre by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. Villa-Lobos began composing the 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.
A typical performance lasts approximately 22 minutes.
As in all of Villa-Lobos's string quartets except the first, there are the traditional four movements:
- Allegro
- Andante malinconico
- Allegretto leggiero
- Allegro ben ritmato
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 32 bars in length, subdivided into sixteen-, eight-, and four-bars segments, and this main body of the movement is followed by a 16-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 32-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 5, 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 21-bar coda.[11] The composer described one theme from this movement as being "à la Spanish".[12]
Discography
- Villa-Lobos: Quatuors a Cordes Nos. 12–13–14. Quatuor Bessler-Reis (Bernardo Bessler, Michel Bessler, violins; Marie-Christine Springuel, viola; Alceu Reis, cello). Recorded at Multi Studio in Rio de Janeiro, June–July 1991, and at Studio Master in Rio de Janeiro, July 1989. CD recording, 1 disc: digital, 12 cm, stereo. Le Chant du Monde LDC 278 1066. France: [S.n.], 1991.
- Also issued as part of Villa-Lobos: Os 17 quartetos de cordas / The 17 String Quartets. Quarteto Bessler-Reis and Quarteto Amazônia. CD recording, 6 sound discs: digital, 12 cm, stereo. Kuarup Discos KCX-1001 (KCD 045, M-KCD-034, KCD 080/1, KCD-051, KCD 042). Rio de Janeiro: Kuarup Discos, 1996.
- Heitor Villa-Lobos: String Quartets Nos. 5, 9 and 12. Danubius Quartet (Gyöngyvér Oláh and Adél Miklós, violins; Cecilia Bodolai, viola; Ilona Ribli, cello). Recorded at the Rottenbiller Street Studio in Budapest from 18 to 23 May 1992. CD recording, 1 disc: digital, 12 cm, stereo. Marco Polo 8.223392. A co-production with Records International. Germany: HH International, Ltd., 1993.
- Villa-Lobos: String Quartets, Volume 4. Quartets Nos. 2, 12, 16. Cuarteto Latinoamericano (Saúl Bitrán, Arón Bitrán, violins; Javier Montiel, viola; Alvaro Bitrán, cello). Recorded at the Sala Blas Galindo of the Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City, November and December 1998. Music of Latin American Masters. CD recording, 1 disc: digital, 12 cm, stereo. Dorian DOR-93179. Troy, NY: Dorian Recordings, 1998.
- Reissued as part of Heitor Villa-Lobos: The Complete String Quartets. 6 CDs + 1 DVD with a performance of Quartet No. 1 and interview with the Cuarteto Latinoamericano. Dorian Sono Luminus. DSL-90904. Winchester, VA: Sono Luminus, 2009.
- Also reissued (without the DVD) on Brilliant Classics 6634.
