Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
Bachianas Brasileiras No. 9

Bachianas Brasileiras is a cycle of nine multipartite compositions of varied structure for various performing ensembles. It was written in 1930-44. The title combined the composer’s two passions: his love of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and his admiration for Brazilian folklore.
Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian composer and conductor, was practically self-taught. In the years 1905-12, he travelled across north-eastern Brazil and knew better than anyone else the wealth and the complexity of his country’s music. He played in bands called chôros (which term also denotes a tear-jerking serenade genre) and performed with them in cinemas. He had a handful of followers, but the milieu of the Rio de Janeiro Conservatory held him in contempt. This was the musician Artur Rubinstein met immediately after World War One. It was Rubinstein, too, who found a patron for Villa-Lobos and helped him to travel to France, where the latter arrived in 1922. His compositions soon conquered Europe; two festivals of his music were held in Paris in 1927. In 1931, Villa-Lobos made a triumphant return to Brazil, where he founded a number of musical institutions and won the status of the national composer. He wrote almost 2000 works. He expressed his gratitude to Rubinstein by presenting him with the brilliant Rudepoema for piano.
Villa-Lobos was certain that the general principles of the art of composition of his admired Bach could be applied to music of all cultures. He perceived associations between Brazilian modinhas and Bach’s arias, between folk dance music forms and toccatas or gigues.
This conviction underlies the very idea of his Bachianas Brasileiras. Each of the nine suites of the cycle contains preludes, chorales, arias and dances provided with the names of their Brazilian “counterparts.” Also, each uses a different instrumentation. Suite No. 1 is for eight cellos (1932), No. 2 for chamber orchestra, (1934), No. 3 for piano and symphony orchestra (1934), No. 4 for piano (1930-40, for orchestra: 1942), No. 5 for solo vocal and eight cellos (1938), No. 6 for flute and bassoon (1938), and Nos. 7 and 8 for orchestra (1942, 1944). In the final suite of (1944), the composer saw in fact two different possibilities: for choir a cappella or chamber orchestra. Convinced as to the validity of his idea, Villa-Lobos created original and masterly music, several times removed with superficial folkloric or Baroque stylisations.

Wiesława Berny-Negrey