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RAMOS ZAPAROLLI, MIGUEL AUGUSTO, D.M.A. The Early Compositions for Cello and Piano by Heitor Villa-Lobos. (2019) Directed by Dr. Alexander Ezerman. 41 pp. I. Solo Recital: Thursday, May 4, 2017, 3:30 p.m., Recital Hall. Melodia Sentimental, W551 (Heitor Villa-Lobos); Pequena Suite, W064 (Heitor Villa- Lobos); O Canto do Cisne Negro, W123 (Heitor Villa-Lobos); ĂlĂ©gie, W (Heitor Villa-Lobos); Insensatez (Tom Jobim); Assobio a Jato, W493 (Heitor Villa-Lobos); Cello Suite No.1 in G major, BWV 1007 (Johann Sebastian Bach); Bachianas Brasileiras No.1, W246 (Heitor Villa-Lobos). II. Solo Recital: Thursday, November 16, 2017, 7:30 p.m., Organ Hall. Cello Sonata No.1, Op.5 No.1 (Ludwig Van Beethoven); 12 Variations on ÌEin MĂ€dchen oder Weibchen ÌOp.66 (Ludwig Van Beethoven); Cello Sonata No.2, Op.5 No.2 (Ludwig Van Beethoven). III. Solo Recital: Saturday, November 3, 2018, 3:30 p.m., Organ Hall. Cello Sonata in A Major, G.4 (Luigi Boccherini); From Jewish Life, B.54 (Ernst Bloch); Siete Canciones Populares Españolas, (Manuel de Falla); String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Hob.III:78 (Joseph Haydn). IV. D.M.A. Research Project. THE EARLY COMPOSITIONS FOR CELLO AND PIANO BY HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS. (2019). This study presents a historical overview of Heitor Villa-Lobosâs early life, career, surrounding environment, influences, selected early compositions for cello and piano written between 1913 and 1917, autographs, and of Rio de Janeiro from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the study of Villa-Lobosâs early life and
Rio de Janeiro from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it is important to consider the influences of Europe, especially France on Brazil, and European composers on Heitor Villa-Lobos. This study provides historical information, and attempts to increase the dissemination of Villa-Lobosâs early compositions for cello and piano into the standard cello repertoire. The study also presents information to help cellists understand and then incorporate these pieces into their repertoire, followed by a recording of selected Villa- Lobosâs early compositions for cello and piano performed by this author. More pertinent materials are given in the appendixes, such as historical information about the other compositions for cello and piano written between 1913 and 1917 (Appendix A), and a complete list of compositions for and with cello by Heitor Villa-Lobos (Appendix B). The findings of this study show that Villa-Lobosâs early compositions for cello and piano show a complete absence of elements of Brazilian folklore, were highly influenced by the aesthetics of European composers in vogue at the time in Brazil, and were written while the composer was active as a cellist As shown in the Conclusion, after careful analysis, it can be inferred that Villa- Lobosâs early compositions for cello and piano deserve to be known, incorporated into the repertoire of modern cellists, and performed more frequently.
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APPROVAL PAGE
This dissertation, written by Miguel Augusto Ramos Zaparolli, has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Committee Chair Committee Members Date of Acceptance by Committee Date of Final Oral Examination
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This dissertation would not be possible without the support and assistance of Dr. Alexander Ezerman, Dr. Sarah Dorsey and Dr. Kevin Geraldi. Thank you to UNCG School of Music for supporting my research through a summer research assistantship that made possible my trip to Rio de Janeiro to visit the Villa-Lobos Museum. Thank you to the Villa-Lobos Museum for helping me with this research and for providing me the composerâs autographs. Thank you to Hugo Vargas Pilger for the valuable information about Heitor Villa- Lobos.
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LIST OF TABLES
Page Table 1. Selected Early Compositions for Cello and Piano ............................................. 13
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LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES
- Example 1. Pequena SuĂte Autograph, Romancette, bar 1 - Page
- Example 2. Pequena SuĂte Autograph, Melodia, bar 1 -
- Example 3. Pequena SuĂte Autograph, Gavotte-Scherzo, bar 1 -
- Example 4. Pequena SuĂte Autograph, Order of the Movements
- Example 5. Pequena SuĂte Autograph, Romancette Motiv, bar 1 -
- Example 6. Pequena SuĂte Autograph, LegendĂĄria, bar 1 -
- Example 7. Pequena SuĂte Autograph, Harmonias Soltas, bar 1 -
- Example 8. Pequena SuĂte Autograph, Fugatto (allâ antica), bar 1 -
- Example 9. Pequena SuĂte Autograph, Melodia, bar 1 -
- Example 10. Pequena SuĂte Autograph, Gavotte-Scherzo, bar 33 -
- Example 11. ĂlĂ©gie Autograph, bar 3 -
- Example 12. ĂlĂ©gie Autograph, bar 8 -
Chapter III, the European elements that influenced his early compositions will be presented in chapter IV, the Brazilian Belle Ăpoque will be presented in chapter V, a historical overview of selected compositions for cello and piano written between 1913 and 1917 will be presented in Chapter VI, his first trip to Paris in 1923 will be presented in Chapter VII, followed by a recording of selected early compositions for cello and piano performed by this author. More pertinent materials are given in the appendixes, such as historical information about the other compositions for cello and piano written between 1913 and 1917 (Appendix A), and a complete list of compositions for and with cello by Heitor Villa-Lobos (Appendix B).
CHAPTER II
HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS
Born on March 5, 1887, in the neighborhood of Laranjeiras, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Heitor Villa-Lobos grew up in a musical environment. His father, an amateur musician, performed musical serenades in his house, before becoming his first teacher. His aunt, a pianist, introduced little Tuhu (the composerâs childhood nickname) to Johann Sebastian Bach, who would become one of his greatest influences. Of restless and insatiable temperament as a young man, Villa-Lobos found in Choro^1 gatherings influence that imbued his late musical compositions, through the trips he made around Brazil, from north to south, from east to west, and through the folklore and the nature of his country. Once he said, I transpose into sounds and rhythms, this madness of love for a homeland. 2 Eu transponho em sons e ritmos essa loucura de amor por uma patria. Heitor Villa-Lobos composed insatiably over his lifetime. There are about 1, pieces, among them symphonic poems, concertos, symphonies, songs, operas, chamber music, in addition to his two most famous cycles: Bachianas Brasileiras and Choros. In (^1) Choro is a genre of Brazilian instrumental music originated in the 19th century in Rio de Janeiro. (^2) âVilla-Lobos: âO Coração Ă© o MetrĂŽnomo Da Vida,ââ Revista Prosa Verso e Arte, accessed February 8, 2019, https://www.revistaprosaversoearte.com/villa-lobos-o-coracao-e-o-metronomo-da-vida/.
CHAPTER III
VILLA-LOBOS AND THE SURROUNDING ENVIRONMENT
The musical genius of Villa-Lobos was hereditary and environmental. His maternal grandfather was a composer and his father was a musician trained in a conservatory, famous in Rio de Janeiro for his musical salons^3 (although he worked as a librarian at the national library). Villa-Lobos was surrounded by music from the day he was born. In 1893, when he was about six years old, his father Raul, who was an amateur cellist, started teaching him the cello on an adapted viola.^4 His father was his first cello teacher and also taught Heitor Villa-Lobos the clarinet, while Villa-Lobos taught himself piano and guitar. His father died of smallpox in 1899, at age 37, when Heitor Villa-Lobos was 12 years old. Heitor Villa-Lobos was then supported by his mother who started working at Colombo confectionery located in the center of Rio de Janeiro.^5 In 1904, Heitor Villa-Lobos enrolled in the National Institute of Music to study cello during the night school classes, but in the same year, the then director of the Institute, the Composer Henrique Oswald ended the night school classes. Villa-Lobos began, like all the great musicians of his generation, assimilating the techniques inherited (^3) Donatello Grieco, Roteiro De Villa-Lobos (BrasĂlia, DF: Fundação Alexandre de GusmĂŁo, 2009), 13. (^4) Felipe JosĂ© Avellar de Aquino, âVilla-Lobosâ Cello Concerto No. 2: A Portrait of Brazilâ (DMA essay, University of Rochester, 2000), 2, UR Research at the University of Rochester. (^5) Grieco, Roteiro De Villa-Lobos, 14.
from Romanticism, through the academic study of musical forms, counterpoint and harmony, instituted in the conservatories and adopted as a model in Brazil. The short period of formal musical studies as a pupil of the National Institute of Music in 1907 resulted in his first chamber music and symphonic compositions.^6 Between 1905 and 1912 Villa-Lobos travelled through the interior of Brazil, learning the customs, music, dance and folklore of the people. In 1913, Villa-Lobos married LucĂlia GuimarĂŁes, a virtuoso pianist, with whom he lived for twenty-two years. It was LucĂlia Villa-Lobos who premiered on the piano many of his early compositions for cello and piano. Vasco Mariz, Villa-Lobosâs biographer wrote, LucĂlia was a devoted partner, and exert an influence on the composer, who in his young age was not yet an expert on the piano.^7 LucĂlia foi para Heitor âcompanheira devotada e auxiliar preciosaâ e exerce influĂȘncia sobre o compositor, que na sua adolescĂȘncia ainda nĂŁo era exĂmio no piano. Biographers and scholars agree that Villa-Lobosâs first wife was very important in his early compositions. (^6) Paulo de Tarso Salles, Paulo de Tarso, Villa-Lobos: Processos Composicionais (Campinas, SP: Editora Unicamp, 2009), 19. (^7) Grieco, Roteiro De Villa-Lobos , 31.
It was in this historical context and with these musical influences that Heitor Villa-Lobos was born and grew up as a musician and young composer, with the debate between the new and the old, Wagner and Verdi, and the Republic and the Monarchy. The music aesthetic debate of that time was also political, on the one side the defenders of the monarchy, Verdi, and the Italian opera, and on the other side the defenders of the republic, Wagner and Saint-Saens. The musical aesthetics ideas of DâIndy, Debussy and Saint-Saens were applied and used by Villa-Lobos in the period between 1913 and 1917, and an examination of the compositions of the decade of 10 shows a complete absence of elements of Brazilian folklore. According to Lisa M. Peppercorn: So it was when he returned to Brazil after a one-year stay in Paris on a Brazilian government grant between the middle of 1923 and the middle of 1924 that Villa- Lobos began to turn his back on traditional forms and styles and switched to something native. This change was quite abrupt and sudden, it was less an inner urge but rather a desperate necessity trying to seek fame and fortune, be talked about and call attention.^12 The other reason that his early compositions for cello and piano show a complete absence of elements of the Brazilian folklore was because he wanted to be accepted by the public, critics and fellow composers of the time. In that period the folklore and everything that was national or native were not accepted by society that preferred (^12) Lisa Margaret Peppercorn, âForeign Influences in Villa-Lobosâs Music,â Ibero-Amerikanisches Archiv 3, no. 1 (1977): 37, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43750552.
composition in a European style. Villa-Lobos was a smart composer, aware of the consequences of his musical aesthetics choices in each period of his life.
the twentieth century was the result of the initiative of the then President of the Republic Campos Sales and consolidated by the President Rodrigues Alves,^15 who had announced a great action of urban reformulation under the pretext of improving image, sanitation and the economy of the federal capital, entitled PolĂtica da Capital (Politic of the capital), it had the purpose of facilitating the immigration of foreigners to Brazil and increasing the volume of investments in the country. (^15) Jeffrey D. Needell, âMaking the Carioca Belle Epoque Concrete: The Urban Reforms of Rio de Janeiro under Pereira Passos,â Journal of Urban History 10, no. 4 (August 1984): 383, https://doi.org/10.1177/009614428401000403.
CHAPTER VI
SELECTED EARLY COMPOSITIONS FOR CELLO AND PIANO
The early works for cello and piano have an important role in Heitor Villa- Lobosâs output, as some of them were performed in the first concert Villa-Lobos presented his compositions to the public in Rio de Janeiro in 1915. Most of his compositions for cello and piano were written between 1913 and 1917, a period in which he worked actively as a cellist playing in orchestras in Rio de Janeiro. On November 13, 1915, several early compositions by Villa-Lobos were performed at the Noble Hall of the Associação dos Empregados do ComĂ©rcio, including Berceuse (Lullaby) and Capriccio (Caprice) for cello and piano.^16 The concert had a negative reception, and Oscar Guanabarino a music critic wrote about Villa-Lobos:
... This artist who cannot be understood by the musicians for the simple reason that he does not understand himself, in the delirium of his fever for production. Without meditating on what he writes, without obedience to any principle, even arbitrary, his compositions are full of inconsistencies, musical cacophonies, ... Esse artista que nĂŁo pode ser compreendido pelos mĂșsicos pela simples razĂŁo de que ele prĂłprio nĂŁo se compreende, no delĂrio de sua febre de produção. Sem meditar o que escreve, sem obediĂȘncia a qualquer princĂpio, mesmo arbitrĂĄrio, as suas composiçÔes apresentam-se cheias de incoerĂȘncias, de cacofonias musicais, verdadeiras aglomeraçÔes (^16) Hugo Vargas Pilger, Heitor Villa-Lobos o Violoncelo e o Seu Idiomatismo (Curitiba, PR: Editora CRV, 2013), 95.
