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12041 - Bachianas Brasileiras No 5

Heitor Villa-Lobos

arranged for Solo trumpet and 8 trombones by Roger Harvey

Difficulty: Medium

Price: £40.00

Programme note:

The Bachianas Brasileiras are a series of nine suites by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, written for various combinations of instruments and voices between 1930 and 1945. They represent a fusion of Brazilian folk and popular music on the one hand and the style of Johann Sebastian Bach on the other, as an attempt to freely adapt a number of Baroque harmonic and contrapuntal procedures to Brazilian music. The double titles reflect this musical fusion. They enjoy the combination of the counterpoint and harmonic complexity typical of Bach's music and the lyrical quality of operatic singing and Brazilian song. Number 5, written between 1938 and 1945 originally scored for soprano and eight cellos is the best known. It has two movements: Ária (Cantilena) has a wordless vocalise as its outer sections and langourous song between. The lyrics of this central song are by Ruth V. Corrêa In the evening, a dreamy, pretty cloud, slow and transparent, covers outer space with pink. In the infinite the moon rises sweetly, beautifying the evening, like a friendly girl who prepares herself and dreamily makes the evening beautiful. A soul anxious to be pretty shouts to the sky, the land, all of Nature. The birds silence themselves to her complaints, and the sea reflects all of Her [the moon's] wealth. The gentle light of the moon now awakens the cruel saudade [nostalgic or melancholic longing] that laughs and cries. In the evening, a dreamy, pretty cloud, slow and transparent, covers outer space with pink. Dança (Martelo), (lyrics by Manuel Bandeira The musical form is embolada, a rapid poem/song of the Brazilian Northeast. It is a poem of nostalgia (saudade) for the birds of the Cariri Mountains, in the state of Ceará. The lyrics contain a list of species of birds: ben-te-vi (Pitangus sulphuratus), sabiá (Turdus fumigatus), juriti (Leptotila rufaxilla), irerê (Dendrocygna viduata), patativa (Sporophila leucoptera), cambaxirra (Odontorchilus cinereus). The music imitates bird song: "La! liá! liá! liá! liá! liá!" "Sing more", the words say, "to remember Cariri" ("Canta mais! canta mais! prá alembrá o Cariri!").