SEASON 3 EPISODE 7
ERIC HARRISON, HOST:
Good afternoon and thanks for tuning in to Little Rock Public Radio and Classical KLRE-FM, 90.5. I'm Eric Harrison, I write about arts and culture at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and I’ll be your host for the next two hours.
You're listening to ‘Major and Minor Masterpieces,’ where we will focus each week on a broad range of classical music, from chamber music to choral works to full symphonies and maybe even a touch or two of opera.
On today’s show we take a musical trip to Brazil, with pieces by Brazilian composers and influenced by Latin America’s biggest nation.
We’ll start with French composer Darius Milhaud, whose visit to Rio de Janeiro in particular, in 1917-1918 provided considerable inspiration for several pieces influenced by South American folk music and dance rhythms.
We’ll start today’s show with four of Milhaud’s 12 “Saudades do Brazil,” named after districts of Rio. ‘Saudades’ means ‘longing’ in Portuguese, Brazil’s primary language. Originally written for piano around 1920, they are perhaps better known in their subsequent arrangements for orchestra. We’ll hear Leonard Bernstein conduct the Orchestre National de France in numbers 7, “Corcovado”; 8, “Tijuca”; 9, “Sumare”; and 11, “Laranjeiras.”
(DARIUS MILHAUD’S “SAUDADES DE BRASIL”)
Leonard Bernstein conducted the Orchestre National de France in four of the “Saudades de Brasil” by Darius Milhaud
A visit to Brazil in May 1927 and its’ musical styles and local customs inspired Italian composer Ottorino Respighi to plan what he intended as five-part orchestral suite; he returned to Rio de Janeiro the following June 1928, but the final version piece took form in an orchestral work in only three movements, which he titled Impressioni Brasiliane, or “Brazilian Impressions.”
The first piece, "Tropical Night", is a nocturne with fragments of dance rhythms. The second piece, “Butantan,” depicts Instituto Butantan, a snake research institute that Respighi visited in São Paulo, and among its sinuous and sinister aspects, he quotes the “Dies Irae.” The final movement is a vigorous and colorful Brazilian song and dance.
Antal Dorati conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in this classic 1957 Mercury Living Presence recording.
(OTTORINO RESPIGHI’S “BRAZILLIAN IMPRESSIONS”)
Antal Dorati conducted the London Symphony in “Brazillian Impressions” by Ottorino Respighi.
Rio de Janeiro native Heitor Villa-Lobos created an extraordinary fusion of Brazilian culture and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach in his nine “Bachianas Brasilieras,” for various combinations of instruments and (in some cases) voices.
The fifth, written in 1938, for soprano and an ensemble of eight cellos, is, by far, the best known and most frequently performed. It’s in two movements — the first, “Aria, Cantilena,” starts with a vocalise — a wordless melody — for the soprano, who follows with a brief, declamatory setting of a poem by Ruth Corrêa that describes the moon rising in the sky. The composer then reprises the vocalise, instructing the singer to sing it “with mouth closed.” The second part, “Dança,” is a vigorous song employing lively Brazilian dance rhythms.
Villa-Lobos’ “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1” also scored for eight cellos (but without the soprano), opens with an introduction that the composer called a “Embolada," a form of folksong characterized by a refrain and response structure, in which he expresses the principal theme. The second movement, “Modinha,” alludes to a type of Portuguese popular song. And the finale is a very Bach-like fugue, based on the musical theme Villa-Lobos used in the first movement.
Soprano Barbara Hendricks joins the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Enrique Bátiz.
(HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS’ “BACHIANAS BRASILEIRAS” NO. 5 AND NO. 1)
You’ve heard soprano Barbara Hendricks and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with conductor Enrique Bátiz in the “Bachianas Brasileiras” numbers 5 and 1 by Heitor Villa-Lobos on an EMI Classics recording on today’s edition of “Major and Minor Masterpieces” on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
—PROGRAM BREAK—
[EDUCATIONAL SEGMENT]
SARAH BUFORD, PRODUCER:
Hey listeners, welcome back to Major and Minor Masterpieces. I’m your producer, Sarah Buford, and we would normally take this time to present a little educational session, to break down some of the terminology we use when describing classical music and its history.
However, we are going to veer off the beaten path a little so we can take a closer look at one of the performers featured on today’s show.
Eric, I am told that there is a hidden gem of information about one of the singers we heard in Villa-Lobos’ “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5.”
ERIC HARRISON, HOST:
That’s right, Sarah. Barbara Hendricks born November 20, 1948, is originally from the Ouachita County town of Stephens, Arkansas, the daughter of a minister and a teacher. She graduated in 1969 from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with a degree in mathematics and chemistry. That summer, she attended the Aspen Music Festival and School, where she accepted an invitation from celebrated singer and teacher Jennie Toured to study at the Juilliard School in New York City, where she received a degree in voice in 1973.
Her career has included performances with the world's great opera companies — San Francisco, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Staatsoper in Vienna, the Paris Opera, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and La Scala in Milan — and with many of the world's greatest conductors, including Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Daniel Barenboim, Neville Marriner, Carlo Maria Guilini and Sir Georg Solti.
That's not including her recital programs, or her nearly 100 recordings — everything from Mozart to Mahler to a collection of spirituals. You just heard one of them a few minutes ago.
She sang for the January 1993 inauguration of President Bill Clinton (she was the only classical performer on the program) and attended the 1994 inauguration of South African President Nelson Mandela. There's even a sixth-through-ninth-grade school in Orange, France, named for her: College Barbara Hendricks.
She now lives in Sweden, on an island an hour north of Stockholm, with her husband, Ulf Englund, whom she married in 2003.
SARAH: Oh my gosh, what wonderful news! Not only was I not aware of Barbara Hendricks in general but I also was not aware of her impressive, just absolutely impressive legacy. Thank you Eric for giving us a moment to experience some Arkansas pride with Barbara Hendrick’s music and life story.
Now let’s travel back to where we started Major and Minor Masterpieces today, Brazil.
[END OF EDUCATIONAL SEGMENT]
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
ERIC: Antônio Carlos Gomes (born in 1836, died in 1896) was the first Brazilian composer whose operas became well-known in Europe. While pretty much unknown today, they enjoyed great success in the second half of the 19th century, the golden age of opera in Italy, and were often compared favorably with those by Verdi and Puccini.
After two of his operas had been staged in Rio de Janiero, he received a scholarship established by the Brazilian government to encourage young composers and musicians, and studied with Italian composer Gioacchino Giannini in Milan. (His most famous opera, 1870’s “La Guarany,” had its premiere at Milan's La Scala, arguably the world’s most famous opera house.)
In 1894, he composed a Sonata for Strings in Milan, the final movement of which he titled “O burrico de pau" (“The Wooden Donkey”), apparently depicting a dream in which he saw himself going to heaven on a wooden donkey. Gomes uses pizzicato and melodic jumps to depict the donkey braying and rhythmic ostinatos to put the donkey in motion.
It appears to be his only chamber work, scored for 2 violins, viola, cello and bass, but it is often performed as a string quartet, and sometimes by string orchestra.
That’s the version you will hear today, with Neil Thomson conducting the strings of the English Chamber Orchestra.
(ANTÔNIO CARLOS GOMES’ “O BURRICO DE PAU”)
Neil Thomson conducted the English Chamber Orchestra in the Sonata for Strings, “O burrico de pau" (“The Wooden Donkey”) by Antônio Carlos Gomes.
Let’s return to French composer Darius Milhaud, whose “Scaramouche” suite comes from the Theatre Scaramouche in Paris, which specialized in productions aimed at children, and for which Milhaud had contributed music to two productions.
A request for a piano duo by two friends led Milhaud to recycle bits from both those efforts into a three-movement work, the movements of which are titled “Vif" (lively),”Modéré" (at a moderate tempo) and, which is what qualifies this piece for this week’s show, ”Brazileira” (“Mouvement de Samba”).
The popularity of the piece, while it irritated Milhaud, led him to create several arrangements, including ones for clarinet and orchestra (popularized by famed clarinetist Benny Goodman) and saxophone and orchestra, which is the version you will hear today. Jeremy Brown is the soloist with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Hans Graf.
(DARIUS MILHAUD’S “SCARAMOUCHE”)
Jeremy Brown was the saxophone soloist with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Hans Graf in Darius Milhaud’s “Scaramouche” suite.
And now to one of Darius Milhaud’s most popular works, his ballet “Le Boeuf sur le toit” — translated, variously, as “The Bull on the Roof” or “The Ox on the Roof,” which he wrote in 1919, also inspired by his visit to Brazil. Milhaud initially conceived the music as a “rhapsody based on airs” and as suitable as a possible accompaniment to a Charlie Chaplin film. It’s full of whimsical dissonances layered over a repeated Latin-American, mainly Brazilian, dance theme to which the piece returns again and again.
Wags have, over the years, conflated the French title and t he English translation to quip that the true title of the piece, perhaps a la Inspector Clouseau, should be “Le Bouef on the Rouef.”
Once again, Leonard Bernstein conducts the Orchestre National de France.
(DARIUS MILHAUD’S “LE BOEUF SUR LE TOIT”)
Leonard Bernstein conducted the Orchestre National de France in “Le Boeuf sur le toit” by Darius Milhaud to conclude today’s visit to Brazil on Major and Minor Masterpieces.
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
Thanks for tuning in this week. I've been your host, Eric Harrison, of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Our producer is Sarah Buford. And our transition and credit music is by our friend Wojciech Chiselinski.
Tune in again next week for Major and Minor Masterpieces on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.