Customer Reviews

String Quartets 6

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The sound quality and performance on this CD are flawless. The second movement of the 4th quartet may be one of the most simply beautiful things i have heard in the last year, and the rest of the CD is just as good. I can think of no reason why anyone who enjoys string quartets would not like this music, with the only possible exception being a bias against a Brazilian or South American composer. Villa-Lobos has incorporated into these gems a wide variety of musical sources, including Portuguese children's songs, impressionistic ideas, and modern tonal flexibility. Lovers of his music frequently (and rightly) note his exceptional skill of orchestration, and this should lead us to explore his string quartets, because voice part writing for strings is at the heart of orchestration, and Villa-Lobos shows the same genuis here as anywhere else. Other reviewers have noted similarites to Bartok, another composer whom I adore, but I should tell you I listened to Villa-Lobos and his quartets long before Bartok's, and I found myself a little (and I mean only a little) disappointed by Bartok's. Villa-Lobos in these quartets is unmatched for originality, personal flair, and seamlessly formulated instances of inspiration. Now if we could only get these to be performed anywhere...

Heitor Villa-Lobos is a composer whose name is more well known than his work; ironic in that his name is so often mispronounced. Only a few of his Bachianas brasileiras series of compositions are performed with any regularity; and this for a composer who wrote over 700 compositions. With this series of his complete string quartets (17 in all--few composers since the Classical period have contributed so much to the genre!), the Cuarteto Latinoamericano takes a major step in redressing this artistic oversight. Their devoted performance demonstrates the significance of Villa-Lobos; his works' infrequent appearance in the concert hall is not due to any aesthetic weakness, but instead most likely attributable to an unfortunate geopolitical reality. He was a Brazilian composer and as such many doors, even now, remain closed to his music. And yet his compositions are aesthetically grounded in the Classical European tradition of his time. Compare, for example, the beginning of his Fourth String Quartet, composed in 1917, to Bela Bartok's Second String Quartet, composed during the same period.

The similarities between Villa-Lobos and Bartok are significant; both composers loved the folk music of their native land, collected it, learned from it and incorporated it into their own music; but retained a strong traditional European sense of structure and counterpoint. Both moved through radical phases incorporating atonality and polytonality into their music but returned toward the end of their lives to a more conservative style. And both found rhythm to be a fertile ground for musical exploration. Listen to a bit of the andantino from the Fourth Quartet--it demonstrates these points well. The opening mournful cello solo, with its unique accompanying sonority, could be fitted into any Bartok quartet without disturbing the work at all.

However, Villa-Lobos was by far the more prolific (and longer-lived) of the two, and his body of work spans a range of genres and styles that eclipse Bartok's. On this CD there are occasional touches of French sensibility, as if Villa-Lobos was exploring some of the same harmonic and melodic ideas as his contemporaries Debussy and Ravel.

The Cuarteto Latinoamericano performers obviously love this music and play it with real devotion. The group consists of three brothers: Saul and Aron Bitran on violin and Alvaro Bitran on cello, joined by Javier Montiel on viola. The familial cohesiveness shows in their wonderfully precise and yet passionate ensemble playing. They've dedicated their careers to promoting the music of the composers of Central and South America and have proven to be extremely fine advocates of their cause. This superb recording should help bring Villa-Lobos to his rightful place in the history of music, and more importantly, in the concert hall.

. . . it is mostly because his music is strongly masculine, starting by the instruments he chooses: cello, viola, guitar. His most favorites, albeit not the only ones, and then continuing in his posture and poise, as it shows so clearly in this recording. But mind you, maleness does not refrain or reduces his popular sophisticated style. On the contrary, enhances it. That is how and why I am biased. In this disc we have a clear sample of what I am talking about. Masculinity and finesse, spirit/soul and foot-on-the-earth as we refer to over here, drama, histrionics and charisma. This is Villa-Lobos at his best. I hope you agree with me.