''Suite populaire brésilienne'' (french: Brazilian popular suite), sometimes also referred to by its title in Portuguese ''Suíte popular brasileira'', is a

suite Suite may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Suite (music), a set of musical pieces considered as one composition ** Suite (Bach), a list of suites composed by J. S. Bach ** Suite (Cassadó), a mid-1920s composition by Gaspar Cassadó ** ''Suite' ...

for solo

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

by Brazilian composer

Heitor Villa-Lobos Heitor Villa-Lobos (March 5, 1887November 17, 1959) was a Brazilian composer, conductor, cellist, and classical guitarist described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the ...

Background

Despite being primarily taught to play the cello as a young child by his father, who was an amateur musician, Villa-Lobos later mainly taught himself how to play the guitar at home. Even though he didn't pursue an academic musical career, his remarkable skills opened the doors to various chorões in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

. In his early days, he would perform and improvise with other chorões in cafés, nightclubs, and cinemas in order to make his living. This later enabled him to compose many pieces inspired by the musical style and folk material of chorões, entitled

chôros ''Chôros'' is the title of a series of compositions by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, composed between 1920 and 1929. Origin and conception The word ''chôro'' (; nowadays spelled simply ''choro'') is Portuguese for "weeping", "cry", ...

First version (1929)

The creative process of ''Suite populaire brésilienne'' took many years, as the different movements that make up the suite were never conceived to be put together. Instead, Villa-Lobos, a composer who wrote at the guitar, wrote many small pieces and some of them were later adapted into the suite. The ''Suite'' was initially completed for publication in the summer of 1928, while he was on vacation at Lussac-les-Châteaux with his wife, Lucilia Guimarães, visiting Spanish pianist Tomás Terán. Villa-Lobos confessed to

Eugène Cools Eugene is a common male given name that comes from the Greek εὐγενής (''eugenēs''), "noble", literally "well-born", from εὖ (''eu''), "well" and γένος (''genos''), "race, stock, kin".Éditions Max Eschig, in a letter dated July 28, 1928, that not a page of music had been composed, and he was busy with his kites, one of his favorite pastimes. A few days later, however, he asked Cools for a complete set of guitar strings, as his guitar had no usable strings to compose with. He then dedicated to composing and was able to present the two manuscripts of both the ''Suite'' and the '' 12 études'' in autumn that same year. Both works were mentioned in two contracts between Villa-Lobos and Max Eschig from October 1, 1928 and January 5, 1929. Each one of the dances has different dedicatées, some dances not including any dedicatées at all: the first dance is dedicated to Maria Thereza Terán, Tomás's wife; the second dance is dedicated to Francis Boyle; the third dance is dedicated to Madeleine Reclus,

Paul Reclus Paul Reclus may refer to: *Paul Reclus (anarchist) (1858–1941), French anarchist. *Paul Reclus (surgeon) (1847–1914), French physician specializing in surgery. {{hndis, Reclus, Paul ...

's daughter; and the fourth dance is dedicated to Eduardo Burnay. This, however, did not turn out how Villa-Lobos expected. When Villa-Lobos came back to Brazil, supposedly for a brief series of concerts on June 15, 1930, he would not be able to return because of a coup d'etat where dictator Getúlio Vargas became president. Although Villa-Lobos tried to go back to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, he could not do so until 1948, when the political turmoil generated by

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

had dissipated. Because of this 18-year hiatus, Villa-Lobos and his publisher distanced from one another, and Villa-Lobos was unaware that his compositions had not been published when he arrived in France. Villa-Lobos, in fact, had asked Max Eschig's director if he could send Villa-Lobos a few copies of his own ''Suite'', to which he received no answer.

Revised version (1954)

Upon resuming his relationship with his publisher, he tried to get his compositions for guitar published, and started rewriting his ''Suite'' from his own sketches. Although he repeatedly asked the then-director of Max Eschig, Philippe Marietti, about the whereabouts of his original manuscripts destined for publication, the manuscripts were not found and he decided to send new manuscripts to the copyist in 1948. While it was fairly easy for Villa-Lobos to reconstruct his études because of the readily available material he owned at the time, the ''Suite'' was more challenging to re-compose, and this is made evident by the fact that the fourth movement, the "Valse-Chôro", was lost (Villa-Lobos only had sketches of bars 78 to 104) and the composer had to start from scratch more than twenty years after composing it. This is why the title was translated into Portuguese in the final version of the suite. Villa-Lobos is conflicting about the dates of completion for each of the movements. While he provided no dates for the movement except for movements I and II (1906 and 1907 respectively) in the preliminary version, he did provide dates on the final revised version: according to Villa-Lobos own specifications in the published version of the score, movements I and II were composed in 1908 in

, movements III and IV in 1912, also in Rio, and movement V was finished in 1923 in Paris. Movements III and IV were completely new. The final version of the suite was eventually published by Max Eschig in 1955. The lost fourth movement from the first preliminary set was eventually found many years after the composer's death, in 2006, in the archives of Villa-Lobos's publisher. Since Villa-Lobos could not get a copy of the manuscript he sent to his publisher and had to recompose the pieces from old sketches, the dedicatées varied slightly: the first dance was again dedicated to Maria Thereza Terán and the fifth (the third dance in the previous unpublished set) was also dedicated to Madeleine Reclus. The other three dances were left with no dedication.

Structure

All the movements in the suite are

, pieces of music that meant to re-phrase and synthesize native Brazilian folk material. It has a total duration of 20 minutes approximately. The first, initially unpublished version, had four choros, whereas the final version had five. The movement list is as follows: All pieces in this suite have a certain sentimental and melancholic tone (the word ''chôro'' comes from the Portuguese term '' chorar'', which means "to cry" or "to complain"). In this sense, as other typical choros, all dances have a generally steady tempo and follow the typical rondo form pattern where the first phrase is repeated ( ABACA). A common practice at the time in Brazil, the dances in the suite blend Brazilian folk music with European dances. The first dance is a slow 65-bar

mazurka The mazurka (Polish: ''mazur'' Polish ball dance, one of the five Polish national dances and ''mazurek'' Polish folk dance') is a Polish musical form based on stylised folk dances in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo, with character de ...

A minor A minor is a minor scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has no flats and no sharps. Its relative major is C major and its parallel major is A major. The A natural minor scale is: : Changes ...

and , the C section modulating to

A major A major (or the key of A) is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has three sharps. Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor. The key of A major is the only k ...

. It ends after a final coda. The second dance is a 112-bar

schottische The schottische is a partnered country dance that apparently originated in Bohemia. It was popular in Victorian era ballrooms as a part of the Bohemian folk-dance craze and left its traces in folk music of countries such as Argentina ("chotis"Span ...

, a bit livelier than the previous dance, and in . It is in

E major E major (or the key of E) is a major scale based on E, consisting of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has four sharps. Its relative minor is C-sharp minor and its parallel minor is E minor. Its enharmonic equivalent, ...

, modulating to C-sharp minor in the B section and

in the C section. The third dance is a slow 163-bar valse, in E minor and . It modulates to

in the B section and

in the C section. The fourth dance is a 128-bar gavotte, the fastest in the suite, marked ''Allegretto moderato''. It is in D major and , briefly modulating to

B minor B minor is a minor scale based on B, consisting of the pitches B, C, D, E, F, G, and A. Its key signature has two sharps. Its relative major is D major and its parallel major is B major. The B natural minor scale is: : Changes neede ...

in the B section and

F-sharp minor F-sharp minor is a minor scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has three sharps. Its relative major is A major and its parallel major is F-sharp major (or enharmonically G-flat major). T ...

in the C section. The final dance is a 105-bar chôro in

C major C major (or the key of C) is a major scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. C major is one of the most common keys used in music. Its key signature has no flats or sharps. Its relative minor is A minor and ...

and , modulating to

in the central section. The dances that were also used in the preliminary version of the suite are slightly different in some ways: the first dance changes the phrasing and the accompaniment in some bars and deletes the coda altogether, the second and third dances make changes in some notes, and the fourth movement is a completely new dance.

Recordings

Recordings of the whole suite from 1928 are very rare. The following is a list of recordings of the suite finished in 1954: *

Norbert Kraft Norbert Kraft (born 21 August 1950) is a Canadian guitarist, music teacher, producer and arranger. Life Born in Linz, Austria, Kraft's family emigrated to Canada in 1954. He studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music at Toronto with Carl van Feggel ...

recorded the piece in 1998 under Naxos. The recording was taken at St. John Crysostom Church, in Newmarket,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and was released straight to

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...

. *

Frédéric Zigante Frédéric and Frédérick are the French versions of the common male given name Frederick. They may refer to: In artistry: * Frédéric Back, Canadian award-winning animator * Frédéric Bartholdi, French sculptor * Frédéric Bazille, Impressio ...

, who also edited the piece when it was published, recorded the piece in an all-Villa-Lobos album release on compact disc in 2011 by Brilliant Classics. In this album, he also performed the discarded movement from the first version of the suite.

References

External links

* {{Heitor Villa-Lobos 1954 compositions Compositions by Heitor Villa-Lobos Suites (music) Compositions for guitar Music with dedications