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 globally bec ...
's Étude No. 1, part of his 12 Studies for Guitar, was first published by Max Eschig, Paris, in 1953.
History
The first public performance of this étude (together with those of
Études 7 and
8) was given by
Andrés Segovia
Andrés Segovia Torres, 1st Marquis of Salobreña (21 February 1893 – 2 June 1987), was a Spanish virtuoso classical guitarist. Many professional classical guitarists were either students of Segovia or students of Segovia's students.
Segovia ...
on 5 March 1947 at
Wellesley College
Wellesley College is a Private university, private Women's colleges in the United States, historically women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henr ...
in
Wellesley, Massachusetts
Wellesley () is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Wellesley is part of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The population was 29,550 at the time of the 2020 census. Wellesley College, Babson College, and a campus of M ...
.
Structure
The piece is in
E minor
E minor is a minor scale based on E, consisting of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has one sharp, on the F. Its relative major is G major and its parallel major is E major.
The E natural minor scale is:
Change ...
and is marked ''
Allegro non troppo''. A strong presence of J. S. Bach's ''
Well-Tempered Clavier
''The Well-Tempered Clavier'', BWV 846–893, consists of two sets of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach. In the composer's time ''clavier'' referred to a variety of keyboard instruments, ...
'' suggests a miniature ''
Bachiana Brasileira''.
Analysis
Étude No. 1 is an
arpeggio
An arpeggio () is a type of Chord (music), chord in which the Musical note, notes that compose a chord are individually sounded in a progressive rising or descending order. Arpeggios on keyboard instruments may be called rolled chords.
Arpe ...
study that is predominantly focused on a cross-string right-hand technique with the exception of one scalar passage from
measure 23 to 24 and a series of cadential harmonics in measures 31 to 32.
References
Sources
*
*
Further reading
* Wright, Simon. 1992. ''Villa-Lobos''. Oxford Studies of Composers. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. (cloth); (pbk).
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Etude No. 1 (Villa-Lobos)
Guitar études by Heitor Villa-Lobos
1947 compositions
Compositions in E minor