Chôros No. 14
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Chôros No. 14'' is a work for choruses, orchestra, and band, written in 1928 by the 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 globally bec ...
. It is the last of a series of fourteen numbered compositions collectively titled ''
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", ...
'', ranging from solos for guitar and for piano up to works scored for soloist or chorus with orchestra or multiple orchestras, and in duration up to over an hour. The whereabouts of the score of ''Chôros No. 14'' is unknown.


History

According to the official catalog of the Museu Villa-Lobos, ''Chôros No. 14'' was composed in 1928, but the full score cannot now be located. When Villa-Lobos travelled home to Brazil in June 1930 to fulfill some conducting engagements, it was his intention to return to Paris in a few months' time. However, when the
Revolution of 1930 The Revolution of 1930 () was an armed insurrection across Brazil that ended the Old Republic. The revolution replaced incumbent president Washington Luís with defeated presidential candidate and revolutionary leader Getúlio Vargas, conclu ...
brought
Getúlio Vargas Getúlio Dornelles Vargas (; ; 19 April 1882 – 24 August 1954) was a Brazilian lawyer and politician who served as the 14th and 17th president of Brazil, from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 until his suicide in 1954. Due to his long and contr ...
to power, it became impossible for a time to travel or make payments abroad. As a result, Villa-Lobos was unable to pay the rent on his Paris apartment and he was evicted ''in absentia''. A number of works of art and many manuscripts left behind were never recovered, amongst which are believed to have been the scores of ''
Chôros No. 13 ''Chôros No. 13'' is a work for two orchestras and band, written in 1929 by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. It is part of a series of fourteen numbered compositions collectively titled ''Chôros'', ranging from solos for guitar and fo ...
'' and ''No. 14''. The composer published a verbal description of the entire work, and another, unpublished document containing musical examples from both ''Chôros No. 13'' and ''Chôros No. 14'' exists. While Adhemar Nóbrega accepts this as evidence that these last two compositions in the series were completed, Lisa Peppercorn doubts either of them ever actually existed.


Analysis

In contrast to the analytical description the composer provided for ''Chôros No. 13'', his note on the Fourteenth ''Chôros'' is rather general. He describes it as being "perhaps the most adventurous of the entire series of Choros", and states it was his intention to synthesize all of the preceding works in that series. "One might expect it to represent the simplest and most accurate in technique and form, with respect to the others. On the contrary, this ''Choros'' surprises us with its harmonic and thematic complexity, verging almost on a complete and calculated cacophony." The choirs employ mainly nonsense syllables as a text, in order to contribute a colouration of
onomatopoeic Onomatopoeia (or rarely echoism) is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias in English include animal noises such as ''oink'', '' ...
sounds, using the voices as if they were instruments. In addition, the voices at times "give the impression of
quarter tone A quarter tone is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale or an interval about half as wide (orally, or logarithmically) as a semitone, which itself is half a whole tone. Quarter tones divide the octave by 50 cents each, a ...
s and a harmonious atmosphere with melodies in a sort of descant". The most arresting feature of the work is its ending where, "after a development of the last
stretto The Italian term ''stretto'' (plural: ''stretti'') has two distinct meanings in music: # In a fugue, ''stretto'' () is the imitation of the subject in close succession, so that the answer enters before the subject is completed.Apel, Willi, ed. ( ...
performed by almost all of the instruments, a kind of
canonical The adjective canonical is applied in many contexts to mean 'according to the canon' the standard, rule or primary source that is accepted as authoritative for the body of knowledge or literature in that context. In mathematics, ''canonical exampl ...
rondo The rondo or rondeau is a musical form that contains a principal theme (music), theme (sometimes called the "refrain") which alternates with one or more contrasting themes (generally called "episodes", but also referred to as "digressions" or "c ...
appears and gradually each performer drops out, leaving only the first violin (as soloist) with two long double-stopped notes a
minor second A semitone, also called a minor second, half step, or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between ...
apart, dying slowly away until disappearing".


References

* * * * Footnotes


External links


villalobos.iu.edu
Villa-Lobos site at Indiana University: Maintained by th
Latin American Music Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Choros No. 14 Chôros by Heitor Villa-Lobos 1928 compositions Compositions for orchestra Choral compositions