Guitar Music of Latin America

Since Latin America is the cultural child of Spain, with Brazil having a kind of cousin relationship through its historical ties with Portugal, it is quite natural that the guitar should have attained the same position as a popular instrument south of the Rio Grande that it has held south of the Pyrenees.  In some remote areas of South America, to be sure, pre-conquest musical culture of a rather primitive sort still survives; and in Mexico particularly, research has uncovered much interesting musical material of the Indian civilization.  But in the main, the Spanish conquerors succeeded in imposing their music upon native elements just as they imposed their language.  The guitar took root right along with the Spanish folk songs and theater music that was popular with the soldiers of the invading armies.  Even after the colonial period, when the Latin American counties achieved political independence, cultural ties with the motherland remained strong, with the result that the musical life of Spain was echoed on the South American continent.  Other influences have left their mark - Italian opera, French salon music, African rhythms (a by-product of the slave trade), and North American jazz - all of them enriching the basically Hispanic nature of the national musical idioms.

HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS is the major figure in the musical life of Brazil.  He was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1887, and though he showed signs of extraordinary talent at a very early age, he pursued his musical career in the face of the strongest opposition from his widowed mother.  Forbidden to play the piano, he secretly took up the guitar, and with this instrument he frequented the popular cafes and dance halls of Rio.  Several tours of the of the provinces and jungles of Brazil gave him an almost encyclopedic knowledge of his country's popular and folk music, which he immediately began to incorporate into his own compositions.  A meeting with Artur Rubinstein and two trips to Paris (1923 and 1929) enlarged his musical horizons vastly and earned him a growing reputation.  By the early thirties he was an international figure.  He devoted much energy to musical education in Brazil, and his labors in this field have been so great that one sometimes wonders when he found time to compose.  Yet his output as a composer is enormous and includes works in all categories, from simple teaching pieces to operas and huge choral works with orchestra.

Four of his pieces for guitar are presented here.  The two "Etudes" are from a book of twelve written in Paris in 1929 and dedicated to Andres Segovia, the contemporary inheritor of the classical guitar tradition stemming from Fernando Sor (1780-1839).  Villa-Lobos is one of many composers who have written for him under the inspiration of his artistry.  "Etude No. 11" is concerned with a phrase of melancholy cast, which is prevented from growing to full melodic stature by the interference of somber, agitated passages based on dissonant harmonies and on nervous, almost hectic rhythmical patterns, some of them suggesting jungle drums.  Of the four Villa-lobos pieces herein, this one is most typically Brazilian in its mixture of exotic and classical features.  "Etude No. 5" is in effect a trio, the middle voice reiterating a figure in broken thirds while the outer voices carry on a dialogue, each with its own melody. 

The two "Preludes" are from a set of five composed in Rio in 1940 and dedicated to the composer's wife, Mindinha.  "Prelude No. 4 is in the major mode, and its middle section again suggests keyboard styles.  Its outer sections, which are identical, are in the popular idiom of the quietly elegant and sophisticated nigh-club, with a trace of a French accent.  "Prelude No. 2" is in the minor mode and its principal idea is a kind of melancholy chant interrupted by sonorous harmonies struck across the strings.  An episode of arpeggiated chords exploit a technique that the guitar holds in common with keyboard instruments.

JOSE BARROSO was born in Tehuacan, Puebla, Mexico, in 1901.  The cello was his first instrument, and he studied it at the National Conservatory in Mexico City.  It was an easy step from the Conservatory to the cello section of the capital city's symphony orchestra, and Barroso kept this position for several years, though he was still very young.  He came to the United States in 1921 to join the Seattle Symphony Orchestra; but after a few seasons there he went to Los Angeles, where he worked in film and the radio studios  It was in 1940 that he was attracted to the guitar and began to study it as an outlet for musical energies that were not being consumed in the world of orchestral cellists.  He rapidly became a virtuoso on the instrument and found himself much in demand in the film studios.  "For Whom The Bell Tolls" is one of the important films he recorded for.  Teaching and composition filled out his busy schedule.  (It is believed that Barosso died between 1975 and 2000).

"Bullerias y Cancion" and Tehuacan (Lamento y Danza)" are the two Barroso works recorded here.  In the first title, both words mean "song".  Bullerias, like the Brazilian choros, is a musical form or style of rather vulgar origin.  Though Barroso uses the word as a popular term, he dignifies the musical form by treating it artistically, as Villa-Lobos does with the choros.  Both parts of this composition are quite short, and the listener will find the line of demarcation between them where the mode shifts from minor (which is, incidentally, quite rare in Mexican folk music) to major.  "Tehuacan" is also in two brief sections: they are the composer's reminiscences of his native city.

AGUSTIN BARRIOS was born in Paraguay and died in San Salvador in 1944.  But his success as a guitarist throughout South America truly made him a kind of international citizen.  He began playing the guitar as a young boy and he quickly became a virtuoso.  To expand the capabilities of his chosen instrument, he frequently turned the two lowest strings a whole tone below the normal tuning of  E and A and also used steel strings instead of gut.

His "Preludio - Para Guitarra", Opus 5, No. 1, is a classical work without folk or popular elements.  Its principal characteristic is that it treats the guitar as a single-voiced instrument.  No two strings are plucked simultaneously until the final cadence.  All the harmony is unfolded horizontally - that is, it is inferred from the succession of melodic events, some of which are of course only figurations of broken chords.  "Choro da Saudade (Song of Longing)" is romantic, even sentimental, and the middle section in major is plainly in the tradition of salon music.

MANUEL PONCE (1882-1948) was one of Mexico's most illustrious composers, with a large catalogue of works for orchestra, for solo instruments with orchestra, for chamber ensembles, for piano, for solo voice, and for guitar.  He had a sound academic training under such masters as Enrico Bossi in Italy, Martin Krause in Germany, Paul Dukas in France.  His greatest popularity was in Latin America, though one song, the famous "Estrellita", is widely performed throughout the world.  He was another of the many distinguished composers who wrote pieces for Segovia.  The "Vals", dedicated to Segovia, is performed here.  It is a somewhat curious little piece in that it makes use of the drone bass and the modal scale with the raised fourth, neither of which has any background at all in Mexican fold music.

LAURINDO ALMEIDA, Brazilian by birth (1917), is the composer of the last three works in this recording.  "Preludio y Tremolo" is quite fully described by its title.  The preluding is improvisatory in style and rather ornate, and the second section treats a melody in rapidly reiterated notes.  The "Invention" is as in classical examples of the form, the treatment of an idea through the processes of development.  Here we have and A-B-A format with a single idea permeating the whole piece, the middle section working it over in quicker rhythm, and the development consisting of modulations and embellishments, some of them quite elaborate.  "Cajita de Musica (Music Box)" is the simplest music imaginable - a rather high pitched melody set against a solid bass line - but completely charming in its strictly mechanized simplicity.

LAURINDO ALMEIDA has achieved fame in widely diversified fields of music by creating beautiful and serious compositions for guitar, by performing brilliantly as solo guitarist with some of the nations most distinguished jazz bands, and by playing with equal brilliance on the classical concert stage.  His appearance at such places as Carnegie Hall, Chicago's and San Francisco's Civic Opera Houses, and the Hollywood Bowl have been marked by enthusiastic acclaim of his inspired artistry.