Villa-Lobos: Concertos for Guitar, Harmonica now available on Naxos "Music of Brazil" Series

On November 8, 2019, Naxos released its third recording from their acclaimed “Music of Brazil” series, this time devoted to works by composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. The album features his Concerto for Guitar and Small Orchestra (1951) performed by renowned Cuban guitarist Manuel Barrueco; Concerto for Harmonica (1955) with Brazilian harmonica player José Staneck; plus two chamber works: Sexteto Místico (1917) and Quinteto Instrumental (1957) performed by the OSESP Ensemble [Naxos 8.574018]. The Guitar and Harmonica concertos also feature the São Paulo Symphony led by Giancarlo Guerrero.    

The Concerto for Guitar—Villa-Lobos’s last work for the instrument and written for Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia—was the culmination of the composer’s experiments with guitar, the instrument he considered his “repository of ideas.” Segovia premiered the Concerto for Guitar in February 1956 with the Houston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer. The three movements that make up the work were created with the aim of achieving a balanced orchestral score, which would give the guitar freedom of expression despite the instrument’s characteristic difficulties in terms of sound projection.

The Concerto for Harmonica was commissioned by the North American harmonica player John Sebastian and premiered by him in Jerusalem with the Kol Israel Orchestra (now the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra) directed by Georg Singer. Sebastian, to whom the Concerto was dedicated, is one of those responsible for introducing the harmonica into concert halls. He enjoyed a long career as a soloist, which began in Philadelphia in the early 1940s and continued until the 1970s. In 1967 he recorded Villa-Lobos’s Concerto, together with that of Alexander Tcherepnin, two of the several concertos dedicated to him, which he often performed when touring different countries. (Sebastian’s son, John B. Sebastian, is the founder of the American band, The Lovin’ Spoonful.)

New and daring sonic combinations are to be heard in the two chamber works demonstrating the composer’s extraordinary gift for seductive lyricism. Villa-Lobos began work on his Sexteto místico in 1917, but it wasn’t until 1957 that the work was published. Its instrumentation echoes the sounds of the traditional Brazilian chôros: guitar, flute and saxophone—key members of the street bands whose music at one time filled the streets of Rio de Janeiro—with the addition of harp, oboe and celesta. Composed in 1957, the Quinteto Instrumental was commissioned by the Quintette Instrumental de l’Orchestre de la Radiodiffusion Française. It is a more conventionally scored work than Sexteto mìstico, with an instrumentation of flute, strings and harp, suggestive of combinations used by composers Vincent D’Indy, Albert Roussel, and Jean Cras.