Overture Magazine - 2018-19 Season BSO_Overture_MAR_APR | Page 26

APPALACHIAN SPRING
Movement three begins with a lengthy
orchestral prelude in which the strings
solemnly expand on the work’s angular
opening theme. Then Psalm 131, with
its message of humility before God, is
set to an eloquent melody, sung simply
in unison or in canon between the
women and men. The angular theme
now soft and serene returns, sung by
unaccompanied chorus. Its text from
Psalm 133 brings the music to a lovely
close: “Behold how good, and how
pleasant it is, for brethren to dwell
together in unity.”
Instrumentation: Three trumpets,
three trombones, timpani, percussion,
two harps and strings.
CHÔROS NO. 10
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, March 5, 1887;
died in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 17, 1959
Trapped for two centuries imitating the
dominant styles of Europe, the countries of
Latin America were slow to use their own
distinctive national voices in concert music.
More than any other musician, Brazil’s
Heitor Villa-Lobos showed them the
way. Born into a musical family in Rio de
Janeiro, Villa-Lobos was an extraordinary
original: flamboyant in temperament and
prodigious in his creative energy. At 18, he
headed for the Brazilian jungles and for
several years absorbed indigenous music
from all over his vast homeland, including
Afro-Brazilian and Amerindian strains.
Back in Rio, he played in popular street
bands known as chôros, and their music,
too, was absorbed into his creative voice.
Extraordinarily prolific, he wrote between
600 and 700 compositions in all genres;
he also found time to reorganize the
system of musical education in both Rio
and São Paulo.
In the 1920s, Villa-Lobos began
another major cycle of works, eventually
growing to 16, called the Chôros, after
those street ensembles of Rio and the
improvisatory “serenade” style of their
music. These works are scored for a range
of ensembles from soloist and chamber
groups to the enormous orchestra and
chorus called for in Chôros No. 10
(1926), the most famous of them all.
Subtitled “Rasga o curaçao” (“Rend
the Heart”), it makes thrilling use of
that popular Brazilian song in its choral
second half. After a forceful opening
powered by the brass, the music subsides
into a quiet, mesmerizingly colorful
section, evoking the calls of Brazil’s
indigenous birds as the composer had
noted them down during his Amazonian
adventures. Pounding rhythms introduce
the human natives of Amazonia, and
the chorus enters with a wordless chant
suggesting their songs. The women’s
voices layer on “Rend the Heart,” as
the music grows in propulsion and
excitement to a cathartic close.
Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo,
two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons,
contrabassoon, alto saxophone, three horns,
two trumpets, two trombones, timpani,
percussion, harp, piano and strings.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, © 2019
CHÔROS NO. 10
24
PORTUGUESE ENGLISH
Se tu queres ver a imensidão do céu e mar,
Refletindo a prismatização da luz solar,
Rasga o coração, vem te debruçar,
Sobre a vastidão do meu penar! If you wish to see the immensity of sky and sea,
Reflecting like prisms the rays of the sun,
Tear out my heart; come and bow down
Before the vastness of my pain!
Sorve todo o olor que anda a recender
pelas espinhosas florações do meu sofrer!
Vê se podes ler nas suas pulsações
as brancas ilusões e o que ele diz no seu gemer
e que não pode a ti dizer nas palpitações!
Ouve-o brandamente, docemente palpitar.
Casto e purpural, num treno vesperal,
mais puro que uma cândida vestal! Inhale all the perfume which is released
by the thorny flowerings of my suffering!
See if you can read in its pulsating beats as
its innocent illusions and that which its sighs conveys
and that it cannot tell you in its tremblings!
Listen as it gently, sweetly trembles.
Chaste and red, in an evening lament,
purer than a vestal virgin!
Rasga-o, que hás de ver lá dentro a dor a soluçar
Sob o peso de uma cruz de lágrimas, chorar!
Anjos a cantar preces divinais,
Deus a ritmar seus pobres ais!
Rasga-o, que hás de ver…! Ah! Tear out my heart, you who wish to see the sobbing pain inside,
crying under a heavy cross of tears!
Angels singing holy prayers,
God beating time to its sad groans!
Tear it out, you who wish to see… Ah!
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