JOSEPH BACON / Guitar Music of Villa-Lobos
Joseph Bacon (guitar)
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), the greatest of Brazilian composers, was a man of instinct, vigor and passion; the antithesis of the academic composer who writes for the eye and brain, not the ear and heart. Photographs of Villa-Lobos often show him dressed like a gangster, with a large cigar thrust in his mouth, jaw jutting forward, a gritty and virile presence. An enthusiastic billiard player, he was for a while the champion of Rio de Janeiro.
Three distinct periods of Villa-Lobos' life are represented on this record. The Valsa-Chôro, Schottisch- Chôro and Chôros #1 date from 1912 when he was a young man playing his guitar in the street bands.
The Etudes were written in 1929 when Villa-Lobos was in Paris for an extended visit. Here he met Segovia and he wrote a series of twelve etudes for the great guitarist. In character they range from dry "finger studies" to rhapsodic and savage fantasies. Out of these I have chosen four for this recording.
In 1940 he was well-known and successful. An audacious project of his was a series of mammoth concerts; in one of these he conducted a choir of 40,000 voices! He had founded choral societies all over Brazil and his own conservatory of music in Rio. He found time to write a set of six preludes for the guitar, one of which unfortunately was lost. On this record we hear the five survivors and they are wonderful examples of his mature style.
His innovations in the techniques of guitar composition are unparalleled. His own considerable ability as a guitarist as well as his fertile imagination led to the invention of many brilliant and telling effects. And the sheer beauty and vigor of the music place these pieces at the forefront of modern guitar music.
TRACK LIST
Prelude #1 (1940) (5:06)
Prelude #2 (1940) (3:03)
Prelude #3 (1940) (6:13)
Prelude #4 (1940) (2:40)
Prelude #5 (1940) (3:49)
Etude #5 (1929) (2:25)
Etude #11 (1929) (3:45)
Etude #8 (1929) (2:53)
Etude #7 (1929) (4:38)
Valsa-Chôro (1912) (4:44)
Schottisch-Chôro (1912) (3:42)
Chôros #1 (1912) (4:38)
REVIEWS
Brian Olewnick, The Squid's Ear
This is a reissue of an album originally released on 1750 Arch in 1978 and it’s a beaut. The twelve selections include Preludes #1-5, four Etudes (3’s 5, 7, 8 and 11) and three pieces written to evoke the Brazilian street bands of Villa-Lobos’ youth. The guitarist is Joseph Bacon and he performs with amazing delicacy, depth and grace. The liner notes mention that, in addition to studying with the likes of Segovia and Julian Bream, Bacon entered into an extended period of study of Indian music with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. It’s seriously tempting to hear slight, very slight, echoes of the raga in the gloss on some of these compositions, adding an unusually exotic pinch of spice to an already flavorful stew. Much like Satie’s works, these pieces require both a lightness of touch as well as a sense of abandon, of flinging oneself into them without squashing them. Bacon’s clean, warm fingerings are just the trick, bringing out the enormous amount of surging life force within.
The Preludes are the latest pieces, dating from 1940, and are sublimely romantic (without ever crossing the line into excessive fever) and melancholy. You can still hear the traces of flamenco, but there’s an added layer of heat, languor and sparkling eroticism, as well as an appreciation of the still note hanging in the air like a trace of perfume. Or sweat. The Etudes, from 1929, are somewhat stripped down and really are reminiscent of Satie, both in their leanness and their affected detachment. One aspect of the compositions that takes shape in these performances is that, despite what is clearly extraordinarily difficult writing for guitar, the listener is only conscious of the music, never of the technique. The final pieces, all variations on what Villa-Lobos called choros (variations on popular songs, waltzes and other dances typically played by cello and guitar in the street), are the earliest, from 1912. There’s a certain stateliness to them, presumably emblematic of a time when “street music” was less aggressive than now. But the same warmth and passion that would bubble up in later years can be heard in nascent form, biding its time, betrayed by a whiff or two.
This is an entirely lovely album, a must-have for lovers or Brazilian music, aficionados of 20th century classical guitar or simply for anyone who wants to hear drop-dead gorgeous music.
Christian Carey, Splendid Reviews
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) is probably Brazil's most highly regarded classical composer. While his most popular "hits" are the ensemble pieces Bachianas Brasileiras, he also wrote a substantial body of music for solo classical guitar. A number of these works are recorded on this all-Villa-Lobos recital disc. Five Preludes, written in 1940, are intimate, lustrous compositions, populated with diverse influences from both the cafe and the concert hall. Bacon's interpretation of "Prelude 2", which he shapes with subtle nuances of tone, dynamics and tempo, is particularly sensitive.
Three pieces entitled Choro incorporate the popular music of Villa-Lobos's early career, as a member of street bands in Rio. "Valsa-Choro" captures the wistfulness and gentle lilt of a slow and hazy version of the famous triple meter dance. "Schottisch-Choro" (written in 1912) is actually both syncopated and springy in its rhythms, demonstrating a connection between the Brazilian dance hall and America's ragtime. "Choro #1" completes this triptych of dance-pieces with the most folk-influenced Choro of the three, with frequent accelerandi and rubati that suggest a lively and intricate dance.
Guitar Music also includes four Etudes. These pieces are not mere technical exercises; they are brimming with wit, texture and invention. "Etude #7", for example, sparkles with richocheting arpeggios and scales, but is also filled with one memorable tune after another. "Etude #8" channels the spirit of Impressionism; it is far more consumed with hazy harmonies and textural grace than technical "finger-busting".
Not only does Joseph Bacon (son of prominent American composer Ernst Bacon) play all of the compositions with great skill and affection, but the recording captures his guitar in a naturalistic way, portraying it in a concert hall's reverberant acoustic rather than with the close-miked claustrophobia of less well-engineered affairs. While Bacon does not demonstrate the flash of some virtuosi, he more than makes up for it with the substantial maturity and musicality of his interpretations. Villa-Lobos's music comes to life here in a way that I haven't heard it before; it is much more direct in its communication without all the fireworks.
Uncle Dave Lewis, All Music Guide
Classical guitarist Joseph Bacon's Guitar Music of Villa-Lobos seemed like the most atypical release on the 1750 Arch label when it first appeared on LP in 1978, given as that concern was most frequently associated with Conlon Nancarrow and other types of more obviously "experimental" music. Atypical, but not wholly out of place - Heitor Villa-Lobos' small catalogue of works for solo guitar were considered shocking and revolutionary in their time, and not everyone in the classical guitar realm were terribly enthusiastic about them when they were new. The discovery of an early manuscript of the "Estudios" in the mid-1990s revealed that legendary virtuoso Andres Segovia refused to take on this now-famous cycle of pieces until Villa-Lobos agreed to radical changes in the musical text. This must have irked Villa-Lobos no end, as he was a good guitarist himself who could play the "Estudios" as well as anyone.
Bacon's 1978 recital appeared at a time when there was practically nothing else in the market to challenge it. By the time it re-appeared on CD 25 years later on Mutable Music, Thomas Buckner's successor label to the by then long defunct 1750 Arch, there were a few more instances of all-Villa-Lobos guitar discs in the marketplace, but not many, and none as desirable as this. Recorded in a small chapel in Anselmo, California with state of the art analog gear cum 1978, this recital of Bacon's has a lovely, warm, reverberant acoustic but is not placed too far away in the distance. Neither is the guitar "in your face;" its perspective is right where it belongs, as if one were sitting the first or second row at an intimate recital. Bacon is simply without peer in the performance and interpretation of the Villa-Lobos guitar cycle as an entity unto itself. At 48 minutes the Mutable Music disc runs a tad short for many subscribers to the "music by the yard" theorem, but for an all-Villa-Lobos recital, with a good single disc selection of the main repertoire, this is as good as it gets.
