Symphony No. 6 (Villa-Lobos)

Symphony No. 6
Symphony No. 6
Sobre a linha das montanhas do Brasil
by Heitor Villa-Lobos
	Heitor Villa-Lobos
English	On the Outline of the Mountains of Brazil
Catalogue	W447
Based on	"Millimetrization" of the outline of mountains at Belo Horizonte in Brazil
Composed	1944:
Dedication	Mindinha
Published	1955: New York
Publisher	Belwin-Mills
Duration	25 mins.
Movements	4
Premiere
Date	29 April 1950:
Location	Theatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro
Conductor	Heitor Villa-Lobos
Performers	Orquestra Sinfônica do Theatro Municipal

Symphony No. 6 Sobre a linha das montanhas do Brasil (On the Outline of the Mountains of Brazil) is a composition by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, written in 1944. It lasts about twenty-five minutes in performance.

History

Villa-Lobos composed his Sixth Symphony in Rio de Janeiro in 1944. It was first performed in Rio de Janeiro on 29 April 1950 by the Orquestra do Theatro Municipal, conducted by the composer. The score is dedicated to Mindinha.^[1]

An early report, based on conversations with Villa-Lobos in Paris in 1928–29, said that a Sixth Symphony (subtitled Symphonie indienne and based on Brazilian indigenous themes) had been written shortly after the Fifth Symphony, at about the same time as Villa-Lobos's opera Malazarte (1921), but had never been performed.^[2] No reference to such a work is found in the official catalogue of the composer's works, however.

Instrumentation

The symphony is scored for an orchestra consisting of 2 piccolos, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, tuba, timpani, tam-tam, bass drum, large side drum, Indian drum, side drum, cymbals, vibraphone, celesta, 2 harps, and strings.

Analysis

The symphony consists of four movements:

Allegro non troppo
Lento
Allegretto quasi animato
Allegro

The main theme of the symphony was devised by projecting the outline of mountains at Belo Horizonte, Brazil, onto graph paper and transcribing the result as a melody. Villa-Lobos called this technique milimetrazação (graphing), sometimes rendered in English as "millimetrization".^[3] or "milmeterization".^[4] A harmonized version of this melody for piano, together with a similar treatment titled New York Skyline, was initially published in the October 1942 issue of New Music, devoted to works by Brazilian composers.^[5]

The first movement is in a slightly unconventional sonata-allegro form which, according to the composer's usual methods, omits the second theme from the recapitulation. The overall tonal centre is on C, with secondary key areas on D and G.^[6]

In the second movement, Villa-Lobos utilizes a technique of drawing attention to a pitch through its exclusion, in an arguably atonal passage in b. 33–47 where a clarinet solo weaves a long melody repeatedly using eleven chromatic notes, with the omission of the note G. This pitch is then introduced emphatically in the viola entrance at b. 47.^[7]

References

^ Villa-Lobos, sua obra 2009, pp. 44–45.
^ Demarquez 1929, pp. 11–12.
^ Slonimsky 1945, p. 6.
^ Enyart 1984, p. 188.
^ Slonimsky 1945, p. 150.
^ Enyart 1984, pp. 195–197.
^ Salles 2009, p. 154.

Cited sources

Demarquez, Suzanne. 1929. "Villa-Lobos". Revue Musicale 10, no. 10 (November): 1–22.
Enyart, John William. 1984. "The Symphonies of Heitor Villa-Lobos". PhD diss. Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati.
Salles, Paulo de Tarso. 2009. Villa-Lobos: processos composicionais. Campinas, SP: Editora da Unicamp. ISBN 978-85-268-0853-9.
Slonimsky, Nicolas. 1945. Music in Latin America. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell.
Villa-Lobos, sua obra. 2009. Version 1.0. MinC / IBRAM, and the Museu Villa-Lobos. Based on the third edition, 1989.