Behind the Curtain: Brasileiras No. 1

"Brightmusic" is a local chamber orchestra which offers several free concerts during the fall and spring. The musicians are mainly drawn from the local Philharmonic and two universities (Univ. of Oklahoma and Oklahoma City Univ.). The concerts are offered at St. Paul's Cathedral, which just happens to be my home church, and is an acoustically ideal venue for this type of intimate performance.

I went to the final concert of the season on Tuesday, May 17. The concert was dedicated to the work of J.S. Bach and Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959). I brought my Moleskine Journal® along in hopes of writing impressions as I listened to at least one of the pieces.

Villa-Lobos was born in Brazil, and studied composition in Europe. Like many other composers of this period, he strove to integrate folk music and the classical form. For the latter, he used Bach as his model, and wrote a series of concertos titled "Bachianas Basileiras". There are at least nine concertos in this series; the best known is probably No. 5, which was recorded by Joan Baez.

Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1 was performed at this concert. The first two movements are given titles from Brasilian folk tunes: I. Embolada (Introduction), which is a sequence of verses typical of the repentistas (improvising poets and singers of northeast Brazil who pit their skills against one another at great speed); and II. Modinha (Preludio), a sentimental love song. Of the third movement, Conversa (Fuga), Villa-Lobos wrote: "The kernel of the initial theme is characterized by the transfiguration of certain melodic cells typical of-and dear to-the old serenaders of the Capital (here meaning Rio de Janeiro) ... it conveys, first, a Bachian spirituality, and then a conversation between four chorões whose instruments fight for thematic primacy."

With most of this background in mind, I started writing the first images which came to mind as the music was performed. An additional influence was the couple sitting next to me.

Gil and Jean are at least ten years older than me. They joined me about ten minutes before the concert. Jean had forgotten her glasses, and they shared Gil's throughout the concert. Almost every time I looked over, they were holding hands or smiling at each other. So, this very charming romance played its part as I wrote.

The next morning, I typed the lines from the journal. I wrote some additional lines for the third section, but otherwise I did only very minor tweaking.

Re-read the poem.