Bachianas Brasileiras No. 9
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)

THE STORY

     In 1930, Heitor Villa-Lobos returned to his native Brazil after spending much of the 1920s in Paris, where Stravinsky had ushered in the neoclassical era with works like Pulcinella. Back in Brazil, Villas-Lobos looked back even further in music history, to Baroque influences. He had been fascinated by the music of Bach, in particular, ever since he was a teenager.
      Upon his return to Rio de Janeiro, Villa-Lobos was invited to take over leadership of music education in the city. For this task, he embraced Brazilian folk songs, advocating that children learn their native music. These two influences combined to lead to the nine Bachinas Brasilieras, written between 1930 and 1945 and roughly translating as “Bach-inspired Brazilian pieces.” The nine suites were composed for a various combination of instruments and voices, from solo piano to cello ensemble to full orchestra.
      Villa-Lobos saw a natural synergy between the music of Bach and the folk songs of Brazil; he called Bach’s music “folk-loric—for the people,” perhaps referencing the fact that much of Bach’s music was written in rustic dance forms. With Bachianas Brasilieras, he superimposed Baroque harmonic and contrapuntal techniques on the rhythms, colors, and textures of Brazilian folk music, and succeeded in blurring the lines between what was “Bach” and what was “Brazil.” True to form, movements in each of the suites have both a Baroque-style title and a Brazilian-style title—except for the ninth.
      Although most of the works in the suite are not ordered chronologically, No. 9 was, in fact, the final one written, in New York in 1945. It was first scored for a wordless, a cappella chorus, but that version is now much less frequently performed than the string orchestra version. The ninth suite is a prelude and fugue, a form that was used frequently by Bach.
      Bachianas Brasilieras put Brazilian music on the cultural map and the nine suites are some of the most famous works of classical music ever written by a South American composer.

LISTEN FOR

• In the Preludio, the opening with very high notes in the strings (marked “vague and mystical” in the score), leading into a broad melody with expansive harmonies

• The same melody revealed as the fugue subject—although at a quicker pace—in the Fuga; different instruments enter with the theme at different times, essentially creating a round

INSTRUMENTATION

Strings