Strings Concert at the Kings Place Festival
Kings Place: Hall One, London, London N1 9AG, United Kingdom
Saturday 11-Sep-10 17:00
Latin American Classics - 2, Last Round - Chilingirian Quartet/Millennium Quartet
Tickets: £4.50.
Villa-Lobos composed his Sixteenth Quartet in Paris in 1955; unflagging in its invention, like many of his works it's infused with Brazilian song and dance character, but sublimated into a sophisticated, mature idiom. The slow movement, with its soulful cello melody, is reminiscent of the Bachianas Brasileiras; the sparkling scherzo is one of his best. Juan Bautista Plaza, noted for his sacred music, was Kapellmeister at Caracas Cathedral but also wrote notable instrumental works. He was a pioneer in Venezuelan music education and musicology who helped his compatriots establish a national style. He composed Fuga criolla for strings in 1931, adding the Fuga romántica in 1950 to make a two-part work, though the two fugues are often performed separately. In a sense they ‘Venezuelanise' J S Bach just as Villa-Lobos sought to make him into a Brazilian.
Osvaldo Golijov is now the most celebrated contemporary Argentine composer of classical music, though his roots are in the Jewish communities of Romania and the Ukraine and he grew up speaking Yiddish. Last Round, originally commissioned by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, is a sublimated tango fantasy in which two string quartets are scored for an idealised bandoneon (the small accordion-like instrument of which Astor Piazzolla was a virtuoso) and its two movements are a homage to Piazzolla's fighting spirit and also to Carlos Gardel, whose song ‘My beloved Buenos Aires' provides the basis of the last movement.
Villa-Lobos, Heitor (1887-1959), String Quartet no.16
Plaza, Juan Bautista, Fuga criolla y Fuga romántica, for string orchestra
Golijov, Osvaldo (b. 1960), Last Round
Chilingirian Quartet
Millennium Quartet
Enno Senft, Double Bass