CHOROS N.

1
Heitor Villalobos

Presented by
Carlos Patino

FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY

Musique) in Paris, as an unusual prolific composer, the Brazilian Heitor Villalobos joined the

worldwide list of the greatest composers of the nationalist movement during the 19th and 20th

century.

Among this movement, there can be found recognized composers such as the

Hungarians: Lizst, Bartk, and Kodly; the Spanish: Falla, Albeniz, and Granados; the Russian

group of five: Mikhail I. Glinka, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Prokofiev; the

Argentinians: Alberto Ginastera and Astor Piazzolla; the Americans: Copland, Gershwin, Ives,

and Bernstein; the Bohemians: Smetana, Dvok, and Janek, and the English: Holst and

Vaughan Williams (Azzi 2000, 1-2).

Influenced by the nationalist movement and by the composers mentioned above, Latin

American composers of the late 19th and 20th century started to immerse in the development of

traditional music, leading musical researches in their home countries. These researches were

aimed to look for rhythmic patterns, most common melodic and harmonic movements, typical

timbres, and the use of different ranges concerning instruments and voices. Regarding timbre,

the guitar was the most used instrument among others.

Back in the 16th century, the Spanish conquerors that arrived in Latin America brought a

variety of musical instruments. Among these instruments was a chordophone called the Vihuela,

an instrument that became very popular and which developed to what we know nowadays as the

Guitar. A string instrument of the lute family, plucked or strummed, and normally with frets

along the fingerboard (Heck, accesed 28 november 2015).

Embraced by the native people and as a result of the interaction of the European,

African, and Latin cultures, the guitar had a great proliferation converting itself into one of the
most representatives instruments of Latin American music. Furthermore, native instruments

such as the Colombian Tiple, the Venezuelan Cuatro, the Brazilian Cavaquinho, and the

Peruvian-Bolivian Charango, are inherited instruments of the guitar. The many varieties of

guitar that abound in the regional folk musics of Latin America are all adaptations of European

models (Stevenson, Webber, accessed 29 November 2015).

As mentioned above, Nationalist Latin American composers found in the guitar an

instrument that could carry the weight of tradition. As a result of its easy transportation and the

versatility of the instrument, in which a performer could play rhythmic patterns, harmonic

figurations as accompaniments, melodies and countermelodies at the same time, the guitar

became the responsible timbre of conveying the Latin American tradition.

Subsequently, the guitar started to develop a great technique due to the new

compositions that were being crafted by Latin American nationalist composers and performers

in the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of the composers responsible for this new repertoire, include

Leo Brouwer who developed the Cuban dances with works as Guajira Criolla and Rito de

Orishas (Brouwer 2007, 26-27); the Colombian Gentil Montaa who developed suites for solo

guitar as Suite Colombiana N. 1; the Venezuelan Antonio Lauro with El Marabino; the

Chilean Agustin Barrios Mangore with Vals N. 3; the Mexican Manuel Maria Ponce with the

Sonata Mexicana; Jorge Cardoso and his Milonga and the Brazilian Heitor Villalobos with

Choros N.1.

This paper will present a musical analysis of Heitor Villaloboss composition Choros

N.1 to highlight how the composer included contemporary music nuances into the Brazilian

tradition. A short Villalobos background will be presented below.

mother willing of becoming a doctor, Villalobos showed a great interest for the European music

when he was young; he often asked her aunt Zizinha to play the preludes and fugues of the

Well Tempered Clavier of J. S. Bach.

When he was thirteen years old, he composed his first solo guitar piece called

Panqueca, a composition that emerged from the musical venues in Rio de Janeiro streets,

where he used to perform. Thereafter, he received music theory and harmony classes with a

great influence of Puccini and Debussys music. (Wright 1987, 132)

At the age of eighteen, looking for his musical identity, Villalobos started a journey

through Brazil. His idea was to gather all the traditional knowledge of Brazilian music. He

wanted to assimilate and internalize its heritage, which was a combination of Native, European

and African cultures. In his first trip through the Brazilian amazon region, these influences

started to materialize when he composed Danzas Caracteristicas Africanas. Afterwards,

between 1901 and 1926, compositions as Carnaval das crianzas, A fiandeira, and

Rudepoema revealed a more unique composition style.

Between 1923 and 1930, Villalobos started to gain recognition in Europe. He managed to

travel to Paris with the ambition of showing his accomplishments as a composer; the Parisian

audience received him warmly, writing positive reviews about his music.

Florent Schmit wrote: the performance of works for chamber and fiill orchestra by Villa-
Lobos, the extraordinary musician with whom Brazil currently overwhelms us... The art
of Villa-Lobos is based on the simple native devices that his genius has marvelously
assimilated (Appleby 2002, 75).

Villalobos started another period in his musical career when writing Bachianas

Brasileiras in 1930. According to the Oxford Dictionary of music, these works were composed
between 1930 and 1945, a period in which the composer was influenced by the counterpoint of

Johann Sebastian Bach, without never abandoning the Brazilian heritage 9 pieces by Villalobos

combining native Brazilian elements with the contrapuntal spirit of J. S. Bach's music (Oxford

Music Online, accessed 29 November 2015).

Along his entire career as a composer, and as the most representative Brazilian composer

of the 20th century, Villalobos explored and composed in different European musical styles.

However, his home country music tradition was the most important feature in his compositions

and the inclusion of its characteristics in his works gave him a unique identity.

As he once stated: Anyone born in Brazil who has formed his conscience in the heart of
this land cannot, even if he wishes, imitate the character and manners of other countries,
in spite of the fact that our culture is basically transported from overseas (Appleby 2002,
foreword).

As being stated above, the guitar was one of the most benefited instruments by

Villalobos compositions in which he blended the technicality of erudite music with popular

tradition. In addition, not only the guitar repertoire was incremented, but also the complexity of

the performance reached higher demanding levels. The Villaloboss soloist guitar piece Choros

N.1 is not excluded in this matter.

According to Ary Vasconcelos, in his book Carinhoso: Choro was born in Rio de Janeiro
around 1870, and it was initially, not a musical genre of its own, but a Brazilian way of
playing waltzes, polkas, mazurkas and other European genres that were very common at
that time(Borges 1999, 39).
According to Bruce Gilman, in his article Choro, Chorinho, Chorao (Brazzil, February
1996), emphasizes that many people think that choro is "Brazilian jazz", because both
choro and American jazz are based in the improvisation and mixture of African and
European musical elements (Borges 1999, 39).

The Choros or chorinho, is a binary Brazilian dance that refers to musicians of Rio de

Janeiro. It is usually played with clarinet, flute, cavaquinho (Brazilian plucked string

instrument), guitar, and some percussion instruments.

and an analysis of the Choros N.1 will be presented below; this, to show how the composer

included his own style into the Brazilian tradition.

Formal Structure.

The most common formal structure that the Choros features is the Rondo. An alternation

between a principal theme called the refrain, and contrasting themes; these contrasting themes

are also called episodes, or digressions.

Among the most recurrent rondos patterns, can be found ABACA, or ABACABA, in

which the letter A represents the refrain, and B the episodes. According to the piece and

composer approach, the refrain could present a variation, in which the harmony, melody, texture

timbre or rhythm are embellished.

Each section is approximately of the same length, and a harmonic movement to different

keys will provide a better differentiation between the refrain and the episodes. If the A section is

in a major key, a harmonic movement towards the dominant, parallel or relative minor in the B

section is the most common pattern, and the C section would be in the subdominant or dominant

tonal areas. If the refrain is exposed in a minor key, the C section might move to the parallel or

relative major.

According to The German theorist August Friedrich Kollmann in 1799, The former are
those, in which the first section always returns in the principal key, either in its original
form or varied. And the latter, those in which the subject or first section also appears in
keys to which a digression may be made (Cole, Malcolm S. 1970. 388).
As being expected, the Villalobos Choros N.1 features a rondo form. In the key of E

minor, the refrain (A section) is exposed from measures 1 to 32, the first episode (B section) is

exposed from measures 33 to 56 a recapitulation of the A section comes from measures 57 to 88

conclude the piece, the A section is once again exposed from measures 106 to 137. As a result,

the general structure of the piece is a rondo form ABACA; as being exposed above, a common

form in the Brazilian Choros. Going deeper in the form, each one of the sections has its own

structure.

The A section

Section A or refrain presents two musical phrases. The first phrase goes from measure 1

to 16, in this last measure can be found a half cadence (musical phrase that ends in the dominant

tonal area), in tonal music, the half cadence is a punctuation which asks for more musical

development, see figure 1. The second phrase of the refrain starts in measure 17 with the same

melodic and harmonic materials, and lasts until the measure 32 with a perfect authentic cadence

(in tonal music, a movement from the dominant chord in its root position, that resolves its

tension in the root position of the tonic chord, also presenting the tonal pitch in the upper voice).

It can be said that the refrain states a Period (two or more musical phrases related as antecedent

and consequent, according to their cadences). As the same musical material is exposed in the

second phrase, and due to the half cadence presented in the first phrase, section A is an

interrupted parallel period.

Figure 1. Measure 16, a chord of B7 in E minor key.

The formal structure of the first episode (section B) presents a similar characteristic.

Being the most unstable section regarding the harmonic movement, this episode also presents

two musical phrases. The first one goes from measure 33 and last until measure 48, in which a

half -diminished chord can be found, see Figure 2 (measures 46 -48). As being stated before,

this section features harmonic instability in which sequences, chromatic movements and fast

modulations occur. The lasts measures of this phrase present a tonicization towards D minor

(measure 46), and then in measure 47 a dominant chord is provided with a Bm7b5 (half-

diminished chord), then, a locked transposition is presented in measure 48 towards Em7b5 (half-

diminished chord). As the last chord is considered dominant, and regarding the form analysis,

this measure will be treated as a half cadence.

Figure 2. Measures 46-48.

The second phrase of section B goes from measure 49 until measure 56. Measure 49

starts with the same musical material as the first phrase. Measure 56 ends with an imperfect

authentic cadence in C chord; representing stability and the end of the B section.

For the reasons explained above, these two musical phrases are considered antecedent

and consequent respectively, as a result, section B presents an interrupted parallel period.

A modulation to the major parallel key is presented (E major key). This section also

states two musical phrases. The first phrase goes from measure 89 to measure 96 in which can

be found a B7 chord, the dominant chord of the key, indicating a half cadence (antecedent). The

second phrase starts in measure 97; also, and as a common pattern in the whole piece, Villalobos

starts the second phrase with the same music materials, the section ends in measure 106 with a

perfect authentic cadence. Once again, an interrupted parallel period is stated.

Harmony and Melody

As explained above, Villalobos represented the form of the rondo with the expected

modulations. The most common harmonic tool that the composer used during the entire piece

can be depicted in the next image. Figure 3. Measures 9 -13.

Villalobos uses secondary dominant chords with some note extensions as 9 (major ninth

above the chord root), 13 (major sixth above the chord root), and #11 (augmented fourth above

the chord root). An example of this can be appreciated in Figure 3. In measure 13 the composer

used both, 13 and #11 extensions, also, Figure 3 shows a dominant chord sequence starting in

measure 9 in which all the dominant chords move to another dominant chord located a fourth

above. In jazz style, the proper notation would be: D7, G, C7, F, Bb7. The melodic movements

are commonly stepwise and are used within the rhythmic harmonic pattern. Measure 12 shows a

chromatic movement in the bass line, a recurrent motion that can be seen in the whole piece.
Rhythm

The choros genre is usually accompanied with a rhythmic pattern and some variations.

Figure 4.

Figure 4 shows the common syncopation used in the Choros. Measure 47 in Figure 2 is

an example of how the composer used this pattern; furthermore, some variations are also found

in his score. Figure 5 below shows a common variation of the Choros rhythm.

Figure 5.

The same variation of the pattern can be found in Choros N.1. See Figure 6 (measures

25 -27) below.

Figure 6 shows how the composer developed the Choros rhythmic pattern, also, figure 6

shows once again the same sequence of dominant chords that appear in Figure 3.

Recognized all over the world as one of the most important performers and composers of

the nationalist movement of the 20th century, Heitor Villalobos followed his intuition and
passion for the knowledge of Brazilian traditional music. As a result, the composer developed

his own musical style, one in which the tradition blended with musical characteristics of the 20th

century. The Choros N.1 is not an exception of this. The composer used European influences

as the common Rondo classical form, harmonies full of coloristic extensions and within the

central rhythmic pattern of the Choros, Villalobos included interesting variations to this musical

genre, promoting the guitar as a solo instrument for the development the music of his country.
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Malcolm S. Cole. 1970. Rondos, Proper and Improper. Music & Letters 51. Oxford University
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Villalobos, Heitor. 1920. Choros N.1 sheet music. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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