Symphony No. 12 (Villa-Lobos)

Symphony No. 12 is a composition by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, written in 1957. A performance lasts about twenty-five minutes.

Symphony No. 12
by Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Catalogue	W539
Genre	Symphony
Form	Symphony
Composed	1957:
Dedication	Mindinha
Published	1957: Paris
Publisher	Max Eschig
Duration	25 mins.
Movements	4
Scoring	Orchestra
Premiere
Date	20 April 1958:
Location	Lisner Auditorium, Washington, D. C.
Conductor	Howard Mitchell
Performers	National Symphony Orchestra

History

Villa-Lobos composed his Twelfth Symphony in New York in 1957, completing it on his seventieth birthday, 5 March 1957. The score is dedicated to Mindinha (Arminda Neves d'Almeida), the composer's companion for the last 23 years of his life. It was first performed at Lisner Auditorium in Washington, DC, on 20 April 1958, by the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Howard Mitchell. The European premiere occurred soon after, in Brussels on 22 September 1958, by the Grand Orchestre Symphonique de la Radiodiffusion Nationale Belge, conducted by the composer (Villa-Lobos, sua obra 2009, 48).

Analysis

The symphony consists of four movements:

1. Allegro non troppo
2. Adagio
3. Scherzo (Vivace)
4. Molto Allegro

The form of the first movement resembles a five-part (ABACA) rondo, with a coda in which the main theme returns in augmentation (Enyart 1984, 447–48).

The second movement is in a ternary (ABA) design, and leads without break into the third movement (Enyart 1984, 456)

Like the first movement, the scherzo is in a five-part rondo form, except that the returns of the main A section are in different keys, and the second occurrence is immediately after the first: A A' B C A'' (Enyart 1984, 460, 465).

The finale is also in a modified five-part rondo form. As in the scherzo, the refrain returns in keys different from its initial appearance (Enyart 1984, 472).

References

• Béhague, Gerard. 1994. Villa-Lobos: The Search for Brazil's Musical Soul. Austin: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 1994. ISBN 0-292-70823-8.
• Enyart, John William. 1984. "The Symphonies of Heitor Villa-Lobos". PhD diss. Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati.
• Peppercorn, Lisa M. 1991. Villa-Lobos: The Music: An Analysis of His Style, translated by Stefan de Haan. London: Kahn & Averill; White Plains, NY: Pro/Am Music Resources Inc. ISBN 1-871082-15-3 (Kahn & Averill); ISBN 0-912483-36-9.
• Salles, Paulo de Tarso. 2009. Villa-Lobos: processos composicionais. Campinas, SP: Editora da Unicamp. ISBN 978-85-268-0853-9.
• Villa-Lobos, sua obra. 2009. Version 1.0. MinC / IBRAM, and the Museu Villa-Lobos. Based on the third edition, 1989.