This
is the fourth in Sonia Rubinsky’s traversal of Villa-Lobos’s
complete piano music for Naxos. It’s good to be reacquainted
with her thoroughly idiomatic performances once more. Having
heard, reviewed and admired the second volume it is equally
satisfying to observe her versatility in the repertoire, her
ability to command influences and inflect with apposite colour
and gravity.
This
is particularly true in the case of Brasilieras
No. 4 heard here of course in its original guise for solo
piano. She “places” that single bass note with deftness ensuring
the Sarabande-like momentum is not derailed into sententious
gravity (though there is plenty of nobility here). It’s no surprise,
given her earlier recordings in the series, that she evokes
texture so well, that the colour of the Coral is so winning
– that the anvil evocation of bass pointing is so well and evenly
hammered. Of particular merit is her control of tempo, the way
in which, for example, in the Aria she starts slowly but integrates
the quasi-syncopated writing with effortless élan. The Dansa
finale is full of spice and colour.
Those
who have followed Villa-Lobos’s excursions into the piano and
quartet literature will know that he leaned toward impressionism;
Children’s Carnival
both reveals the debt and pursues where he took that inheritance.
These pieces, separately tracked, are delightful vignettes,
variously inspired by or intended for children and are models
of vivacious wit. A Manha da Pierrete sports delicate chiaroscuro,
Os Guizos do Dominozhino (The Little Domino’s Jingle
Bells) is as winningly lively as you’d expect and in the concluding
piece, A Folia de um Bloco
Infantil the two piano duettists – where Rubinsky is joined
by Tatjana Rankovich - display panache, unanimity of attacks,
rippling passagework and fluidity in this little innocent mini-drama.
Francette et Piá was written in 1928 and commissioned for Marguerite Long’s piano class
in Paris. Saucily, though technically and textually more difficult and demanding
than the earlier suite, Villa-Lobos throws in a number of French
quotations. These pieces aren’t separately tracked but the narrative
merges nicely and in Love and in War Villa-Lobos has charm to
spare. The smaller works here are saturated in his brand of
lyricism; the second of Simples Coletânea (In An Enchanted Cradle)
has a saturnine Debussian compression that works very well in
conveying mysterious stasis - it was written in 1918.
Jonathan Woolf
See
also reviews
by Paul Shoemaker and Colin
Clarke
Sonia Rubinsky, aTatjana Rankovich (pianos).