Catalogue W539 Form Symphony Dedication Mindinha | Genre Symphony Composed 1957 (1957): Published 1957 (1957): Paris | |
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Symphony No. 12 is a composition by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, written in 1957. A performance lasts about twenty-five minutes.
Contents
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, conducgted by the composer (Villa-Lobos, sua obra 2009, 48).
Analysis
The symphony consists of four movements:
- Allegro non troppo
- Adagio
- Scherzo (Vivace)
- 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).