Symmetry in the music of the first half of twentieth century: the Villa-Lobos in postwar and its affinities with Bartok's folklorism

• Grant number: 13/03646-9
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): November 01, 2013
• Effective date (End): October 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts
• Principal Investigator: Adriana Lopes da Cunha Moreira
• Grantee: Allan Medeiros Falqueiro
• Home Institution: Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The main proposal of this project is the analysis of Heitor Villa-Lobos' works composed between 1945 and 1950, dealing with its symmetrical axis. Among the works are the String Quartets n° 9 (1945), n° 10 (1046), n° 11 (1947) and n° 12 (1950), the Seventieth (1945) and Eightieth (1950) Symphonies, the Trio (1945), the Duo (1946), the symphonic poem Erosão (1050), the First Concert for piano and orchestra (1945) and also the Fourth String Quartet, dated from 1917, according to information provided by Villa-Lobos, but premiered only in 1949. It's recurrent the usage of inversional symmetry by twelve cenury composers, one of the possible alternative to oppose the tonal system, based on asymmetrical means. Also, inversional symmetry is common among composers that use national music as creative source, such as Béla Bartók and Stravinsky. Villa-Lobos shares this peculiarity, being an important figure to the construction of the brazilian nation, musical and politically. The work aims a postmodern view of Villa-Lobos' music, looking for relations between the musical work and its historical, social, personal and economical contexts, in order to comprehend the composer musical language inserted in a wide web of significance. Further on the selected musical pieces, there will be investigated the presence of similar symmetries in in works that shares compositional relationships with some of the works analyzed. Another aim of this dissertation is to compare the compositional language of Villa-Lobos and Béla Bartók by the study of symmetry, looking for affinities on the ways that both composers used folk music.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

FALQUEIRO, Allan Medeiros. Axis and meta-axis: inversional symmetry in works by Villa-Lobos.. 2017. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola de Comunicações e Artes São Paulo.