Uploaded June 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Carl St Clair.
I - Allegro non troppo: 0:00
II - Adagio: 5:49
III - Scherzo. Vivace: 14:13
IV - Molto allegro: 17:48
Villa-Lobos's Symphony No.12 was begun in New York on 1957, where he often went for medical treatments during the last years of his life. It was completed on his seventieth birthday on March 5 of that year, written for the First Inter-American Music Festival in Washington D.C. It was premiered there on April 20 of 1958, performed by the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Howard Mitchell. The European premiere occurred soon after in Brussels on 22 September 1958, played by the Grand Orchestre Symphonique de la Radiodiffusion Nationale Belge conducted by the composer.
The score is dedicated to Mindinha (Arminda Neves d'Almeida), the composer's companion for the last 23 years of his life. At the time of composition, contemporary music was in turmoil. It was the time of Stockhausen, Kagel, Messiaen and Boulez, who with their avant-garde sounds, including that of electronics, were turning the musical world upside down. Countering this turbulence were composers such as Martinu, Milhaud, Hartmann, Copland and many others, whose attempt was to recover the great symphonic tradition of the past. Villa-Lobos was an important addition to the latter group, and this is highly evident in his last symphony.
Indeed, the Twelfth brings together the symphonic craftsmanship of the great masters with explosive energy, harmonic richness and rhythmic vitality; a truly fitting climax and summation of his symphonic canon. The typical re-reading of Bach, Wagner and the French and Russian composers can here be extended to the Villa-Lobos who took Haydn’s concepts of propulsion and the unified gesture as a model for his string quartets. Symphony No. 12, along with No. 9, is the lightest and most compact of his symphonies. The orchestration, despite still including a considerable percussion section, dispenses with the piano and the vast wind sections of the others.
The first movement has a curious structure: the first theme, with its strong ascending impulse, which swells on the cellos and bassoons and is answered by the violins, reappears modified after the second thematic group, which is introduced in a more moderate fashion by the clarinet, followed by the oboe, bassoon and tuba. The concluding section is loosely based on elements of the second theme and some secondary material that had got lost along the way. In this way Villa-Lobos complies with the economy and possibilities for thematic development demanded of a symphonic allegro, at the same time as giving free rein to his imagination in the detail.
The Adagio is one of the most interesting of all the symphonies, and has an anxious and solemn quality. The theme announced by the bassoon is a collection of archetypes: a theme initially similar to Wagner’s Tristan, announced in the high-pitch section of Stravinsky’s Rite, without repeating notes, in the manner of a dodecaphonic series that never materializes. It is developed with different counterpoint modalities, passed on to the bass clarinet and the English horn. A short contrasting section is dominated by the brass section, and the sinuous melody is taken up again by the strings, in the midst of a rich counterpoint, which combines quartal, chromatic and pandiatonic elements.
The Scherzo is a piece of such orchestral brilliance that it could easily be used as an encore. The fourth interval dominates the theme, in the form of a call, and again, in a dazzling ascending impulse. A theme of parallel minor chords, announced by the horns and, later, by the tubas, adds a humorous touch. The central section, with its slightly oriental flavour, does not interrupt the breathless vitality of the movement as a whole.
The final movement tangentially follows the form of a rondo, with a military-style theme, which returns transformed at regular intervals, and alternates with another more impassioned one with a sequential structure. The bass line is extraordinarily active throughout the movement and creates a kind of link to the large amount of secondary material that appears before the triumphant finale. This exemplifies the difficulty that listeners have in finding their way through Villa-Lobos’s symphonies: his imagination is so consistently bold that what in the hands of other composers would be filler or linking material, ends up taking on an involuntarily leading role in his symphonies. In his final symphony, Villa-Lobos delights in a sea of themes and sounds, and flings them generously in the direction of the listeners, to quote his own words, in the form of "letters written to posterity without expecting a reply".
Picture: "Untitled" (1970) by the Brazilian painter José Antonio da Silva.
Source: tinyurl.com/2c6n7ato
Unfortunately, the score is not freely available.
Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Carl St Clair.
I - Allegro non troppo: 0:00
II - Adagio: 5:49
III - Scherzo. Vivace: 14:13
IV - Molto allegro: 17:48
Villa-Lobos's Symphony No.12 was begun in New York on 1957, where he often went for medical treatments during the last years of his life. It was completed on his seventieth birthday on March 5 of that year, written for the First Inter-American Music Festival in Washington D.C. It was premiered there on April 20 of 1958, performed by the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Howard Mitchell. The European premiere occurred soon after in Brussels on 22 September 1958, played by the Grand Orchestre Symphonique de la Radiodiffusion Nationale Belge conducted by the composer.
The score is dedicated to Mindinha (Arminda Neves d'Almeida), the composer's companion for the last 23 years of his life. At the time of composition, contemporary music was in turmoil. It was the time of Stockhausen, Kagel, Messiaen and Boulez, who with their avant-garde sounds, including that of electronics, were turning the musical world upside down. Countering this turbulence were composers such as Martinu, Milhaud, Hartmann, Copland and many others, whose attempt was to recover the great symphonic tradition of the past. Villa-Lobos was an important addition to the latter group, and this is highly evident in his last symphony.
Indeed, the Twelfth brings together the symphonic craftsmanship of the great masters with explosive energy, harmonic richness and rhythmic vitality; a truly fitting climax and summation of his symphonic canon. The typical re-reading of Bach, Wagner and the French and Russian composers can here be extended to the Villa-Lobos who took Haydn’s concepts of propulsion and the unified gesture as a model for his string quartets. Symphony No. 12, along with No. 9, is the lightest and most compact of his symphonies. The orchestration, despite still including a considerable percussion section, dispenses with the piano and the vast wind sections of the others.
The first movement has a curious structure: the first theme, with its strong ascending impulse, which swells on the cellos and bassoons and is answered by the violins, reappears modified after the second thematic group, which is introduced in a more moderate fashion by the clarinet, followed by the oboe, bassoon and tuba. The concluding section is loosely based on elements of the second theme and some secondary material that had got lost along the way. In this way Villa-Lobos complies with the economy and possibilities for thematic development demanded of a symphonic allegro, at the same time as giving free rein to his imagination in the detail.
The Adagio is one of the most interesting of all the symphonies, and has an anxious and solemn quality. The theme announced by the bassoon is a collection of archetypes: a theme initially similar to Wagner’s Tristan, announced in the high-pitch section of Stravinsky’s Rite, without repeating notes, in the manner of a dodecaphonic series that never materializes. It is developed with different counterpoint modalities, passed on to the bass clarinet and the English horn. A short contrasting section is dominated by the brass section, and the sinuous melody is taken up again by the strings, in the midst of a rich counterpoint, which combines quartal, chromatic and pandiatonic elements.
The Scherzo is a piece of such orchestral brilliance that it could easily be used as an encore. The fourth interval dominates the theme, in the form of a call, and again, in a dazzling ascending impulse. A theme of parallel minor chords, announced by the horns and, later, by the tubas, adds a humorous touch. The central section, with its slightly oriental flavour, does not interrupt the breathless vitality of the movement as a whole.
The final movement tangentially follows the form of a rondo, with a military-style theme, which returns transformed at regular intervals, and alternates with another more impassioned one with a sequential structure. The bass line is extraordinarily active throughout the movement and creates a kind of link to the large amount of secondary material that appears before the triumphant finale. This exemplifies the difficulty that listeners have in finding their way through Villa-Lobos’s symphonies: his imagination is so consistently bold that what in the hands of other composers would be filler or linking material, ends up taking on an involuntarily leading role in his symphonies. In his final symphony, Villa-Lobos delights in a sea of themes and sounds, and flings them generously in the direction of the listeners, to quote his own words, in the form of "letters written to posterity without expecting a reply".
Picture: "Untitled" (1970) by the Brazilian painter José Antonio da Silva.
Source: tinyurl.com/2c6n7ato
Unfortunately, the score is not freely available.
