Uploaded October 2010 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
If the fifth is one of Villa-Lobos' most accessible quartets, the ninth presents a forbidding personality. Composed in 1947 and premiered two years later, this quartet without key signatures can loosely be designated "atonal." The atmosphere is intellectual, the construction is cyclical and the thematic material is chromatic in the extreme. Announced at the outset, an insistant motif with wide intervallic jumps forms the generative cell for most of the first movement. A second motif plays a definite secondary role here but reemerges with greater importance in the finale. Like the first movement, the second follows Villa-Lobos' customary three-part form. The first section conveys a searing nostalgia that borders on expressionism, while the contrasting episode offers greater tonal and rhythmic definition.
If the fifth is one of Villa-Lobos' most accessible quartets, the ninth presents a forbidding personality. Composed in 1947 and premiered two years later, this quartet without key signatures can loosely be designated "atonal." The atmosphere is intellectual, the construction is cyclical and the thematic material is chromatic in the extreme. Announced at the outset, an insistant motif with wide intervallic jumps forms the generative cell for most of the first movement. A second motif plays a definite secondary role here but reemerges with greater importance in the finale. Like the first movement, the second follows Villa-Lobos' customary three-part form. The first section conveys a searing nostalgia that borders on expressionism, while the contrasting episode offers greater tonal and rhythmic definition.
![Claude Ballif, Sonate pour flûte et piano Op. 23 [1958] - 2 of 2](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_LQ2MxF9Wuo/mqdefault.jpg "Claude Ballif, Sonate pour flûte et piano Op. 23 [1958] - 2 of 2
The work establishes an even dialogue between the two protagonists, giving rise to a very light pianistic discourse. The sonata is in one movement, in the form of an arc, with a return to the beginning. The central part is a virtuoso piece for the flute, with nervous sputterings and impressions of counterpoint for two voices, which recall a preliminary draft for violin and piano. In the score, a line by Dante prolongs the impressionof the last bars with a diamond-like purity: Quanto grazia e dolcezza si vede il loro. He allows the resonance to die down in an atrosphere of perfect serentiy.")
