Andrea Bissoli, guitar
Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra
Fabio Mechetti, conductor
Naxos 8.573115

Extract from the booklet note:

Segovia had long wanted Villa-Lobos to write a concerto for him, and often asked Arminda to use her influence on the composer. One day, Villa-Lobos asked her to hand him a guitar, saying he had a strange itch in his fingers and wanted to translate it into music. The resulting work was the Fantasia concertante, but it had no cadenza for the soloist. Segovia did not give up, however, and having obtained the desired Cadência, gave the première of what had become the Concerto for Guitar and Small Orchestra in Houston on 6 February 1956, Villa-Lobos himself conducting the Houston Symphony Orchestra.

Andrea Bissoli
(English translation: Susannah Howe)

H. Villa-Lobos: "Allegro preciso" from Guitar Concerto (Excerpt)

Andrea Bissoli, guitar
Naxos 8.573115

Extract from the booklet note:

The original, unpublished version of the Suite popular brasileira dates from the 1920s and included a piece called Valse-Choro. Left out of the final version of the Suite, the Valse lay undiscovered for eighty years, until Frédéric Zigante came across it in the archives of publishing house Max Eschig at the beginning of this century. Its manuscript reveals a piece of bold and innovative writing, featuring wild glissandos and a number of irresistible rallentandos, laden with saudade (melancholic nostalgia). This waltz was probably omitted because of its originality—while the pieces that did make it into the Suite are certainly inspired, they do not share its astonishing flights of fancy.

Andrea Bissoli
(English translation: Susannah Howe)

H. Villa-Lobos: Valse-Choro (Excerpt)

Andrea Bissoli, guitar
Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra
Fabio Mechetti, conductor
Naxos 8.573116

Extract from the booklet note:

Villa-Lobos defined his Introdução aos Choros (Introduction to the Choros) as “a kind of old-style symphonic overture, scored for all the instruments involved in the rest of the works in the [Choros] series”. It features numerous references to the other Choros, from the opening Forte, a transfiguration of the flute melody at the start of Choros No. 6, to the brief cor anglais solo in the finale, which anticipates the very first guitar notes of Choros No. 1.

Andrea Bissoli
(English translation: Susannah Howe)

H. Villa-Lobos: Introdução aos Choros (Excerpt)

Andrea Bissoli, guitar
Naxos 8.573117

Extract from the booklet note:

The first published version of the Études only appeared in 1953. Although the overall structure of the work was unchanged, Villa-Lobos had by then reworked a number of aspects with cuts, additions and modifications, and the detailed fingering instructions present in the 1928 manuscript were largely absent. Strangely, however, there is a link between the earlier version and a piano score of 1911: Tarantela. Above each of the last three chords in this manuscript, there appears a circled cursive E. This symbol is not generally used in piano writing, but in a guitar score would mean that the note is to be played on the first or sixth string of the instrument. Villa-Lobos usually used the cursive E to indicate the first, as we can tell from his markings in the Études manuscript. Intrigued by this, I transcribed the last passage of Tarantela for the guitar: it worked well, and even more “comfortably” when the highest note in each chord was played on the top string. The hypothesis was backed up by further evidence: the opening theme uses the same harmonic pattern heard at the start of Étude No. 1; the cadenza that introduces the second subject seems to develop from an ingenious guitaristic figuration; the second subject, very easily playable on the guitar, is crossed out and rewritten immediately afterwards in a more naturally pianistic manner. “You see, in 1911, I didn’t know much about the piano!… I was just basing myself on the guitar.” Villa-Lobos’s response to his friend Alceo Bocchino’s struggles with certain complicated piano passages in the Trio No. 1 (1911) could be equally well suited to the Tarantela, which was probably also composed in 1911: it too may well have been written guitar in hand. This was a practice the composer never abandoned: Choros No. 6 for large orchestra, written many years later, seems to have stemmed from a bizarre quartet: E flat piccolo clarinet, trumpet, baritone horn and guitar.

Andrea Bissoli
(English translation: Susannah Howe)

H. Villa-Lobos: Tarantela (Excerpt)

Andrea Bissoli, guitar
Naxos 8.573117

Extract from the booklet note:

“That year we spent the summer together in Lussac-les-Châteaux. We found a place to stay above a kind of pâtisserie that only opened on high days and holidays. Our rooms looked out over the garden at the back and were divided by a wooden panel that was so insubstantial we could chat to one another through the wall till the early hours. Villa planned to amuse himself by constructing a fleet of kites, so we’d arrived laden down with enormous lengths of bamboo, rope and sheets of paper: the lady who owned the shop below thought we must have been members of a circus … The day he flew the first kite (designed in the shape of a huge fish), it was caught by a sudden gust of wind just as he was launching it, and went up like a rocket; it dragged Villa along for several metres before I managed to cut its ropes. The kite came down three or four kilometres away: after that experience his “great beasts” frightened me. I suggested to him that in future he should tie them to a tree, for safety’s sake, and he agreed. Those kites were great fun for the people of Lussac. Some days, Villa would play the guitar late into the night (I should point out we were the only people staying at the pâtisserie); that was when he had the idea of composing his studies for the instrument.”

These reminiscences come from pianist Tomás Terán, one of Villa-Lobos’ friends and a renowned performer of his music. It was summer 1928, and the composer was immersed in writing a complete version of his Études, preparing to send them to his publisher Max Eschig. The idea had in fact first come to him some years earlier.

We need to go back to the spring of 1924, the bright lights of a sophisticated Parisian soirée, and the first meeting between “Villa” and the equally charismatic Andrés Segovia. Villa-Lobos more or less grabbed Segovia’s guitar from his hands! By the time he had finished playing, Segovia had been won over by the exciting sonorities, melodic invention and rhythmic vitality of his new friend’s performance. “We took it in turns to play until four in the morning. Segovia asked me to write an étude for him and we became such good friends that I ended up writing twelve instead.”

The instrument which passed back and forth at this first encounter was, in all likelihood, Segovia’s legendary 1912 Manuel Ramírez guitar—it came from the workshop of Madrid’s leading maker, and bears his name, but was actually made by another highly talented craftsman, Santos Hernández. On Ramírez’s death in 1916, Hernández ran his business for a while, sometimes using the old labels with the Ramírez name.

The instrument I play on this recording of the Études is a 1917 Manuel Ramírez: it has a spruce top and rosewood back and sides, and is signed by Santos Hernández. I chose it precisely because of its connections with that historic moment—I wanted to capture some echo of the past, to travel back in time to that evening when a visionary from the tropics met an aristocratic gypsy guitarist in the legendarily creative ambience of 1920s Paris.

Andrea Bissoli
(English translation: Susannah Howe)

H. Villa-Lobos: Étude No. 7 (Excerpt)

H. Villa-Lobos: Étude No. 10 (Excerpt)

H. Villa-Lobos: Étude No. 11 (Excerpt)

Andrea Bissoli, guitar
Naxos 8.573116

Extract from the booklet note:

Choros No. 1 itself was dedicated to the charismatic pianist-composer Ernesto Nazareth (1863–1934), but also pays overt homage to Sátiro Bilhar, legendary choro guitarist and author of Tira poeira, dubbed a “damned” polka by fellow musician Donga, who recounted how “Sátiro would go into a house, say good evening, and immediately win over everyone present. Then he would slip his hat into his pocket, so that when he wanted a change of air he was spared the ceremony of having to ask the mistress of the house to get it for him.” Choros No. 1 has all the enigmatic wit of Bilhar, as well as the sublime blend of melancholy and disenchantment that characterized Nazareth.

Andrea Bissoli
(English translation: Susannah Howe)

H. Villa-Lobos: Choros No. 1 (Excerpt)

H. Villa-Lobos: Étude No. 12 (Excerpt)

Andrea Bissoli, guitar
Naxos 8.573116

Extract from the booklet note:

The Sexteto místico was started in 1917, but was probably completed years later. The resulting three-movement work (Allegro non troppo – Adagio – Quasi Allegro) is played without a break. The instrumentation echoes the sounds of the traditional Brazilian choros: guitar, flute and saxophone were key members of the street bands whose music would at one time have filled the night air of the “Cidade Maravilhosa”, the Marvellous City of Rio. Here, the addition of harp, oboe and celesta transforms them, bathing them in the light of a modernist fresco, in which each instrument plays at imitating itself. Villa-Lobos seems to have discovered the secret behind street music, its poignant nocturnal serenades, eastern touches and primal rhythmic obsession. Everything finds its way into the form of the music and nothing overwhelms the style; it is perhaps in this unexpected joining of forces that the secret implicit in the title lies.

From this perspective, his highly successful series of works with the title Choros can also be defined as ‘mystical’. As the composer himself explained, “The Choros represents a new form of composition, one which synthesizes the different modes of our indigenous and folk music.” The Sexteto, which predates the Choros, clearly anticipates this “new form”.

Andrea Bissoli
(English translation: Susannah Howe)

H. Villa-Lobos: Sexteto místico (Excerpt)

Andrea Bissoli, guitar
Ensemble Cirandinha
Naxos 8.573117

Extract from the booklet note:

As superintendent of musical education in Rio, in 1932 Villa-Lobos began to put together an anthology of brightly coloured songs for children, entitled Guia prático (Practical Guide). He made all the arrangements himself and, as befits a good teaching aid, they lend themselves to the demands of the most disparate of circumstances. Hence, in many cases, the songs are headed “voice and piano, instrumental group, or solo piano”: the choice would depend on what was available at the time and place in question. Vitú is a one-off case; here the note reads “voice and piano, or instrumental folk ensemble”.

The traditional choro groups that played such a key rôle in the musical nightlife of Belle Époque Rio were based around flute, guitar and cavaquinho (a kind of ukulele). Taking the hint from the words “instrumental folk ensemble”, I searched through the entire Guia prático for other traces of my own instrument, and ended up choosing a selection of pieces whose writing seems tailored to the guitar. The choro trio inspired most of the arrangements performed here, although I have also used violin, cello and double bass, where their sounds seemed appropriate. A central characteristic of the Guia prático is simplicity—not only did he intend the works to be straightforward to perform, Villa-Lobos was also revealing the essence of these traditional songs and thereby highlighting their expressive qualities.

Andrea Bissoli
(English translation: Susannah Howe)

H. Villa-Lobos (Instrumentation by A. Bissoli): Guia prático (Potpourri)

Andrea Bissoli, guitar
Naxos 8.573116

Extract from the booklet note:

Zé do Cavaquinho preferred gut to steel strings, and it may have been this that encouraged Villa-Lobos to seek out a purer sound. The embodiment of this ideal was at that time Miguel Llobet, for whom he composed a waltz that would make history. In the 1920s, someone asked the great Segovia if he knew Villa-Lobos, without telling him that the composer was within earshot. The guitarist replied that Llobet had shown him some of his works, but that they were “anti-guitar”. “In what way?” asked the composer. Caught by surprise, Segovia tried to explain that one of his pieces, a Valsa, required the player to use the little finger of the right hand: “We don’t use that finger in classical guitar.” “Well, if you don’t use it, why don’t you cut it off?” fired back Villa-Lobos.

We do not know if the piece discussed by these legendary figures was in fact the Valsa Concerto No. 2, but it seems a reasonable guess that it was. The score includes a number of modulations typical of Llobet’s style, and its five-note chords appear to require a fifth digit: the little finger…

All we have of this work and its eventful history is contained within a single unfinished manuscript; given up for lost, this work was discovered by Amaral Vieira in 1995 and was published in 2014 by Éditions Max Eschig. The score contains an introductory Andante of futuristic sonorities, a Valsa Brilhante conceived in the manner of a fantasia, a sketched-out theme in A minor and five empty lines. I have completed the A minor theme, and added a da capo and a coda which goes back to those opening sonorities. In so doing, I have tried to capture a reminiscence of Chopin, as suggested by the title.

Andrea Bissoli
(English translation: Susannah Howe)

H. Villa-Lobos (Completed by A. Bissoli): Valsa Concerto No. 2 (Excerpt)

Italian guitarist Andrea Bissoli is the author, artistic director and lead interpreter in "Villa-Lobos: The Guitar Manuscripts", a three-CD international recording project published by Naxos from 2013 to 2015.

His recordings have been broadcast by BBC, Classic FM, Radio France, Rai Radio 3, ABC and many North American networks. Rádio Cultura FM (Brazil) selected the first volume of the series as their "CD of the Week" at the beginning of December 2013, and Naxos Deutschland launched it as the "Naxos CD of the Month" in January 2014.

Andrea Bissoli gave his first recital at thirteen, performing Villa-Lobos's Cinq Préludes, and has won awards at several music competitions in his native Italy since then. He later studied with artists of international renown, including Stefano Grondona, Laura Mondiello, Alirio Díaz, Paul Galbraith and Oscar Ghiglia. He studied at the Conservatorio 'Arrigo Pedrollo' in Vicenza receiving full marks, and then completed undergraduate and postgraduate courses cum laude. He was given a Diploma of Merit at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, after playing Bach’s Ciaccona BWV 1004 at the Salone dei Concerti in July 2002. Three years later he recorded the Ciaccona for the CD "La Guitaromanie", published by the Vicenza Conservatory in 2007. 

In 2006 he started the guitar duo Phèdre Adroit with Federica Artuso. Their repertoire includes an all-Villa-Lobos programme of unpublished transcriptions for two guitars by Andrea Bissoli. They have studied baroque music with Monica Huggett and Sigiswald Kuijken, and also play nineteenth-century music on two period instruments, a ‘Petitjean l’aîné’ and a ‘Lacote’ respectively. 

Andrea Bissoli has been researching the works of Villa-Lobos for some ten years, and has written articles for the specialized journal "Il Fronimo". He has prepared the archetype of Villa-Lobos’s Motivos Gregos, a lost score for guitar, flute and female choir by collating the remaining historical sources. He has transcribed for the guitar Dime perché and Tarantela, two early works by Villa-Lobos dating from a time when the composer used to write guitar in hand. Bissoli has also completed Valsa Concerto No. 2, the earliest of Villa-Lobos’s guitar works to have survived, and has made an instrumentation of fourteen folksong arrangements from Villa-Lobos’s Guia prático, choosing a selection of pieces tailor-made for the guitar. All of these, along with other unpublished works and renowned masterpieces, feature on the tracklist of the three-CD Naxos series, which won widespread praise in the international press. 

Andrea Bissoli performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician in Italy as well as abroad. He plays a guitar made by Jacques Vincenti, strung with New Nylgut strings by Aquila Corde Armoniche.

Andrea Bissoli

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