Francisco Mignone – Music for bassoon

In the second half of the 20th century, the greatest name in Brazilian for bassoon was Francisco Mignone, who composed an extensive body of work that started with the Concertino para fagote e pequena orquestra (1957) and continued up to bassoon quartets in 1983, forming an important original repertoire not only in but worldwide (KOENIGSBECK, 1994). According to Eurico Nogueira França, “when one thinks about Mignone´s musical testament, one remembers the bassoon or his piano” (Apud MARIZ, 1997). This whole group of compositions was dedicated to Noël Devos, French bassoonist who lives in Brazil since 1952, and who Mignone greatly admired (PETRI, 1999). We can quote: para fagote solo (1961), Sonata n.1 para 2 fagotes (1961), Sonata n.2 - Ubayêra e Ubayara para 2 fagotes (1966-67), Tetrafonia e Variações em Busca de um Tema para 4 fagotes (1967), Sonata a 3 para fagotes (1978), until 1983, when Mignone wrote a series of quartets for this instrument, transcribed from original solo piano pieces written in the 1930s – Quatro Peças Brasileiras, Serenata bem acabada, Serenata Humorística, Minuetto, Sarabanda do meu jeito, Mais uma lenda. (SILVA, 2007) The chosen pieces for this article were recorded on a CD, Francisco Mignone – music for bassoon, with the support of FAPERJ – Fundação Carlos Chagas de Apoio à Pesquisa no , through Edital de Apoio às Artes. They constitute a journey throughout the phases that permeated Mignone´s relationship with the bassoon and with Noël Devos, and bring the first world recording of three pieces: the Sonatina para fagote solo, the Tetrafonia and Variações em busca de um tema and the Sonata a 3. It begins and ends in nationalistic style, passing through an important experimentalist phase in the composer´s career. This CD is part of a bigger project, dedicated to the preservation of this important musical collection. The original manuscripts, belonging to Professor Devos´ personal archives, are being digitized so that, in the future, they can be edited in music programs. These editions will also contain Devos´ original notes, most of which were supervised by Mignone himself, by occasion of the pieces´ first auditions. This project is being developed at Programa de Pós Graduação em Música da Escola de Música da UFRJ and at Centro de Estudos dos Instrumentos de Sopro Prof. Noël Devos, involving academic works by Raquel Santos Carneiro, Pedro Paulo Parreiras Emílio, Carlos Henrique Bertão and Jeferson de Souza, oriented by Aloysio Fagerlande.

- Sonata n. 1 para 2 fagotes (1961)

The Sonata n. 1 para 2 fagotes was composed in 1961, and was dedicated to Noël Devos and Angelo Pestana, bassoonists of Orquestra Sinfônica Nacional, of which Mignone was the first conductor, since the orchestra was created that same year. Oddly enough, he didn´t write the separate parts as being 1st and 2nd bassoons, as a composer usually does, but instead indicated bassoon A and bassoon B, as to not embarrass the two soloists of his orchestra...

Figure 1 – F. Mignone, Sonata n.1 para dois fagotes; Devos’s original part of “Bassoon A”

This piece, of nationalistic character, comprises three movements. The initial Allegro, in the brilliant key of E major, presents syncopated figures and light articulation in both voices. In the Modinha we see a long melody based on the insistency in the E minor tonic, that rises to the peak of the phrase to gradually return to the tonic. At the end of the movement, a figure of descendent ornamented sevenths can be the reminiscence of a lament characteristic of the seresta and Italian . The Rondó-Chorinho indicates the same trend we find in many of Villa-Lobos´s pieces, with double title, with European forms and thematic Brazilian material (FAGERLANDE, 2011). Mignone´s main theme resembles the one in the fast movement of the Concertino para fagote e pequena orquestra. The displaced accents in both voices bring a swing characteristic of instrumental urban popular music. At the end, both bassoons present the main theme, in octaves, concluding this movement brilliantly. Besides the 16 Valsas para fagote, this Sonata is one of Mignone’s internationally well known pieces for bassoon.

- Tetrafonia e Variações em busca de um tema (1967)

This first bassoon quartet composed by Mignone was written in May 1967, dedicated to “Noël Devos et sa magnifique école de basson, avec toute cordialité” (“N.D. and his magnificent bassoon school, with all my cordiality”). Its first audition took place at Sala Cecilia Meireles em 25/9/1967, in a concert to celebrate the composer´s 70th birthday (SILVA, 2007). The players were Noël Devos, Airton Barbosa, João ..(capitão da Banda dos bombeiros...), Luis Carlos ? Like almost all his bassoon pieces of this decade, this quartet was written in atonal style. Craftily written, it comprises many miniatures of contrasting character. The initial section - Tetrafonia – reveals a fugato style, in which each bassoon presents the theme fragments in contrasting tessituras. Then eighteen variations follow, in which the composer demonstrates knowledge of the technical and expressive capabilities of the bassoon ensemble.

Figure 2 – F. Mignone, Tetrafonia e Variações em busca de um tema, manuscript 1st page

The first variation uses diminution and augmentation of tempo, alternating 4/4, 3/4, 2/4, 1/4, 4/4 bars. The second variation deals with a two note cell that comes in later at each entry. The third asks for a very short and light staccato, with the four bassoons playing in p dynamics. The fourth presents the first bassoon playing a series of twelve sounds which, in Mignone style, repeats one of the twelve notes and leaves one out. The fifth variation is written on two levels: the half notes played by the 3rd and 4th bassoons make an accompaniment for a game of question and answer between the 1st and 2nd. The sixth - Assai vivo – brings a march with an energetic theme that flows throughout the four bassoons. The seventh proposes a mysterious and expressive mood. The Allegretto Danzante, eighth variation, is written as a waltz, with jazzy figurings in the first bassoon. The ninth variation is a pyramid of sforzato attacks in the four instruments. In the tenth, the is obtained through anacrustic patterns in the first bassoon and responses by the 2nd, 3rd and 4th. The eleventh variation, written in a 12/8 meter, presents a sort of waltz carefully accompanied at every 2 beats by a voice, over which the first bassoon “sings” a melody in seresta style. In the next variation, 1st and 2nd bassoons play a dialogue using anacrustic patterns in the high range of the instrument, over a low C pedal that alternates between the 3rd and 4th bassoons, finished with abrupt chords. The thirteenth has a texture that, at each measure, presents one bassoon in staccato and another in legato, at the same rhythm. The fourteenth is a march that once again breaks up the quartet to create a dialogue between two pairs of bassoons. A short transition leads to the fifteenth variation - súbito forte – which after an aggressive moment turns to a pianissimo session. The next variation shows a dialogue between figures of nationalistic flavor played by the 1st and 3rd bassoons. In the seventeenth, the 3rd bassoon sings over a rhythmic ostinato played by the other three bassoons. The eighteenth variation has a nervous mood, with staccato figures in the 4th bassoon, always stringendo. The Finale, in choral style, 3/2, finishes the piece with a dissonant and suspensive tetrachord.

- Sonata n. 2 para 2 fagotes - Ubayêra e Ubayara (1966-1967)

Between 1966 e 1967, at 70 years old, Mignone composes his 2ª Sonata para dois fagotes -“Ubayêra e Ubayara”, showing complete musical maturity and remarkable knowledge of the bassoon. According to Noël Devos, the piece subtitle, “Ubayêra e Ubayara”, refers to a conversation between two Indians. It was recorded on a long play by Noël Devos and Airton Barbosa, at the end of the 70´s. (EMILIO, 2015)

Figure 3 – F. Mignone, Sonata n.2 para dois fagotes - Ubayera e Ubayara, manuscript frontpiece

This piece contrasts with Sonata n.1 because of its construction based on series of twelve sounds, in a technic called by Mignone “dodecaphonic”. Its texture makes more use of counterpoint and dialectic, with greater voice independence. The first movement, Allegro moderato, is constructed from questions and answer cells presented by the bassoons, one at a time. At the central part of the movement, they start to function as accompaniment to one another, playing simultaneously. The composer uses a wide range of composition skills, such as retrogradation, inversion and omission of elements in the series, in perfect consonance with the bassoon technic, and so extracts, from both instruments, a wide range of moods. At many times one bassoon answers the other in a contrasting dynamic or in a different tempo, causing surprise effects.

Figure 4 – F. Mignone, Sonata n.2 para dois fagotes - Ubayera e Ubayara, 1st page

The second movement - Andante plácido e contemplativo – begins as a canon, and after that the composer starts to work with small passages. From the Calmo, the mood is taken by the E flat ostinato; the second bassoon establishes an accompaniment formula so that the other can perform a long intimate phrase, which will develop into a passionate intervention by the 1st bassoon. This movement finishes with three staccato two note chords, the last one being one octave. The final movement - Assai vivo – presents brilliant and syncopated rhythms, cadenzas from both voices, with ostinatos and motive developments of rhythmic cells, with an acelerando that continues until the very end.

- Sonatina para fagote solo (1961/67?)

The Sonatina para fagote solo also follows the experimental inclination of Francisco Mignone. It contrasts with the popular Valsas para fagote solo, composed between 1979 e 1981, in which the composer demonstrates the bassoon´s expressive capabilities within the context of the seresta and modinha. Here, the bassoon functions in broad lines and baroque configurations, presenting dodecaphonic thematic material (BERTÃO, 2015). The composer’s manuscript also brings some doubts about the precise year of composition, as it’s shown in the following example (BERTÃO, 2015).

Figure 5 – F. Mignone, Sonatina para fagote solo, manuscript frontpiece

The first tempo - Moderato – presents a dialectic game in which legato e staccato, forte e piano, fast and slow oppose themselves, functioning as multiple characters: outgoing or intimate, masculine or feminine, mandatory or beseeching. The more reflective moments lead to a march movement, which begins with anacruses ornamented in quintuplets, or fast passages in staccato leaps. The slow movement - Andante meditativo – brings long phrases in which tranquility prevails, beginning with an ornamented but calm phrase. This serenity is only disturbed at the central part, and the movement finishes with figures of connected sevenths, that conclude in a long low C. As in a baroque suite, the Giga finishes the piece with broad interval leaps, and binary compound meter.

- Sonata a 3 (1978)

The Sonata a 3, dated from 1978, comprises three movements. The first is created from an anacrustic figure in ostinato presented by the 3rd bassoon; over this recurring fragment, the 1st and 2nd bassoons propose embellishment figures. The second movement begins with chord pyramids, then moves to a section recited by the first bassoon, accompanied by the other two. The style is still experimental, with melodic, rhythmic, insistent or serene fragments, exploring the bassoon´s wide range of registers and articulations. In the third movement, Mignone writes a waltz in compound meter (9/8), very different from the aesthetics of Dezesseis Valsas, which he began writing the following year. The intricate figures in counterpoint keep the musical flow in suspense until the end.

- Quatro peças brasileiras (1983) This piece was originally written for piano, in 1930, and transcribed for bassoon quartet by the composer himself in 1983. The first recording was made in 1985 by Quarteto Airton Barbosa, formed by Noël Devos, Antonio Bruno, Aloysio Fagerlande and Ricardo Rapoport.

The first movement - Maroca – has, as tempo indication, Andantino Preludiando. This suggests that the musical text should be played chanted, recited. This movement presents a calm melody, with rural music aspects, in which there is a dialogue between the voices that emphasize the melodic line.

The second movement is the maxixe called Maxixando. Coming from the lundu, the maxixe had its greatest importance as a musical genre in the middle of the second half of the 19th century, mixing polka melody with modified accents and bass lines similar to the lundu. In simple binary meter, in this movement we see an indication “com alegria”, and it possesses characteristics as displaced accents and syncopated rhythms. The third movement pays homage to Ernesto Nazareth (1863 -1934). The specified tempo is Allegro Comodo, with the subtitle Nazareth; the theme develops with a melody full of ornamentation for the first bassoon that intertwines with the other voices, suggesting an improvisation. The fourth movement - Toada – has its main theme presented by the first bassoon, making the other voices create a sound ambience for the soloist melody, but always making a dialogue among themselves. In the central section, the melodies intertwine like a nostalgic song, and bring memories of guitars players from the sertão region. Mignone finishes going back to the main theme and with a codetta.

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