Marlos Nobre

. Le Brésil présentait un visage dur et attachant avec "Variações Rítmicas" de Marlos Nobre, chez qui l´on reconnaît l´accent natif d´un Villa-Lobos, dans une musique brute où chante une terreur panique, une vie frénétique, une force neuve. (Jacques Lonchampt, Le Monde, Paris, December 29, 1965).

. Vastly more intriguing was Marlos Nobre´s "Canticum Instrumentale". The work traverse an astonishing variety of textures and timbres. Yet, for all its variety of sound images, the "Canticum" achieves a high degree of formal cohesion, through both surface linkages and larger structural patterns. In fact, this is one of the few long, sectional pieces based on serial techniques that I have heard in recent years which "holds togheter" in the old-fashioned sense of inevitable succession. (Alan M. Kriegsman, The Washington Post, June 22, 1968).

. La troisième oeuvre était le "Concerto Breve para piano e orquestra" de Marlos Nobre. À mon sens, c´est là la partition la plus intéressant qu´il nous a été donné d´entendre tout au long de ces soirées. Admirablement bâti, concis, nerveux, ce concerto témoigne de la part de son auteur d´un excellent métier et d´une personnalité certaine. Toutes les ressources de l´écriture y sont employées avec une virtuosité étonnante de la part d´un compositeur âgé tout juste de trente ans. La seconde audition a confirmé en tous points les impressions de la première. Je crois que le Brésil tient en Marlos Nobre un musicien d´un talent très considérable et d´un grand avenir. (Jean-Paul Sarrautte, in Arte Musica n° 27/28, Lisbon, February 1970.

. Bastaron los instantes iniciales de "Mosaico" de Marlos Nobre para que la densidad musical se elevara poderosamente. Quien, avezado conocedor de los recursos instrumentales ha escrito una obra tan sólida y fascinante tiene ante si perspectivas realmente grandes. En Marlos Nobre hay temperamento, imaginación y maestria suficientes como para considerar que el lugar de excepción de Villa-Lobos puede tener al artista singular capaz de llenarlo en futuro no muy lejano. (Alberto Jiménez, La Nación, Buenos Aires, November 11, 1970).

. The evening´s larger sensation came in a "Concerto Breve", a brief concerto for piano and orchestra by Marlos Nobre of Brazil. Phenomenally played by Brazil´s stunning João Carlos Martins, the "Concerto" seemed to make the biggest hit with the audience. Divided into "Intrata", six variations, and "Coda", the concerto is played without marked pause. Within the unusual shape of the work are concealed the customary three movements of the classic concerto, as Nobre makes his Intrata and the first three variations conform to a slow introduction and opening movement; the fourth variation serves as a slow movement, and the two last variations and coda parallel the usual finale.
The music, all of a highly sensational order,includes post-Webern twitterings, ingenious dialogues between piano and percussion, and blocks of static sounds that are characteristic of the music world today. Martins, Solomon and the orchestra gave the "Concerto Breve" a blockbusting reading. (Paul Hume, The Washington Post, May 24, 1971).

. Marlos Nobre travaille le son en sculpteur, par larges plans, dessinant des arêtes vives, opposant des masses compactes; la matière s´étire et se contracte, la couleur est franche ou sombre, rarement en demi-teinte; pas de traquenard, on sait où l´on va, même dans les chemins secrets de l´aléatoire. (André Schaeffer, Revue Scherzo, Paris, December 1971).

. Nobre is certainly the best known of the young Brazilian composers on the international scene. "Rhythmetron" is one of the richest and most successful works for percussion alone to have been written since the great classics of modern times. (The World of Music, Vol. XIV, 1972).

. Das interessanteste Stück des abends was eine zweisätzige Komposition für Streichorchester von Marlos Nobre (Biosfera). Das Klanggewebe bleibtstets durchsichtig und lä die mathematische kopfarbeit vergessen. (Horst Feige, Berliner Morgenpost, Berlin, March 11, 1972).

. La pieza de Marlos Nobre "O Canto Multiplicado" demonstró que una verdadera obra de arte puede ser también una compuesta en nuestro tiempo. (Elisa Kahan, Diario de la Tarde, México, September 13, 1972)

. The most advanced work in last night´s assortment was Marlos Nobre´s "Ludus Instrumentalis". It is a brilliantly constructed mosaic, compact and imaginative in its effects. (Alan M. Kriegsman, The Washington Post, May 22, 1973).

. D´entrée, Marlos Nobre nous introduit dans le mystère de la création: c´est un Maître! "Biosfera" nous le prouve gardant toujours intacte cette inspiration génératrice de l´oeuvre d´art veritable. (Paul Druey, Tribune de Genève, May 22, 1973).

. Marlos Nobre: non seulement la plus grande figure de la musique Brésilienne d´aujourd´hui mais bien un chef de file de notre temps. (Tribune de Genève, May 23, 1976).

. Nobre´s "In Memoriam" was the show-piece of the evening. The style shows a complete control of orchestral resources, as well as a deeply felt emotionalism. Melodic fragments are of great beauty. Nobre built his work into an impressive and highly dramatic entity. (Lorne Betts, The Spectator, Ottawa, November 22, 1977).

. Nobre is a rising and major force on the compositional scene today. He´s Brazilian, and his music comes filled with a sense of South American rhythmic drive and a primitive and bold use of color. "Mosaico" was a bombastic delight of a program opener. It is a stunning work -bold and challenging. (Louise Kenngott, The Milwaukee Journal, USA, October 15, 1978.

. Nobre figures as the leading exponent of contemporary Brazilian music. His "Mosaico", an imaginative and brilliantly scored triptych in one movement, goes far to explain why. The 15 minute piece reveals not only a virtuoso command of the orchestra but confident and purposeful control of avant-garde techniques. High powered and compressed, with its surging brasses and crashing timpani strokes, "Mosaico" makes an explosive impact. But it also abounds in strands of fragile beauty, delicate weavings of winds and strings. (Lawrence B. Johnson, Milwaukee Sentinel, October 16, 1978).

. L´oeuvre de Marlos Nobre est celle d´un artiste solitaire, d´un musicien universel dont les multiples facettes de l´expression puisent au mystère d´une créativité alimentée par une force de persuasion fascinante. (Paul Druey, Tribune de Genéve, October 28, 1980).

. Quant à Marlos Nobre, avec ses "Momentos pour guitarre", son audace est beaucoup plus grande. Elle va jusqu´a creér un nouveau langage de la guitarre. (J.D. , La Suisse, Genève, April 1, 1981).

. A "Trio for piano, violin and cello" by the Brazilian composer Marlos Nobre, performed monday night, had many fascinations. The "Trio" combined a Latin warmth and dancing rhythmic impulse with a distinctly European angst - imagine a tango by Dmitri Shostakovich. (Tim Page, The New York Times, April 18, 1985).

. Nobre´s music is a remarkable fusion of a variety of styles. The result is surprisingly individual and distinctive: heady, evocative, sensual at times, yet always controlled within a finely imaginative and experienced framework by a fastidious creative mind. (Robert Mattew-Walker, Music and Musicians International, London, April 1988).

. "Ukrinmakrinkrin" show the development of Nobre´s fascination with free serialism, as well as his intense sense of drama, achieved through dynamic contrasts and a strong rhythmic pulse. (Denby Richards, Musical Opinion, London, April 1988).

. Musica attivistica, muscolosa, alla quale è giusto riconoscere un episodio di reale grandiosità e conseguenza lógica nel climax che conclude la terze delle sei variazioni in cui consiste il "Concerto Breve" di Marlos Nobre. (Massimo Mila, La Stampa, Italia, October 6, 1970).

. Indeed the most powerful work on the program, Marlos Nobre´s "In Memoriam", was also the only piece that kept clear of tropicalism. Using tremolando strings, punctuated first by percussive double-bass attacks, then more vehemently by percussion bursts, Mr. Nobre created an intensely ominous atmosphere, agains which he set more lyrical elements, including a lovely solo cello melody. A memorial to the composer´s father, the piece sometimes wore its heart on its sleeve, but it was consistently gripping. (Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, April 18, 1996.

. Marlos Nobre succeeded in forming a strongly individual manner of musical self-expression, in which sonorous and structural elements are effectively combined with impressionistic, pointilistic, and serial techniques, supplemented by restrained aleatoric procedures.
He is one of the few contemporary latin-american composers who does not disdain to make use of native melorhythmic inflections, resulting in ingratiating harmoniousness. (Nicolas Slonimsky, Bakers Dictionary, 7th Edition).

. Something old, something new, all things fresh. Brazilian composer Marlos Nobre, born in 1939, is squarely in the tradition established by Villa-Lobos, that is to say, he illuminates and amplifies his ethnic roots by means of a very informed and studied compositional technique. "Homenagem a Villa-Lobos" based as it is on the opening motif of Villa-Lobos´s haunting Fourth Prelude for Guitar, presents a most satisfying unifying factor in this CD´s program. (William Zagorski, Fanfare Vol. 57 n° 2, May-June 1994, U.S.A.).

. A new name, Marlos Nobre (born 1939), but I´m convinced. Both "Reminiscencias" and his homage to Villa-Lobos are rigorous stuff, serious art music but with an unabashed nod to the composer´s Brazilian folk roots. I haven´t heard such meaty guitar writing this good from a new composer since maybe Leo Brouwer. Brazilian rhythms and melodies have been absorbed so well that nothing sounds cliched. That it communicates so beautifully is the clincher. Nobre´s is a standout voice among new South American composers. (Ellis, American Record Guide, vol. 57 n° 3,may/june 1994, USA).

. Exquisite performances of two attractive works by a contemporary Brazilian. Marlos Nobre´s homage to his predecessor (Villa-Lobos) is serious, contemporary and respectful, but it is the timeless reminiscences of his home town of Recife (Reminiscencias for guitar) that confirms this composer as a worthy successor of Villa-Lobos. (E.S. Stereo Review, July 1994).

. This is a significant release. Marlos Nobre is the best-known living Brazilian composer, and many deem him the heir to Villa-Lobos. This two-CD set surveys a wide range of his music from 1963-80, featuring Nobre not only as composer, but as conductor and pianist.
The aforementioned reference to Villa-Lobos only goes so far. It is true that one of the earliest works on the recording, the "Divertimento for piano and orchestra", shows his influence (one also thinks of Milhaud´s Brazilian pieces), but it is a rather special case, having been written for a competition that required works to incorporate materials of the composer Ernesto Nazareth. While Villa-Lobos was both a nationalist and neo-classicist in his style, Nobre is first of all a modernist. Growing up as a composer in the 1960s, he was inevitably attracted to the experiments of the avant-garde, especially the techniques for manipulating timbre and texture of the Polish school. (This intersection of a love of color and drama shows affinities with the American composers Jacob Druckman and Donald Erb). Like most composers of the time, Nobre was also attracted to serialism, but he apparently never adopted it in a doctrinaire manner. The "Variações Rítmicas" for piano and percussion is an excellent illustration of his approach - steely atonal lines in the piano surrounded by compelling motoric rhythms and bright colors in the percussion, a successful blend of a modernist technique with more folkloristic materials.
Indeed, Nobre fortunately never succumbed to the sort of faceless internationalism that dominated the 60s European avant-garde. He remained open to Brazilian musical influences, which are evident in his attraction to: pulsating rhythms ("Rhythmetron" for percussion ensemble, written for a dance company); evocative, "nocturnal" textures (as in the slow section of "Concerto Breve"); and simple, linear, carefully shaped melodic lines (as in the vocal works "O Canto Multiplicado" and "Ukrinmakrinkrin").

All these works confirm that Nobre was a prodigiously talented and precocious composer. A driving passion and energy informs all his music.
"Biosfera" (1970) for string orchestra is an anguished rhapsody, but one with real lyricism and counterpoint, elements which give it both a structural integrity and expressive intensity. "In Memoriam" (1976) for orchestra is a memorial to the composer´s father, develops with a Sibelian continuity, and is hauted by a repeated open-string arpeggiation on acoustic guitar, a sound from which the entire piece seems to emerge. And finally, "Sonancias III" for two pianos and percussion is the most fully formed and exciting work of the entire set, combining rhythm, harmony, and color into a seamless synthesis. It sounds rooted in the culture and original at the same time. It comes closest to the mixing of popular and advanced art that Nobre admires in Bartók. (Robert Carl, Fanfare,vol. 18 n° 1, September/October 1994).

. Orchestral vocal, and chamber works by Brazil´s leading composer, Marlos Nobre (1939). Rhythmic vitality and vigor, melodic roots in Brazilian folklore and nature, striking sound combinations, and spontaneity, mark the multifaceted music of this composer who lists Debussy, Bartok and Lutoslawski as major influences. The folk elements recall Villa-Lobos. Nobre´s music is tonal to freely-tonal, chromatic, dissonant at times, and makes use of serial and sonoristic techniques but with references to tonal centers. Nobre also knows how to turn a beautiful, lyrical phrase, in sweeping, string-dominated passages and delicate woodwind phrases.
There is no denying that Marlos Nobre is a master composer who has inherited Villa-Lobos mantle.
There is something for everyone in this wide variety of works by a master composer. Recommended with Brazilian passion! (DE JONG, American Record Guide, Vol 57 n° 5, September/October 1994).

. Marlos Nobre has successfully carved out his own powerful style while continuing, to some extent, the tradition of Villa-Lobos. Like his celebrated predecessor, he is at home equally with huge orchestral resources or a single guitar. (Colin Cooper, Classical Guitar, Vol 17 n° 5, 1999, London).

. Marlos Nobre a la puissance d´un Ginastera et le genie d´un Dallapiccola. C´est particulièrement flagrant dans les "Três Canções Negras" pour voix et celli, exubérantes, trépidantes et finement composées, de même que dans le "Canto a Garcia Lorca", page au dramatisme magnifique, où les éléments nationaux brésiliens se fondent dans un hommage qui fait mouche. (Thierry Clermont, Repertoire n° 135, Juin 2000, Paris).

. Crucially, even after an hour of this music there is no feeling of surfeit. On the contrary, one is perpetually galvanized, soothed and even shocked by the extraordinary sonic array on offer. This says a great deal for Marlos Nobre and his wildly improvisatory "Desafio XXXII" for celli octet. (Jeffrey Joseph, The STRAD, June 2000, London).

. During the last twenty years Brazilian composer Marlos Nobre (b. 1939) has enjoyed a truly international trajectory. In the early 1960s a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship allowed him to study at the Buenos Aires Torcuato di Tella Institute under Alberto Ginastera. Later he won twenty-three national and international composition competitions, and more recently the commissioning of a major work by the Sapnish Ministry of Culture for the 500th anniversary (1992) of Columbus´s voyage to the New World. Nobre has exerted a major influence in significant positions of leadership that range from the Directorship of the National Music Institute of FUNARTE of Rio de Janeiro, the Presidency of the UNESCO´s International Music Council, to the Presidency of the Brazilian Academy of Music, among others. His compositions have been premiered in major artistic centers of the Western world and during the last few years, he has received numerous commissions from some of the most prestigious institutions of higher education and international organizations. No other Brazilian composer of his generation has been able to garner such an extraordinary recognition. Indeed, this is due to the sheer creative power and imagination that Nobre´s compositions reveal.
Although Nobre belongs in general to the Brazilian avant-garde of the 1960s to the 1990s, he exhibits concurrently a close affinity with typically Brazilian folk and popular musical expressions; not in a predetermined "nationalist" fashion, but as a result of his natural identification with his country´s expressive culture. He himself declared: "I was born listening to "frevo" and "maracatu" (from Pernambuco, his native state), rhythms and sounds which have become an integral part of my way of thinking and feeling. My creativity is finally rooted in these deep layers of my subconscious".
The work "Reminiscencias" op. 83, for classical guitar, is a case in point. Written in 1990 and 1991, this composition in three parts (1. Chôro, 2. Seresta, 3. Frevo) represents powerful emotional memories of popular guitar players that the composer heard as a child in his native city of Recife. What impressed him the most was the musicians´ improvisational and virtuosic ability.Thus, "Reminiscências" is precisely a heartfelt kinship with that popular artistry which justifies the titles of the three movements. "Chôro", that Brazilian popular instrumental form, stresses the improvisatory and virtuosic style of the popular genre which is performed by an ensemble of flute, guitar, seven-string guitar, "cavaquinho" (a small four-string guitar), mandolin and small percussion instruments, such as the tambourine. Nobre makes the most here in stressing the sequences of syncopated and often chromatic descending basses so typical of the bass strings of the seven-sring guitar. "Seresta" (serenade) evokes the lyrical side of the original "choros", as the strolling musicians known as "chorões" (i.e., "weepers") were also serenaders. Here again, Marlos Nobre emphasizes the chromatic descending basses of the bass strings, which he considers a "leitmotiv of Brazilian guitar music"." The fast-paced street dance known as "Frevo" (from "ferver", to boil) is the most typical and powerful dance of the Recife carnival. The guitar treatment of the dance provided by the composer is quite clever in that it maintains the exciting nervousness of the dance but in the more intimate atmosphere of the medium.
The "Homenagem a Villa-Lobos" date from 1977, based on the opening motif of Villa-Lobos´s Prelude n° 4 for guitar. As in many other works, Nobre expresses here a clear affinity with Villa-Lobos´s spontaneous creative imagination and contrasting lyric and powerful expression.
The two-CD set (digitally remastered) of Marlos Nobre´s orchestral, vocal, and chamber works contains some of his most characteristic and representative compositions of the period 1963 to 1980 which won him the most prominent position within Brazilian composition of that period. The earlier pieces in this set are "Divertimento" for piano and orchestra and "8 Variações Rítmicas", for piano and typical Brazilian percussion, both works of 1963. They reveal the exuberance of a young man in the exceptional range of instrumental colors and rhythmic construction and elaboration, quite akin to some aspects of Brazilian popular music in both its rhythmic intricacies and excitement and lyricism. Nobre himself plays the piano (treated non-soloistically, albeit preeminently) in "Divertimento" with the Música Nova Philharmonia, while Luiz de Moura Castro, Brazilian pianist and remarkable piano pedagogue, performs in the "8 Variações" with the Ensemble à Percussion de Génève under the direction of Pierre Métral. The same ensemble performs "Rhythmetron", for percussion (1968), commissioned by the Brazilian Ballet Company. Inspired by the "maracatus" of Recife and the "escolas de samba" of Rio de Janeiro, the work is quite appealing in terms of its expansion in a highly sophisticated fashion of the earlier experiments of the composer with rhythm and timbre.
Among the works of the 1960s recorded here is "Ukrinmakrinkrin" (1964) for soprano, wind instruments, and piano. It combines an atonal-serial language with some native ritualistic flavor. The text, in Xucuru Indian dialect, is a ritual incantation of tribal origin. Nobre uses it, however, primarily for sonorous effects, as the vocal line shows no connection with Indian traditional music. The second movement, subdivided into various partially aleatoric structures, displays a free and delicate treatment of materials, without fixed pulsations. The atonal style is limited primarily to intervals of seconds, sevenths, and ninths. The first vertical structure utilizes only two pitches of the series, the second increases to four, and so on until the sixth structure, with all twelve pitches. The resulting expression of evoking a magical, primitive native culture though modern musical means is very effective indeed. Here the work is superbly performed by soprano Amalia Bazán and the Musica Nova Ensemble.
The orchestral piece "Mosaico" (1970), here performed by the Musica Nova Philharmonia, is also worth mentioning for an early display of the composer´s sophisticated command over new techniques, particularly in its clusters covering the total sound-space of the orchestra, its treatment of sound-blocks, its deep sense of engineering, and its violent contrast derived from a complex and brilliant orchestration. Especially noteworthy is its use of percussion instruments, which include many typically Brazilian instruments treated soloistically.
The last work of this selection of a dozen compositions, the "Sonancias III" Op. 49 (1980), for two pianos and two percussionists (here performed respectively by Luiz de Moura Castro, Peter Grunberg, and Pierre Métral and William Blank), is particularly significant in its revelation of a powerful, individual, and highly expressive style in which various previous experiments with rhythmic, harmonic, and formal elements are combined in a unique fashion. This work clearly indicates the beginning of the subsequent mature development of one of the most creative personalities in Brazilian contemporary composition.
(erard Béhague, in Latin American Music Review, Volume 17:Number 1: Spring/Summer 1996, University of Texas Press).