Villa-Lobos: Cirandas and Cirandinhas
Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 1:35 am
Cirandas:
Published 1926 by Napoleão. Masters reprinted it in 1994, and they still offer it for sale from their website, which means it was probably not renewed in the US. However, the engraving looks much newer than the 1920s. Between the '20s and the '60s, the quality of Napoleão went way up, and I would be pretty surprised if it were actually from 1926. Another thing is that for No.6 (Passa, passa, gavião) only, it bears the inscription 'Revisão de Gaó'. Gaó (otherwise known by his birth name, Odmar Amaral Gurgel) was born in 1909 and is apparently still alive (obviously putting that particular number out of reach); his contributions seem to consist of a large number of fingerings and ossias. I find it improbable that he was editing for Napoleão at the age of 17, so the 1926 date is almost certainly incorrect. Therefore, I conclude that what I thought were mere reprints in 1958, 1962, 1968, 1970, and 1973 were actually re-engravings (each piece was issued separately). However, if this is the case, how can it be reprinted by Masters, since there were automatic renewals starting in 1964? Kind of strange...
Cirandinhas:
This one was engraved in 1925 by Eschig, but also issued in 1926 by Napoleão - probably it was reassigned. Napoleão reprinted it in 1962; so did Masters in 1992, which is also still in their catalogue. Looking at the score, though, it looks exactly like a 1920s-era Napoleão engraving, right down to the Portuguese text. Definitely not Eschig. (N.B.: Later, I noticed that Masters explicitly lists Napoleão as the source on their website.) So is it really possible that a year after Eschig published it, they assigned the copyright to Napoleão, who then proceeded to do an entire re-engraving? What's more, there are numerous fingerings throughout the work, suggesting an editor of some sort (Villa-Lobos was not a great pianist and as far as I know never provided his own fingerings), although none is listed. So I'm not really sure about it. (Of course, I have a very bad scanner anyway, so it's not like it was a potential project for me. I was just kind of wondering
)
Published 1926 by Napoleão. Masters reprinted it in 1994, and they still offer it for sale from their website, which means it was probably not renewed in the US. However, the engraving looks much newer than the 1920s. Between the '20s and the '60s, the quality of Napoleão went way up, and I would be pretty surprised if it were actually from 1926. Another thing is that for No.6 (Passa, passa, gavião) only, it bears the inscription 'Revisão de Gaó'. Gaó (otherwise known by his birth name, Odmar Amaral Gurgel) was born in 1909 and is apparently still alive (obviously putting that particular number out of reach); his contributions seem to consist of a large number of fingerings and ossias. I find it improbable that he was editing for Napoleão at the age of 17, so the 1926 date is almost certainly incorrect. Therefore, I conclude that what I thought were mere reprints in 1958, 1962, 1968, 1970, and 1973 were actually re-engravings (each piece was issued separately). However, if this is the case, how can it be reprinted by Masters, since there were automatic renewals starting in 1964? Kind of strange...
Cirandinhas:
This one was engraved in 1925 by Eschig, but also issued in 1926 by Napoleão - probably it was reassigned. Napoleão reprinted it in 1962; so did Masters in 1992, which is also still in their catalogue. Looking at the score, though, it looks exactly like a 1920s-era Napoleão engraving, right down to the Portuguese text. Definitely not Eschig. (N.B.: Later, I noticed that Masters explicitly lists Napoleão as the source on their website.) So is it really possible that a year after Eschig published it, they assigned the copyright to Napoleão, who then proceeded to do an entire re-engraving? What's more, there are numerous fingerings throughout the work, suggesting an editor of some sort (Villa-Lobos was not a great pianist and as far as I know never provided his own fingerings), although none is listed. So I'm not really sure about it. (Of course, I have a very bad scanner anyway, so it's not like it was a potential project for me. I was just kind of wondering
)