Violão do Brasil

A short (3' 20«), single movement piece with a repeated alternation of two contrasting types of material. The work opens with a repetitive and rapidly lilting rhythmic'dance' which features some taxing but natural sounding metric trickery: 9/16, 2/8, 6/16, 2/8 etc. Loosely in the key of G, the harmonic world is a strange mixture of tonality and chromaticism which grew on me as I played and definitely made a lot more sense when played up to tempo. A repeated and much slower colouristic section follows, though the harmonic soundworld essentially has the same character. This is a much more temporally flexible section and finishes with a possible improvisation, to be undertaken 'only if the spirit that sustains the latter [material] is respected'. One assumes that considering this is the only guide to the performer, s/he could either simply make it up of the cuff (very difficult and requiring considerable extemporisatory skills), or study the original and semi-improvise a cadenza. Since Penicaud has largely composed the work from a chord sequence, unlocking this key would bring the best results. Carrying straight on the opening dance returns, with some variations, and the work finishes with a contracted version of the slower section.
Overall, Violao do Brasil is a vivacious if brief 'fantasy', of a toughish intermediate standard, didactically useful and possibly more so.
(Geoff Cox, Classical Guitar, 9/2000)