The City and the Country in Villa Lobos’s Music: Musical Topics, Rhetoricity and Narrativity in the Prelude to the Bachianas Brasileiras no.2

Abstract

In this article I examine Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Prelude to Bachianas Brasileiras no. 2 from the perspective of topic theory. I begin by raising some theoretical issues about topic theory and rhetoricity, intertextuality and music narrativity. After a brief historical contextualisation of the work, I present analytical comments on the Prelude’s sections. In the conclusion, I present a cultural interpretation of the analysis, complementing the analysis’ results with the theory of narrativity to offer an interpretation of this piece.