Bellinati’s Mosaic

Release Date: 28/10/2022

PAULO BELLINATI (1950) / WORKS FOR GUITAR QUARTET

  1. Um amor de valsa (2020)* | 4:04Quaternaglia & Paulo Bellinati (steel guitar)
  2. A Furiosa (Maxixe) (1997) | 4:01

Quaternaglia & Ari Colares (percussion)

  1. Carlo’s Dance (Jequibau) (2006) | 7:47

Quaternaglia & Swami Jr (electric bass)

  1. Baião de Gude (1997)* | 6:27

Quaternaglia & Paulo Bellinati (steel guitar)

  1. Frevo e Fuga (2010)* | 3:30

Quaternaglia & Ari Colares (percussion)

  1. Lun-Duos (1996) | 5:00

Quaternaglia & Paulo Bellinati (steel guitar)

  1. Maracatu da Pipa (2004) | 8:37

Quaternaglia & Ari Colares (percussion)

SÉRGIO ASSAD (1952)

  1. Bellinati’s Mosaic (2021)*/first recording | 6:07

Quaternaglia

* works dedicated to Quaternaglia

total time: 45:33


Quaternaglia Guitar Quartet

Chrystian Dozza (guitar Sérgio Abreu 2012 n.621)

Fabio Ramazzina (guitar Sérgio Abreu 2002 n.474)

Thiago Abdalla (guitar Sérgio Abreu 2002 n.463)

Sidney Molina (7string guitar Sérgio Abreu 1997 n.359)

Paulo Bellinati (steel guitar)

Ari Colares (percussion)

Swami Jr. (electric bass)

Created by: GuitarCoop

Musical Producer: Swami Jr.

Audio Engineer: Ricardo Marui

Recording by: Fabio Barros e Gabriel Nascimbeni

Editing and Mixing: Thiago Abdalla

Mastering: Ricardo Marui

Recorded at Trampolim Studio (São Paulo (SP)/ Brazil) on September 14, 21, 28 and November 2, 2021.

Microphones: Neumann, DPA, Sennheiser and Royer

Converter: Apollo (UAD) and Antelope Audio

Preamp: Millennia and API

Guitars: Sérgio Abreu

Strings: Savarez

Graphic Design: Eduardo Sardinha

Publishing: Patricia Millan

Photos: Heloisa Bortz

Texts: Sidney Molina

Translation: David G. Molina


Text by Sidney Molina

In this album, Quaternaglia records the oeuvre for guitar quartet by Brazilian composer Paulo Bellinati. Born in São Paulo (SP), Bellinati is one of the central figures in the internationalization of Brazilian guitar that began at the start of the 1980s and continues to evolve today. The start of Bellinati’s activities as a composer for solo guitar and guitar chamber groups coincides with the resurging of an idiomatic compositional style animated by the work of composer-performers.

This phenomenon is not an isolated incident in the history of the guitar: from Aguado to Sor, from Giuliani to Regondi and Coste, form Mertz to Tárrega, before the start of the 20th century, guitar music was essentially written by composers who were also instrumentalists.

The landscape of guitar composition changed dramatically between the 1920s and 1970s. Most of the composers that wrote for Andrés Segovia and Julian Bream – Torroba, Turina, Ponce, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Berkeley, Britten, Walton, Henze and many others – did not play the instrument, the most notable exceptions being Villa-Lobos, Barrios and, in the second half of the 20th century, Leo Brouwer.

Another change in scenery marked the start of the 1980s, when works by composer-guitarists such as Francis Kleynjans, Nikita Koshkin, Roland Dyens, Stepan Rak, Carlo Domeniconi, and Sérgio Assad began to coexist with the more experimental compositions of Peter Maxwell Davies, Elliott Carter, Luciano Berio, Toru Takemitsu, and Brouwer himself.

Characteristic of the work of guitar-composers was a revitalization of guitar repertoire through the use of idiomatic musical solutions. Published and widely disseminated, these works began, little by little, to transcend the performance activity of their own creators, beginning to appear in renditions by classical guitarists around the world and arriving quickly in the academy and international competitions.

Often, such authors incorporated, in stylized and developed way, compositional techniques extracted from the spectacular unraveling of urban popular music that characterized the second half of the 20th century. Two techniques call particular attention: the interference of improvisatory elements (such as those of jazz) in compositional writing (that is, the view that improvisational practice could lead to elaborate compositional procedures in the score) and the active use of rhythmic figures and ideas characteristic of popular genres.

In this regard, Latin America and Brazil are particularly privileged. From the end of the 1980s and the start of the 1990s, Brazilian works, composers, guitarists, and chamber groups became a staple in the world of international guitar recitals, festivals, and series. Paulo Bellinati is at the very center of this revolution.

The creation of the guitar oeuvre for four guitars by Paulo Bellinati coincides with Quaternaglia’s own trajectory. (Collaboration between composer and quartet began in 1996). Its origin lies in a work of 1990, the LP Violões do Brasil, in which Bellinati plays (with the use of overdubbing), guitar, viola caipira, cavaquinho, and tenor and 7-stringed guitars.

Three of the compositions that would appear in later versions for guitar quartet (all registered in this album) were present in that record: Lun-Duos (based on the Lun-Duo for two guitars), and the maxixe A Furiosa and Baião de Gude.

When evaluated in toto, Bellinati’s guitar quartet work appears to have been carefully sculpted to showcase the diversity of genres that characterize Brazilian music: alongside the already mentioned lundu, maxixe and baião, were added the jequibau Carlo’s Dance (a samba/bossa-nova in 5-beat time), a street frevo(Frevo e Fuga,commissioned by Quaternaglia in 2010), a maracatu(Maracatu da Pipa,based on a version for three guitars), and finally, a Brazilian waltz (a version of Um amor de Valsa,originally for solo guitar, especially prepared for this celebratory recording).

All of Bellinati’s compositions for guitar quartet received new versions for this commemorative album. Baião de Gude, Lun-Duos and Um amor de Valsa feature the composer himself who performs alongside Quaternaglia on a historical “violão seresta” from 1935, with steel strings. The rhythms oof the frevo, maracatu and maxixe are intensified by percussionist Ari Colares, widely acclaimed expert on Brazilian percussion. Finally, producer Swami Jr., an ecletic and versatile instrumentalist, adds a creative bass guitar line to the four acoustic instruments in Carlo’s Dance.

From the same generation as Bellinati, Sérgio Assad is one of the most requisitioned, performed, recorded, and respected Brazilian composers active today, and Quaternaglia had, for many years, planned on commissioning a new work from him for the group. Bellinati’s Mosaic (2021) makes use of “aural pebbles” by Bellinati that are rearranged in new designs and patterns.

Assad’s mosaic unravels in ever-shifting form; tiles fit one another without ever disfiguring the original motifs. Submitted to a new geometry are themes such as those of A Furiosa, Baião de Gude, Ping-Pong, Maracatu da Pipa, Tom e Prelúdio, Um amor de Valsa, Jongo and others. The piece features an almost unencompassable number of Bellinatian tesserae.

Quaternaglia’s Bellinati’s Mosaic launches new light over the work of the composer, allowing each new track to be heard anew, enabling unexpected and reinvigorating connections.

Sidney Molina