Marcos Madrigal Launches Habanero Label with Album Devoted to 20th-Century Brazilian Piano Music

Pianist Marcos Madrigal will unveil the digital release of his new album on Friday, April 17—the inaugural title of the Habanero label—devoted to Brazilian piano repertoire by Cláudio Santoro and Heitor Villa-Lobos. The album, whose physical edition was issued in Paris last month, offers a carefully articulated reading of two complementary aesthetic worlds, positioned at the intersection of 20th‑century European avant-gardes and the reconfiguration of Latin American musical identities.

This double album is anchored in a clear curatorial line: to explore the multiple layers of the Latin American sonic imagination from both historical and aesthetic perspectives. The release also marks the launch of Habanero, founded by Pierre‑Yves Lascar, a figure associated with contemporary music production and also the founder of the French label Artalinna.

Cláudio Santoro: synthesis, lyricism, and structure

The figure of Cláudio Santoro (1919–1989), still relatively little known in Europe, occupies a central place in the program. His Paulistanas (1952–53) and the Prelúdios (Second Series) reveal a style marked by formal condensation and an economy of means that at times approaches an almost aphoristic logic.

Far from any superficial stylization of folklore, Santoro forges a language in which popular reference functions as a structural substrate rather than as an explicit thematic element. The tension between improvisatory impulse and formal control generates micro-forms of high expressive density, where melodic material undergoes subtle transformations on the rhythmic and harmonic planes.

In the Prelúdios, conceived in part as spontaneous outgrowths of pianistic gesture, the writing takes on an intimate, reflective character, with a clear vocal projection of the musical discourse. The Paulistanas, for their part, introduce a dialectic between lyricism and rhythmic accentuation that situates the works within a Brazilian nationalism in the process of redefining itself.

Villa-Lobos: synthesis and expansion of pianistic language

The corpus devoted to Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959)—Ciclo brasileiro, Bachiana brasileira No. 4 and Chôros No. 5 (“Alma brasileira”)—represents one of the most emblematic bodies of 20th‑century Latin American piano literature.

In these works, Villa-Lobos’s well-known synthesis of European procedures and materials derived from Brazilian musical practices is fully consolidated. The Bachianas brasileiras, conceived as a re-reading of the Bachian legacy from an American perspective, articulate a dual system of references—formal and cultural—in which Baroque-derived structures coexist with rhythmic and melodic gestures rooted in national traditions.

The Ciclo brasileiro, in turn, unfolds a sonic imagination tied to the rural sphere and to the construction of a collective identity, while Chôros No. 5 condenses, in a strongly cantabile idiom, an almost archetypal dimension of Brazilian sensibility.

A poetics of Latin American resonance

Beyond a mere juxtaposition of repertoires, the album advances an organic reading grounded in deep affinities between the languages of Santoro and Villa-Lobos. Both composers conceive musical material as a space of mediation between tradition and modernity, the local and the universal.

The album’s musicological notes, by Cuban musicologist Claudia Fallarero, probe these relationships from historical and analytical perspectives, underscoring the links between aesthetics, identity, and the construction of musical discourse in Latin America.

Within this framework, Marcos Madrigal’s interpretation privileges the articulation of sonic planes, agogic flexibility, and a conception of the piano as an essentially vocal instrument. The result is a reading that foregrounds expressive immediacy without sacrificing structural complexity.

Release details

Artist: Marcos Madrigal, piano
Title: Santoro / Villa-Lobos
Label: Habanero (AJI‑001)

Repertoire

Cláudio Santoro — Prelúdios (Second Series), Paulistanas
Heitor Villa-Lobos — Ciclo brasileiro, Bachiana brasileira No. 4, Chôros No. 5 (“Alma brasileira”)

Credits

Musicological texts: Claudia Fallarero
Editorial concept / label direction: Pierre‑Yves Lascar
Executive production and recording: Pierre‑Yves Lascar
Artistic supervision: William Grant Naboré
Editing: Marcos Madrigal
Sound engineering, mixing and mastering: Frédéric Briant

Recording venue and dates

St. John the Evangelist, Oxford (United Kingdom), August 31 and September 1–2, 2017
Instrument: Steinway D

Design and visual concept (cover & booklet): Olivier Lalane (le philtre, Paris)
Illustrations: Stéphane Cerveau
Photography: Flavio Ianniello

Source: Cuban Institute of Music.

Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez