Ana Vidović plays the Vals Venezolano No. 2 by Antonio Lauro, the waltz known as Andreína. It lasts barely ninety seconds, and close to a million people have watched it on our channel.
About the Valses Venezolanos
Lauro wrote four Valses venezolanos, known by the names Tatiana, Andreína, Natalia and Yacambú. The first three were composed sometime between 1938 and 1940. They grew out of the waltzes of colonial Venezuela, and their signature is a rhythmic sleight of hand, in which two bars of three beats are suddenly heard as one long bar of three slower beats. This hemiola gives the music its typical lilt, a waltz that keeps leaning forward and pulling back.
The second waltz is the shortest of the set and the most compact. Everything happens fast. There is a melody that sings in the upper voice, a bass that marks the shifting accents, and inner voices that fill in the harmony. A player has to keep all three in balance while the rhythm shifts under them, and the piece only works when that shifting sounds natural rather than calculated. Its brevity is deceptive. There is no room to settle into the music before it is over.
You can hear the most popular of the four in our article on Ana Vidović playing the Vals Venezolano No. 3.
About Antonio Lauro
Antonio Lauro was born in Ciudad Bolívar in 1917 and died in Caracas in 1986. He studied composition with Vicente Emilio Sojo, and it was hearing Agustín Barrios in concert in 1932 that turned him towards the guitar; from 1933 he studied the instrument with Raúl Borges. Today he counts among the leading guitar composers of the twentieth century. John Williams called him the Strauss of the guitar, a fitting name for a composer whose best-known works are waltzes. Our Lauro repertoire guide introduces his music, and our portrait of Agustín Barrios tells the story of the guitarist who inspired him.
About Ana Vidović
Ana Vidović comes from Karlovac near Zagreb. She started playing at five, and at thirteen became the youngest student at the National Musical Academy in Zagreb, in the class of Istvan Romer, before graduating from the Peabody Conservatory. She has won first prizes in Bath, Rome and Spain and performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Musikverein in Vienna.
Watch the Performance
Find more South American music in our overview of famous classical guitar pieces.
