The Polish guitarist Wojtek Niemotko plays Bate-coxa by Marco Pereira. The recording was made for our Siccas Media programme at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, with sound by Szymon Bogdański and video by Mikołaj Szenfeld.
About the Piece
Bate-coxa belongs to the body of concert music Marco Pereira has written for his own instrument, and it carries the quality that runs through most of it: Brazilian popular rhythm handled with the discipline of a trained classical musician. The pulse is insistent and syncopated, the harmony richer than a dance piece needs to be, and the writing sits so naturally under the hand that the technical demands only become audible when something goes wrong.
That combination is what makes this repertoire difficult in a way that does not show. Rhythmic music on the classical guitar leaves no room for approximation: the groove either holds or the piece collapses into notes.
It also asks something unusual of the right hand. The classical tradition trains a player to shape a line; Brazilian writing of this kind asks that player to keep a rhythmic engine running underneath while still shaping the line above it. Pereira writes as someone who has done both, which is why his pieces reward guitarists who are willing to let go of a little polish in exchange for drive.
About Marco Pereira
Marco Pereira is one of the central figures of the Brazilian guitar — a performer, composer and arranger whose work moves between the classical concert tradition and the popular music of his country without treating either as a visit. Our portrait of Marco Pereira introduces his playing and his writing, and our Pereira repertoire guide collects the pieces guitarists reach for most.
Brazilian Music on Six Strings
It is worth saying what this is not: it is not a crossover gesture. Pereira composes for the classical guitar as a concert instrument, and the pieces are notated, published and played from the score. The Brazilian material is the language, not the costume.
Niemotko has a particular affinity for this repertoire. You can hear him in a very different Brazilian mood in our article on his performance of Palhaço by Egberto Gismonti in Sérgio Assad's arrangement — restraint where Bate-coxa has drive. Taken together, the two recordings show how wide the Brazilian guitar repertoire actually is, something our article on João Gilberto and the nylon-string guitar approaches from another direction.
Watch the Performance
Browse the whole repertoire in our overview of famous classical guitar pieces, or meet the players in our list of great classical guitarists.
