Rudepoêma is Villa-Lobos' most extended work for solo piano, begun while he was working in Brazilian movie houses, but finished after he had gone to study composition in Paris. He intended it to be a musical portrait of Artur Rubinstein, whom he had met in the late 1910s. Rubinstein is said to have been taken aback when he learned this, as the piece is often described as primitive, and most of it is marked with the performance direction Tres sauvage. However, it is a high-energy, virtuosic work well suited to Rubinstein's skills, and he did perform it often. The nearly 20-minute work shows the influence of the composers Villa-Lobos studied and met while in Paris, being particularly reminiscent of Milhaud's and Stravinsky's styles. Besides the virtuosic technical demands made on the performer, Rudepoêma includes polytonalities and polyrhythms in its complexities and much less of the Brazilian folk music characteristics that are found in most of Villa-Lobos' compositions, although there are glimpses of Brazilian dance rhythms and Amerindian melodic figures. The sectional, quasi-sonata form composition begins with a double exposition. The first subject is a four-note motive, simply played with a tango-like sway, but which quickly explodes into thicker textures and a more wild nature. This is followed by a six-note idea and one built of rapidly repeated notes that combine to form the second subject, in a slightly calmer demeanor. The so-called development section makes up the majority of the composition, wherein the two subjects are transfigured and transmuted in various tempos, keys, and rhythms, using such devices as ostinato, pedal points, and huge chords played with the fist in the process. The latter part of the development is more measured and deliberate, more hypnotic than the intense, vivid, rapidly changing scherzo-like first part. Something of a recapitulation is presented before a coda, in which the pianist is required to cross hands, scrambling down the whole keyboard and concluding with four fist-pounded chords.

© All Music Guide