At the age of ten José Vianna da Motta composed the Singela, Polka-mazurka op. 15 for flute and piano in B flat major which is classed with his childhood works written between 1873 and 1883. There is also a version of this work in A flat major written for solo piano to which Vianna da Motta has given the opus number 17. However, it is not certain that the version for solo piano (op. 17) was made after the version for flute and piano (op. 15) since the manuscript cover of the opus 15 indicates that the work was "composed for piano and arranged for piano and flute" (translated from Portuguese).
To date, the Singela, Polka-mazurka op. 15 manuscript presents a lacuna due to the loss of part of a piece of paper on which Vianna da Motta had written bars 7 and 8. The manuscript also contains inaccuracies: the repeat signs of sections that Vianna da Motta wanted to be repeated were only written at the end of those sections. Regarding section a, Vianna da Motta did not write bar 17, the anacrusis of which allows one to resume the theme in a musically coherent way. Inspired by the solo piano version of this work, we reconstructed the lost bars and wrote the missing bar. Finally, in light of the structure of the solo piano version, we considered that the repeat sign that Vianna da Motta wrote at the end of section a'' was a mistake.
Below, a structural analysis of the Singela, Polka-mazurka op. 15 which highlights the symmetrical rondo form (abacaba).
1-8
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9-18
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19-34
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35-43
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44-52
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53-60
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61-76
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77-83
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84-94
|
|
a
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b
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a'
|
c
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a''
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b'
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a'''
|
|
B♭: I
|
V
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I
|
IV
|
I
|
V
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I
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We can notice that the themes that repeat (a and b) evolve using variation techniques. It must also be pointed out that the notes of the main theme in 3/4 time (b. 9+) come from the theme of the introduction in 2/4 time (b. 1-8), and the rhythm is thus the element that most distinguishes them. This composition technique is also used by Vianna da Motta in other childhood works, such as A Infância, Polka op. 24 or As Férias, Waltz op. 14.
João Costa Ferreira