Étude No. 1 (Villa-Lobos)

Heitor Villa-Lobos's Étude No. 1, part of his 12 Studies for Guitar, was published in Paris, 1929. The piece is in E minor and is marked at an Allegro non troppo tempo. This tempo can sometimes be misinterpreted as a fast, lively tempo, but its correct definition is "Fast, but not too fast." Étude No. 1 focuses on right hand technique but includes challenging left hand chord patterns. The same right hand pattern is used through most of the piece while the left hand moves from open positions to capoed positions up the neck. In the 24th measure, there is a break from the right hand pattern and a descending line leads back into the fixed pattern we see mostly throughout the étude. Its measure 32, 3 bars from the end, harmonics are used to lead into the fermata held on an E. In a Lento tempo, there is a sweep into an A9 chord and in the last bar there is a sweep into an E chord with a B harmonic attached.