Home movies

Another Globo Video: This five-minute video includes amazing 8mm home movie footage of Villa-Lobos playing the piano and the guitar, conducting, playing pool, hanging out with friends and colleagues, and walking arm and arm with Mindinha on the deck of an ocean liner. He's nearly always smiling, and pretty much always has a cigar in his mouth or hand.

Again, the video may take a while to load. The soundtrack is the final movement of Bachianas Brasileiras #4, Danza (Miudinho). Though the caption of the video is "Villa-Lobos toca piano", I'm not sure if that's the composer playing the piece or not.

I love the footage of Villa-Lobos playing the guitar for his aged mother while Mindinha knits in the background. What memories the music must have for Noemia Villa-Lobos!

His relationship with his mother, a vital woman in her eighties, according to Villa-Lobos, is almost that of a young boy. She watches all his activities. Although she is a gentle old lady, he is still in awe of her and would not like ever to incur her displeasure. He sent her letters and telegrams and phoned her at Christmas, always very anxious to hear from her, all through his sojourn in the United States. He told me that she was very upset about his taking a plane for his trip and was adamant in her demand to go with him to the airport. 'I shall not be surprised,' he added, 'if she is there when I return.'

- from Henri Leiser's article "Villa-Lobos: Ambassador of Music", Musical Courier, May 1, 1945, p. 7

Villa's mother died in 1946, soon after Leiser's article was published.