Coffee with Villa

 "Villa-Lobos com copinho de café"- Villa has some coffee at the interval of a Philadelphia Orchestra concert at Carnegie Hall, January 1955.

Here's a wonderful photo of the composer conducting a rehearsal of the Philadelphia Orchestra. I wish I knew who took these great shots; they're from the Museu Villa-Lobos photo archive.

There's a fabulous review of the Carnegie Hall concert, which included the premieres of the 8th Symphony and the Harp Concerto, in the January 31, 1955 issue of Time. The story is entitled "Tropical Thunderstorm".

This photo is also from the interval at Carnegie Hall, on January 15, 1955. Villa with soloist Nicanor Zabaleta & his special friend Andres Segovia. Mindinha has her arms around both Segovia & her husband. Also in the photo are conductor and composer Walter Burle Marx, pianist Bernardo Segall, conductor Arthur Cohn, and two Philadelphia Orchestra harpists, Carlos Salzedo and Edna Phillips.

It's perhaps not surprising that the Harp Concerto, commissioned by Zabaleta in 1953, hasn't stayed in the repertoire. There are many lovely passages in the score, but it doesn't really hold together. As Villa said, though, "Better that people should hear bad Villa-Lobos than good somebody else."

The new motto of The Villa-Lobos Magazine!