String Quartet 17 from the ABM

From the superb Quarteto Radamés Gnattali, Villa's final string quartet, filmed at a 70 anniversary concert in 2015 at the Academia Brasileira de Música. Sometimes people talk about a reduction in quality in Villa-Lobos's final years, but this work is a powerful counter-argument. It's a fitting end to the great series (only sketches of the 18th quartet survive). Here's a sad note: the composer gave the score to the violinist Mariuccia Iacovino of the Budapest Quartet in Paris, but he died in Rio de Janeiro before he heard of the October 16, 1959 premiere at the Library of Congress.

Thanks to Juan L. Restrepo for letting me know about this. As Juan says, it's great to see a quartet on YouTube that's not no. 1 or no. 5 (as fun as both of those pieces are!)

Villa-Lobos at MIMO 2009

The Mostra Internacional de Música em Olinda (MIMO) is an annual festival in Olinda, Pernambuco, in the North East region of Brazil. This year's festival includes a number of concerts with music by Villa-Lobos, including concerts with the Quarteto Radamés Gnattali and the Orquestra Sinfônica de Barra Mansa.

Educational Concerts with the Quarteto Radamés Gnattali

The Quarteto Radamés Gnattali will be embarking on a major tour of three Brazilian provinces - Acre in the far west, Mato Grosso in the central part of the country, and Piauí in the north-east. They'll be performing 15 educational concerts in some fairly small towns & cities, all based on arrangements of Villa-Lobos's Guia Pratico.

The model for this kind of tour is the 1931 Excursão Artistica Villa-Lobos, in which Villa and a group of musician friends (including Souza Lima, Nair Duarte and Antonieta Rudge) performed 54 concerts in the back woods of the states of São Paulo, Minas e Paraná. Things have changed a bit since 1931; I'm hoping that some YouTube videos will be posted during the 2009 tour.

Besides this huge undertaking, the Quarteto RG will also be performing all 17 Villa-Lobos string quartets at the Museu Villa-Lobos, on Aug. 12 & 13, 20 & 21, and 27 & 28. The group is taking the Ano Villa-Lobos seriously!

Thanks to Audições Brasileiras for this information.