More Villa on the radio...

France Musiques is the name of the French National Radio's classical music network. Their website includes a number of pages of interest, beginning with an interesting biography that emphasizes Villa's French connection. For example, I didn't know that Albert Roussel helped Villa become a member, in 1923, of the Societe Internationale de Musique Contemporaine.

Speaking of contemporary music, on March 17th at 9:49 p.m. Paris time, you can hear tenor Marcel Quillevere, pianist Noel Lee and the Ensemble Erwartung, under the direction of Bernard Desgraupes, performing the following Miniaturas:
. Viola
. Cromo no2
. Cromo no3
. Sino da aldeia
. Japonesas
. Sonho
This is from a recently-released Opus 111 disc that I really must purchase soon.

On March 19th at 7:05 p.m., you can hear the Violoncelles de l'Orchestre du Gurzenich de Cologne perform Bachianas Brasileiras no. 1. This is apparently from a 1976 recording - I've never heard this particular version.

Meanwhile, on March 29th, the well-known Michael Tilson Thomas recording of Bachianas Brasileiras no. 4 is featured at 7:05 p.m. You can hear France Musiques here on the Internet.

Before I finish this last post of the evening, I must apologize for a couple of things. The first is the number of posts you might be receiving in your email from the topica.com subscription list. Each time I make a slight change in my posts, it's generating a new email posting. I'll have to be more careful about catching typos before I publish each posting to the blog.

Secondly, a number of people have asked about non-html posts, since some email clients can't handle anything but plain text. Unfortunately, I haven't come up with a way to fix this - the only thing to do right now is to delete the email posting and visit The Villa-Lobos Magazine on the web at http://villa-lobos.blogspot.com, where you can see everything properly formatted. By the way, if you'd like to receive emails of each new posting, put your email address in the box on the left-hand side of this website.

Villa on the BBC

The Brazilian Service of the BBC recently celebrated its 65th birthday, as I learned from the Google translation from this Portuguese-language page on BBCBrazil.com.

The quick history includes a picture (above) of Villa-Lobos being interviewed in 1949 by William Tate.

Elsewhere on the BBC website, I came across an excellent feature called "Brazil Inside Out", in which journalist Alex Bellos reports on his visit to five Brazilian regions. I really enjoyed the Brazilian-themed computer wallpapers and the page of Brazilian links (including one to the Heitor Villa-Lobos Website, though it has the older, more awkward URL of http://www.rdpl.red-deer.ab.ca/villa, rather than the newer, streamlined http://www.rdpl.org/villa).

While in Manaus, in the Amazonian rain-forest, Bellos attends a classical music concert in the great Teatro Amazonas, and interviews soprano Tais Bandeira, who has this to say about Bachianas Brasileiras no. 5:

"The music of this aria is typically Brazilian. But, at the same time, it manages to get to the heart of every person.
This song seems to come from the earth, a song of nostalgia."

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM - March 2004

Here are Villa-Lobos performances upcoming on Cultura FM from Sao Paulo. Listen here on the Internet. Times are local Sao Paulo times, one hour ahead of EST.

Paul Moura plays the soprano saxophone in the Fantasia for saxophone on Thursday, March 18, at 11:00 a.m.

A week later, on March 25th at the same time, Enrique Arturo Diemecke conducts the Royal Philharmonic in the second Bachianas Brasileiras. The same program includes some interesting works by the next generation of Brazilian composers: Guerra Peixe, Guarnieri and Gilberto Mendes.