Radamés Gnattali String Quartet plays Villa-Lobos on DVD/Blu Ray

The Radamés Gnattali String Quartet play the first movement of Villa-Lobos's great 7th String Quartet. The Quartet will be releasing the first ever DVD/Blu Ray set of all of the 17 String Quartets, at 8pm on March 5th (Villa's birthday) in the Museu Villa-Lobos in Rio de Janeiro. The discs are released on the Visom Digital label and will be distributed by Biscoito Fino.

Rheingau Music Festival

I love it when I can bring my love of wine into my Villa-Lobos web work. I've always been a huge fan of German wine. Riesling is one of the world's greatest grapes, and the complicated universe of the German wine label really intrigues me.

Which brings me to the 2012 Rheingau Musik Festival, to be held from the 23rd of June to the 14th of December, in the home of some of Germany's finest wines. There are two concerts of special interest to Villa-Lobos fans:

• on August 5th, the Romero family of guitarists will play music by Villa-Lobos, Chapi, Granados, & Pepi Romero, in the Fürst-von-Metternich-Saal of Schloss Johannisberg 
• the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo (OSESP) travels to Germany for a concert on August 18th in Kurhaus Wiesbaden. Marin Alsop conducts, and Nelson Freire will play Mômoprécoce for piano and orchestra 

Another Brazilian concert of note: classical & jazz pianist Eliane Elias will present her jazz quartet at a concert on August 1st, in the Kurpark, Bad Homburg. I love Elias's jazz - especially when she plays music by Tom Jobim - but she's also an accomplished classical pianist. Check out her EMI album On the Classical Side, which includes a number of works by her country-man Villa-Lobos.

It occurs to me that the great sweet wines of Germany have some similarities with the music of Villa-Lobos. They're both "over-ripe" in a technical sense, but they can both show power and delicacy at the same time. I have a bottle of 1976 Oppenheimer Sackträger Gewürztraminer Trockenbeerenauslese made by Hajo Guntrum in my cellar that I plan to drink soon. When I open it, I think I'll play this music by Heitor Villa-Lobos: