Joseph Battista and the Cirandas

From the Museu Villa-Lobos photo archive, Heitor Villa-Lobos in his Rio apartment with American pianist Joseph Battista, July 7, 1952. Battista would have been preparing for his recording of the Cirandas, released in 1953. The Philadelphia-born pianist has a small discography; he was only 50 when he died, in 1968.

Villa-Lobos wrote the Cirandas in 1926, using as his raw material folk melodies, within the form of the ciranda round dance that had become popular with Brazilian children. The cycle is an important sign-post in the composer's lifelong interest in the world of the child. The folkloric stream in his music, always there throughout his life, comes to the surface here. It was to stay there for much of the next decades, as Villa-Lobos worked on his Guia Prâtico anthology of folk-music.