Heitor Villa-Lobos plays the piano in Ernesto Dodds' Studio de Canto y Arte, Rua Maipu 994, Buenos Aires. This photo, from the great archive of the Museu Villa-Lobos, was taken on May 19, 1935. Villa-Lobos was in Buenos Aires for the first staging of his ballet Uirapuru, at the Teatro Colon. The composer was also in the Argentine capital the previous year, when he conducted three concerts, including Bach's B Minor Mass.
Ernesto Dodds was an operatic baritone; I'm not sure what his connection to Villa-Lobos was. Perhaps Dodds was one of the soloists in that B Minor Mass performance. This photo of the singer is from 1931.
Another shot from Villa's piano recital in Buenos Aires. I love the Beethoven bust, and the rapt audience in the mirror.
Villa looks very much the dashing concert pianist here, but he was hardly a virtuoso at the keyboard. I expect he was playing some of his own works, perhaps including a recent piece like Valsa da Dor, from 1932.
No comments:
Post a Comment