Mandu Çarará

The Bierce Library at the University of Akron in Ohio holds the collections of Walter Burle Marx, the composer, conductor and close friend of Villa-Lobos. Thanks to librarian David Procházka for this scan of the first page of the score.

You can watch an excellent performance of this rare "secular cantata" at YouTube. Roberto Tibiriçá conducts the Sinfónica de la Juventud Venezolana "Simón Bolívar", the Sistema Nacional de Coros Sinfonicos (Zulia, Tachira, Merida y Metropolitano), and the Niños Cantores del Nucleo Los Teques, in a concert from Caracas from last January 30th.

Obscure Villa on Antena 2

I've posted before on the great Villa-Lobos radio series by Gilda Oswaldo Cruz on Portugal's Antena 2 radio. There's more information here, on the Villa-Lobos Website. There are now 10 one-hour programs in wma format that you can listen to using your handy Windows Music Player. They're great to listen to, even if you have no Portuguese.

There are some extremely rare works included in these programs. A couple of the highlights:

• Mandu-Çarará, a cantata from 1940. This is close to the top of my list of works I'd like to see on CD.
• Nonetto. This is from the Gil Jardem CD/DVD I've posted about already.

I also read recently (in a blog posting I've misplaced) that the series will be re-broadcast on Radio MEC in Brazil. When I track this information down I'll post it here.