Marijn Simons and the Fantasia de movimentos mixtos

While I was updating the page on the Fantasia de movimentos mixtos on the Villa-Lobos Website, I came across this review of Dutch violinist Marijn Simons' concert with the Long Beach Symphony, back in 2002:

But it was the Long Beach Symphony that invited Simons to return to the Southland, and he appeared as soloist in a Villa-Lobos violin concerto titled "Fantasia de Movimentos Mixtos" (Fantasy of Mixed Movements) Saturday night at the Terrace Theater. Once again, Simons played quirky music to which he had a personal connection, and once again he proved irresistible.

Strangely enough, there was no mention in the program or even by music director Enrique Arturo Diemecke in his concert preview discussion that Villa-Lobos' concerto from 1941 was receiving its U.S. premiere. It had been lost for more than half a century and was only recently found by Simons' father at the bottom of a barrel in an Amsterdam secondhand music shop.

This is from an LA Times review by Mark Swed, April 17, 2002 (from Simons' website). It would be great if Simons would record this piece.

Stephen Kelly Plays Heitor Villa-Lobos

Here's an excellent performance of one of my favourite piano pieces: Branquinha (A Boneca de Louça) - Little White Doll (The Porcelain Doll), from the first book of Prole do Bebê. It's by Santa Barbara-based pianist Stephen Kelly:

Thanks to Patrick at visualmyth for the link.

30,000 Kids

Thirty thousand Rio school children sing under the direction of Villa-Lobos in celebration of Brazilian Independence Day [September 7th]. The band is in the right foreground.

The picture is from "South American Music Pilgrimage. V. Brazil", John W. Beattie and Louis Woodson Curtis, Music Educators Journal, Vol. 28, No. 6 (May - Jun., 1942), pp. 16-22

The Making of Brazilian Soul

Marcelo Bratke & Camerata Vale Música in Concert - from the "making of" feature on the Brazilian Soul DVD. Auditório Ibirapuera São Paulo 2008. There's more concert video from this tour on YouTube here.

Villa-Lobos disc at the Latin Grammys

This morning the new Star Track Studio disc by clarinettist Edith Luiz and pianist Javier Vinasco was nominated for a Latin Grammy Award for Best Tango Album.


The disc includes an arrangement of Bachianas Brasileiras #4. You can order the CD from Amazon.com. Though it's presently out of stock, I'm sure this nomination will get things moving again. U.S. residents can download the complete disc or individual tracks in MP3 format:

Go Vols!

I don't get a chance to talk NCAA football much ever here. But every once in a while...

Villa-Lobos is featured before the big Vols-Blazers (U Tennessee-Knoxville vs. U Alabama-Birmingham) game this weekend:

BALDWIN, CELLO STUDIO OPEN UT PRE-GAME SHOWCASE

WHAT: Wesley Baldwin, associate professor of the Cello Studio in the School of Music, opens the Pre-Game Faculty Showcase at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with "Brazilian-Bach Fusion: The Music of Villa-Lobos." Baldwin will talk about the cello, and the UT Cello Studio will play one of the most well-known pieces ever written for a group of cellos, the "Bachianas Brazilieras No. 1" by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos.

WHO: Students, faculty, staff, all football fans.

WHEN: 10:30 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 13, before UT's game against Alabama-Birmingham.

Another article, from the Knoxville News Sentinel, explains the concept behind this project. It's interesting that Villa-Lobos is the subject of this gridiron demonstration, considering his antipathy towards team sports:

Villa-Lobos found that his concerts were often poorly attended because of the public's preference for soccer, this led him to denounce the sport violently. One of his phrases became famous: "Soccer causes human intelligence to detour from the head to the feet!" The Brazilian soccer fans responded vigorously to the challenge. In one town they bombarded the touring musicians with rotten eggs, and the threat of similar treatment caused the group to leave another town in the early morning hours.


David E. Vassberg, "Villa-Lobos as Pedagogue: Music in the Service of the State," Journal of Research in Music Education, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Autumn, 1975), p. 165

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.

BB#5 in Waldbühne

I remember when I posted the open-air concert in Waldbühne on the Villa-Lobos Website, wishing that I could attend.

This is the next best thing, in this YouTube world:

Gustavo Dudamel conducts the amazing cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic. Ana María Martínez sings beautifully.

The second movement of the piece is here.

The Adaskin Trio in Lexington

In a concert next week in Lexington KY, the Canadian chamber music ensemble the Adaskin String Trio will be playing the great String Trio of Villa-Lobos. I love this quote from the Charleston Gazette on their website:

"Normally, when three Canadians play a Czech on a Saturday night in Charleston (WV), it means you're watching a National Hockey League game on television. The Canadian trio gave a brilliant performance of the piece (Martinu's String Trio)."

The group is named for Canadian composer Murray Adaskin (1906-2002), whose music sometimes seems a bit like a Great White North version of some of Villa-Lobos's. They both share an interest in folk music and a tendency towards neo-classicism. There are some samples of Adaskin's music here, on the Canadian Music Centre website.

By the way, I consider Villa's String Trio as one of his strongest chamber music pieces, and one of the masterpieces of his late period.

Sonia Rubinsky's volume 7

It's great to see this posting on the Naxos.com website. Looks like the last volume of Sonia Rubinsky's great series of the complete Villa-Lobos music is coming to an end.

VILLA-LOBOS, H.: Piano Music, Vol. 7 (Rubinsky) - Amazonas / Historias da Carochinha / Valsa Scherzo 8.570503 Amazonas (version for piano) • 5 Preludes (arr. J.V. Brandao for piano) • Bachianas brasileiras No. 2, `O trenzinho do Caipira`: III. Dansa, `Lembrancas do Sertao` (arr. for piano) • Valsa Scherzo • Bailado infernal • Feijoada sem perigo • Historias da Carochinha • Cancoes de Cordialidade • Cortejo Nupcial • Valsa Lenta (fragment)

And what an end it is: besides the bits and pieces she's missed up until now, there are some really interesting arrangements for piano. I see that the piano version of Amazonas is listed in Villa-Lobos, Su Obra, 1972, a transcription made (by the composer?) in 1932. I'm especially looking forward to the Brandao transcription of the Guitar Preludes. I suspect Rubinsky will be an especially good advocate for playing these pieces - as characteristic they are on the guitar - on the piano.

Villa-Lobos Works at the HVL Website

I've been managing the Heitor Villa-Lobos Website, on and off, for more than 12 years. It started (as some html files on my Library's website) as a fooling-around-with-the web kind of thing, but has picked up speed since then.

One of the things I've been wanting to do over the years is to build a robust back-end database to drive the site. Now that we've been up and running on Drupal for a few years (thanks Cory!) I've had a chance to begin building those databases.

The first is the so-called Upcoming Villa-Lobos Concerts. "So-called" because the records of tonight's concerts in New York, and next week's in Sao Paulo, and next month's in Paris, became a valuable archive of important performances after a few years. So you can see that on Saturday, September 13, 2008, Robert Bonfiglio is in Hong Kong playing the Harmonica Concerto, and that Clemens Völker is playing VL guitar works in Hamburg. But you can also see details of an important concert by the Spectra Ensemble in Gent, Belgium, from January 1999. Altogether there are a couple thousand records of concerts, mainly from 1999 to 2009.

The power of the relational database allows you to slice this a number of useful ways: you can search by work (and see the 21 performances of Rudepoema, for example). You can also look at this information by location (and kick yourself for not being in Wagga Wagga, Australia, for this interesting concert back in June 2008).

The reason I'm posting about Drupal databases today, though, is to point out that I've started a couple of new databases. One aims to someday be a more-or-less complete listing of important Villa-Lobos recordings. So far I've added 25 - only five or six hundred to go.

The latest is the Big Kahuna: a list of all the works of Villa-Lobos. There are 25 so far, but some are just stubs. There's considerable hyperbole about how prolific Villa-Lobos was. A complete list won't be over 2,000. I'll feel good about my list when it's over three or four hundred, and it will be approaching completion well before a thousand.

I'll let you know when I'm done....

September 3, 2008: no, I'm not done yet. But there are 50-60 records in the database now, and I've categorized them as well.

September 9, 2008: and a new list of works by date.

December 8, 2008: More than 270 works so far, and the law of Diminishing Returns kicks in. I now have copies of Appleby's 1988 Bio-Bibliography (source of the W. numbers for Villa-Lobos's works), and the 1989 edition of Villa-Lobos: Sua Obra (I had been making do with the 1972 version all this time! Imagine!)

By the way, I would add something to the Wikipedia article on the L of DR, but it just doesn't seem worthwhile...

Are we there yet?

New CD re-issue from Naxos

Naxos Historical is doing a fine job of re-issuing classic Villa-Lobos recordings from the LP era on CD. When copyright restrictions don't allow them to package the music on CD, you may still be able to listen to the music streamed on the web on the Naxos Music Library. That's the situation in this latest case, which happens to come as an answer to a recent prayer of mine.

It's not easy to find a recording of the third violin sonata. Written in 1920, when Villa was entering the most innovative years of his composing career, the third sonata is for some reason played much less than the first two sonatas, written in 1913 and 1914. I show four performances of #1 and three of #2, in my database of works in concert (mainly from 1999 to the present). But there are none for #3.

So it's nice to see the new Naxos Historical 9.80702 up on the Naxos Music Library, and great to hear this angular, muscular piece again. I haven't been able to track down the original LP on the web, but I have learned a bit about the violinist Ricardo Odnoposoff (1914-2004). This page about the virtuoso from Buenos Aires on the Doremi records website shows that the performance comes from 1952, when pianist Leonid Hambro and Odnoposoff recorded the Debussy and Villa Violin Sonatas in question. The Doremi Legendary Treasures discs detailed on this page are your best bet to hear the Villa-Lobos sonata if you live in the U.S.A., since NML won't show this disc from American computers. Otherwise, you'll need to haunt eBay, where a variety of Villa-Lobos LPs regularly turn up.

Summer Festival at the Huntington Library

In this video, Southwest Chamber Music's Artistic Director Jeff von der Schmidt talks about two California concerts coming up this weekend, which will feature Villa-Lobos's Choros #02 and BB#6.

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: September 2008

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.

September 2, 2008
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi:
Franz SCHUBERT - Oito variações sobre um tema original em lá bemol maior Op.35 D. 813. Daniel Barenboim e Radu Lupu (piano). / Philippe VERDELOT - Ultimi miei suspiri. Doron Sherwin (corneta). Andrea Marcon (orgão). / Joseph HAYDN - Octeto em lá Hob X:3. Ensemble Baroque de Limoges. Reg.: Christophe Coin. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - "Prelúdio" da Bachianas Brasileiras No.4. Acariocamerata. Reg.: Caio Cezar.

September 6, 2008
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
VILLA-LOBOS - Choros no. 11 para piano e orquestra. Cristina Ortiz (piano). Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. Dir.: John Neschling.

September 10, 2008
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Carnaval das Crianças. Rosiane Lemos (piano). / Johann Sebastian BACH - Concerto para violino BWV 1041. Vladimir Spivakov (violino). Moscow Virtuosi. / Georg Friedrich HANDEL - Concerto Grosso em lá menor Op.6 No.4. New Leipzig Bach Collegium Musicum. Reg.: Max Pommer.

September 22, 2008
22:00 SALA DE CONCERTO:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Floresta do Amazonas. Renée Fleming (soprano). Coro do Instituto de Física e Engenharia de Moscou. Orquestra Sinfônica da Rádio de Moscou. Reg.: Alfred Heller. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Sinfonia n° 4 - Vitória. Orquestra Sinfônica da Rádio de Stuttgart. Reg.: Carl St. Clair. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - New York Skyline Melody. Orquestra Sinfônica da Rádio de Stuttgart. Reg.: Carl St. Clair.

September 30, 2008
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi:
Johannes BRAHMS - Sonata Op.120 No.1 em fá menor. Emmanuel Pahud (flauta). Yefim Bronfman (piano). / Henrique OSWALD - Três Estudos. Marina Brandão (piano). / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Élégie. Orquestra Sinfônica do Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro. Reg.: Silvio Barbato.

Vom Parnass Nach Amazonien

Marsalis Brasilianos isn't the only major Villa-Lobos concert tour coming this fall. The German-Ecuadorian Pianist Boris Cepeda will be performing Villa's great Rudepoema in four German cities in October 2008:

October 2: Munich
October 12: Hamburg
October 17: Bremen
October 20: Berlin

UPDATE (August 7/08)
You can add a date to the tour, October 21 in London. This is a real coincidence, since I've just posted about concerts in special places. Boris will be playing Rudepoema at Leighton House in Kensington. See this post at Tumbling Villa-Lobos.

Cepeda's website is really informative. Besides Rudepoema (of course), I'm interested in the Ecuadorian music he plays. His CD of post-romantic music includes music by Reger, Szymanowski, and Liszt, along with pieces by Jose Ignacio Canelos (1898-1957) and Gerardo Guevara. You can buy the CD at Amazon.com:



In the meantime, you can hear Canelos' Intermezzo Inca at Cepeda's Myspace.com page.

You can experience Cepeda's playing at YouTube.com - there are lots of video clips there. Let's hope he adds some Rudepoema clips, or even includes it on a future CD.

Marsalis Brasilianos Update

The Marsalis Brasilianos tour information is now up on Branford Marsalis's website. There are many more concerts in the series than I had come across, one-by-one on the web. These are hard-working musicians!

The tour begins on October 2nd, 2008, in Eugene OR, at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts, and winds up November 9th, 2008, at the Stephens Center for the Performing Arts in Birmingham AL. In between there are another 25 concerts, from one end of the country to the other.

Read more about the series at my original Marsalis Brasilianos post.

Musique en Brionnais 2008

When I'm travelling, I love to combine a concert with a visit to a special place. For example, I really enjoyed a performance of the Brahms Requiem at St. Paul's Cathedral the last time I was in London. Here's a suggestion for travelers in France in early August: a concert at L'église de Bois-Sainte-Marie, a beautiful Romanesque church in Burgundy. This is part of the festival Musique en Brionnais 2008.

A chamber music concert on August 2nd will include the "Duo pour violoncelle et piano" of Villa-Lobos with pianist Juliana Steinbach and cellist Guillaume Martigné. I'm not sure exactly which piece that might be. The standard reference work Villa-Lobos Sua Obra (1972) lists a number of miscellaneous works for cello & piano, besides the "pequena sonata" from 1913 and the two sonatas from 1915.

Here's a photo of the church's interior by Jean-Pierre Gobillot (This photo is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, 2007.)

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: August 2008

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.

August 1, 2008
06:00 A ESCRITA DE CÂMARA - Solistas e pequenas formações: Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Concerto para violão e pequena orquestra. Orquestra de Câmara Brasileira. Dir. Bernado Bessler. Turíbio Santos (violão). Bachianas Brasileira n° 9. Orquestra de cordas. Fantasia para saxofone e orquestra. Orquestra de câmara Brasileira. Paulo Moura (saxofone). Ciranda das sete notas. Orquestra de câmara Brasileira. Noel Devos (fagote)

August 2, 2008
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música: VILLA-LOBOS - Momoprecoce - Fantasia para piano e orquestra. Cristina Ortiz (piano). Orquestra Nova Filarmonia. Dir.: Vladimir Ashkenazy. / A prole do bebê no. 1. Cristina Ortiz (piano).

13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leói: Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - "Ária (cantilena)" da Bachianas Brasileiras No.5. Frank Morelli (fagote). Benjamin Verdery (violão). / Frédéric CHOPIN - Sonata para piano No.3 em si bemol Op.58. Yundi Li (piano). / Jean-Phillipe RAMEAU - "Laudate Dominum" do Grande Moteto In Convertendo. Suzanne Gari (soprano). La Chapelle Royale. Reg.: Philippe Herreweghe.

August 4, 2008
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi: Arthur HONEGGER - Poema Sinfônico "Pastorale d'été". Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Reg.: Hermann Scherchen. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Suíte popular brasileira. Sérgio Assad e Odair Assad (violão). / Ignaz MOSCHELES - Bonbonnière musicale. Ivan Klánský (piano).

August 6, 2008
15:00 TARDE CULTURA - Música e Notícia com Fabio Malavoglia: Entre outras obras, as Bachianas Brasileiras n° 5 de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS, a Suíte "Mamãe Gansa" de Maurice RAVEL e o Quinteto para clarineta e cordas op. 34 de Carl Maria von WEBER.

August 9, 2008
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música: CAMARGO GUARNIERI - Choro para clarinete e orquestra. Sérgio Burgani (clarinete). Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. Dir.: John Neschling. / Dança brasileira/ Dança negra. Yo-Yo MA (violoncelo). Kathhryn Stott (piano). (aquele disco) VILLA-LOBOS - Fantasia Concertante para piano, clarinete e violoncelo. Pablo Zinger (piano). Paquito D Rivera (clarinete). Gustavo Costa (violoncelo). / PIXINGUINHA - Carinhoso. Yo-Yo MA (violoncelo). Paquito D'RIvera (clarinete). Romero Lumambo (violão) Cyro Baptista (percussão)

August 11, 2008
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi: Jean-Philippe RAMEAU - Cena 5 do balé "Anacreón". Agnès Mellon e Jill Feldman (soprano). René Schirrer (baritono). Les Arts Florissants. Reg.: William Christie. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Sinfonietta No.1. Orquestra Sinfônica da Rádio Stuttgart. Reg.: Carl St.Clair. / Antonio VIVALDI - Converto para viola d'amore, alaúde, cordas e baixo contínuo em ré menor R.540. Norbert Blum (viola d'amore). John Williams e Benjamin Verdery (violão). Orquestra de Câmara Franz Liszt. Reg.; János Rolla.

August 13, 2008
07:00 DESPERTE COM OS CLÁSSICOS: Pjotr Iyich TCHAIKOVSKY - Dumka (Cena Rústica Russa), op. 59. Lang Lang (piano)./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas Brasileiras n° 2. Orquestra Filarmônica Real Britânica. Reg.: Enrique Bátiz. / Jean SIBELIUS - O Cisne de Tuonela. Orquestra de Filadélfia. Reg.: Eugen Ormandy. / Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART - ária "Prigionier che fa ritorno, do oratório "Betulia Liberata", K. 118. Nathalie Stutzmann (contralto). Moscou Virtuosi. Dir.: Vladimir Spivakov. / Hekel TAVARES - Modinha, primeiro movimento do concerto para piano em formas brasileiras. Arnaldo Cohen (piano). Orquestra Sinfônica Petrobrás Pró-Música. Reg.: Roberto Tibiriçá.

August 15, 2008
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi. Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Prelúdios No. 1 a No.5. Sérgio Assad e Odair Assad (violão). / Gioachino ROSSINI - "Prélude Italien" e "Échantillon de blague mélodique sur les noires de la main droite". Marco Sollini (piano). / Giovanni Battista VITALI - Ciaccona em sol menor. Cléa Galhano (flauta). Vivian Montgomery (cravo).

August 18, 2008
12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO-DIA com o Maestro Walter Lourenção: Cristina Ortiz é a solista do concerto para piano n° 2 de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS.

August 21, 2008
22:00 SALA DE CONCERTO: Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Introdução ao Choros e Choro n° 1. Turíbio Santos (violão). Orquestra Sinfônica Rio. Reg.: Sílvio Barbato. / Leo BROUWER - Concerto para violão n° 5 - Helsinki. Timo Korhonen (violão). Orquestra Filarmônica Tampere. Reg.: Tuomas Ollila. / Astor PIAZZOLLA - Concerto duplo para bandoneon e violão. Orquestra Sinfônica de Montreal. Reg.: Charles Dutoit.

August 23, 2008
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música: Alexandre LEVY - Tango / Romance sem palavras. Clara Sverner (piano) / Luciano GALLET - Hieroglyfo/ Henrique OSWALD - Berceuse opus 14 n° 1. Belkiss Carneiro de Mendonça (piano) VILLA-LOBOS - Ibericabe. Sonia Rubinsky (piano). / Osvaldo LACERDA - Quarteto n° 1. Quarteto Camargo Guarnieri.

13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leói: Johann Sebastian BACH - Concerto para quatro cravos e orquestra BWV 1065. Quaternaglia. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Quarteto para cordas No.15. Cuarteto Latinoamericano. / Antonín DVORÁK - Tema e variações Op.36. Radoslav Kvapil (piano).

August 30, 2008
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música: CAMARGO GUARNIERI - Concerto para piano n° 1. Max Barros (piano). Orquestra Filarmônica de Varsóvia. Dir.: Thomas Conlin. /Hilda REIS - Valsa Fantasia. Tâmara Ujakova (piano) / Ronaldo MIRANDA - Estrela brilhante. Harlei Elbert (piano). / Alexandre BRASOLIM - Contradança / Carambola. Fernando Dissenha (trompete). Carlos Assis (piano). / VILLA-LOBOS - Suíte floral, op. 97. Anna Stella Schic (piano).

12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO DIA com o maestro Walter Lourenção: Fantasia para violoncelo e Orquestra de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS com Janos Starker e a Orquestra Sinfônica da Paraíba. Reg.: Eleazar de Carvalho.

Rio International Cello Encounter

The website of the Rio International Cello Encounter is now up. Villa's first instrument was the cello, and he featured the instrument in many of his greatest works - especially the first and fifth Bachianas Brasileiras. There are many Villa-Lobos works featured in the nearly 50 concerts during the event.

Joanna Brzezinska-Maurer plays Villa-Lobos

Pianist Joanna Brzezinska-Maurer's 2007 CD of Villa-Lobos piano music has been well-reviewed, and it's a disc I've enjoyed myself. It's nice to see that she's planning the release of a new CD this fall:

28-31 octobre, Lausanne Château Fallot
Enregistrement: CD -Villa-Lobos no.2
IV Bachianas Brasileiras, As Tres Marias, Trois Danses Africaines, Ciclo Brasileiro, Rudepoema

This well-filled disc hits some of the real high points of Villa's extraordinarily well-recorded piano music. I'm looking forward to it.

If you're going to be in Geneva earlier in October, you can hear all of this music live.

Carnaval and the Bossa Nova

I missed this NPR feature, from Performance Today, from 2005, on the Carnaval and the popular music of Brazil. Besides the Villa-Lobos piece played by pianist Luiz de Moura Castro and selections from the Obrigado Brasil project, you can listen to a quick rundown of important genres of Brazilian popular music: samba, choro, bossa nova, the music of Bahia, and capoeira.

Make sure you follow the link to the Performance Today page for Obrigado Brazil: Yo-Yo Ma's all-star Brazilian project. The Villa-Lobos piece is A Lenda do Caboclo, with Sergio & Odair Assad and Ma, but Villa's finger-prints are all over much of this music.

You can buy the original CD of Obrigado Brazil from Amazon.com:

Atterberg Symphonies

Kurt Atterberg was born in the same year (1887) as Villa-Lobos (he died 15 years after VL, in 1974.) The two composers share a knack for orchestration, and they could both write a beautiful tune. One other thing they share: the German record company cpo has recorded complete cycles of the Symphonies of each composer.

The nine symphonies of Atterberg are now available in a box set at an amazingly low price. Though he wrote lovely chamber music, and some very beautiful concertos, the symphonies represent the most important music of this composer. You can't say that about VL's symphonies, as interesting as some of them (#2, #6, #10) might be.



I'm hoping that cpo does a similar bundling job for the Carl St. Clair Stuttgart recordings of the Villa-Lobos symphonies. The broader exposure to this largely unknown music will help us unravel where they fit in Villa's musical output.

Nonetto CD released

I've been complaining for a long time about the lack of an easy-to-buy CD of the great chamber work from 1924, the Nonetto, subtitled "Impressao rapida de todo o Brasil". There's a interesting recent Brazilian CD "Villa-Lobos em Paris", conducted by Gil Jardem, but I haven't been able to get a copy here in the Red Deer bat-cave.

So I was excited to see that the famous Roger Wagner Chorale disc from the 1950s has finally been re-released on CD:



Villa-Lobos: Nonetto, for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Saxophone, Bassoon, Harp, Celesta, Battery, and Mixed Chorus; Quatuor, for Flute, Harp, Celesta, Alto Saxophone, and Women's Voices by The Roger Wagner Chorale and the Concert Arts Players, Roger Wagner, Villa-Lobos

Here's the blurb from the Amazon site:

"Precocious and full of wonderment, the Nonetto and Quatuor, written by Villa-Lobos in 1924 and 1921 respectively, are surely two of the unsung minor masterpieces of the early 20th Century. In its fusion of pagan rhythms and chanting with the brittle harmonies of the avant garde, Nonetto brings to mind Stravinsky's Les Noces and Prokofiev's Scythian Suite. Yet the piece is also characterised by a freewheeling playfulness more suggestive of jazz and folk music than the concert hall.This edition restores to print two historic performances of the Nonetto and Quatuor from 1941 and 1957 combining them with a set of exquisite Villa-Lobos guitar works performed by the great masters Andrés Segovia, Julian Bream and Laurindo Almeida."

This is great, but it under-states the importance of the Nonetto. I'd characterize the Nonetto as an unsung major masterpiece of the early 20th Century. The jury is still out on the Quatuor, but this disc will provide some welcome exposure.

So pre-order this disc - I highly recommend it.

I'll give the last word to Villa-Lobos, who gave was a big fan:

"Roger Wagner deserves all my admiration for his dedicated work...a notable achievement in technique and sound as well as perfect interpretation."

Rio Cello Encounter 2008

The Fourteenth Rio International Cello Encounter begins on August 9, 2008. This year the festival, which David Chew began in 1995, will include 58 concerts and recitals, with cellists, ensembles and orchestras from around the world. One that jumps out for me is I Musici de Montreal, an awesome group with an award-winning Latin American CD. The preliminary information for the I Musici concert is here.



Until the festival's website is up and running, there's some useful information at the excellent Rio website Carioca Forever.

The Healing Art of Music in London & Basingstoke

It's nice to see BB#5 included in two of the concerts that Boston's Longwood Symphony Orchestra performed in the UK this summer, as part of their Healing Art of Music series.

The Longwood Symphony Orchestra brings its unique blend of music and medicine from Boston for its first international "Healing Art of Music" tour, focusing on the care and treatment of patients with cancer. The concerts will raise funds for the new support centre at Barts for patients with cancer and for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

I've long been a fan of music therapy - using the power of music to enhance healing and wellness. There are lots of references in the Wikipedia article if you'd like to learn more. Also check out the Longwood SO's Healing Art of Music blog.

Marsalis Brasilianos

I'm going to re-post this, since there have been a couple of concerts added to the list. Thanks for the input, all - please feel free to comment on any of these posts! [In the past few days I've added the UConn and Newport News concerts. Talk about a punishing schedule!]

There's an exciting series of Villa-Lobos concerts coming in the fall of 2008 to concert halls across the U.S. According to the tour publicity,

Marsalis Brasilianos is a celebration of the music of Heitor Villa-Lobos, featuring Branford Marsalis and members of the Philarmonia Brasilera (Gil Jardim, Conductor). This fascinating new project commemorates the 50th Anniversary of the revered Brazilian composers death.

Bringing together Grammy Award-winning saxophonist Branford Marsalis with a Brazilian orchestra known for it's remarkable work with Villa-Lobos' music, the program is uniquely suited to Marsalis' mastery of both jazz and classical music, allowing the language of Villa-Lovos' compositions to truly shine.

Featured in the tour are three Villa-Lobos works: the Fantasia for Solo Saxophone, the (2nd) Suite for Strings, and Bachianas Brasileiras #5 (which I assume will feature Marsalis on soprano saxophone as the soloist). The project also includes two works by Darius Mihaud: La Creation du Monde, and Scaramouche.

Marsalis's official website doesn't feature this project yet, but I've been coming across information about individual concerts on the web. UPDATE: go here for the latest info on the tour.

Here's what I've found so far: an updated list:

October 2 - Eugene OR
October 3 - Seattle WA
October 5 - Stanford CA
October 6 - Modesto CA
October 8 - San Bernardino CA
October 9 - San Luis Obispo CA
October 10 - Los Angeles CA
October 11 - Orange County CA
October 13 - Santa Fe NM
October 14 - Albuquerque NM
October 16 - Lufkin TX
October 18 - Fayetteville AR
October 19 - Overland Park KS
October 20 - Conway AR
October 22 - Milwaukee WI
October 23 - Detroit MI
October 24 - Wheaton IL
October 25 - Minneapolis MN
October 26 - Winona MN
October 28 - Storrs CT
October 30 - Ithaca NY
November 1 - Bronx NY
November 2 - Stony Brook NY
November 5 - Newport News VA
November 6 - Durham NC
November 7 - Rockville MD
November 9 - Birmingham AL

By the way, the actual 50th anniversary of the death of Villa-Lobos is November 17, 2009.

Marsalis's arrangement of BB#5 for soprano saxophone is now a classic. One of the most successful of many, many similar projects, it's included in his album Romances for Saxophone. You can buy the CD:

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: July 2008

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.

July 2, 2008:
22:00 OSESP - Gravações Realizadas na Sala São Paulo:
VILLA-LOBOS - Alvorada na Floresta Tropical. / TCHAIKOVSKY - Concerto n° 1 para piano em si bemol menor, Op. 23. Olga Kern (piano). / BEETHOVEN - Sinfonia n° 3 em mi bemol maior, Op. 55 - Heróica. Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. Reg.: John Neschling.


July 7, 2008:
15:00 TARDE CULTURA - Música e Notícia com Fabio Malavoglia:
Entre outras obras, destaque para o Quinteto para sopros, op. 91 n° 3, de Antoine REICHA, a Sinfonia n° 11, de VILLA-LOBOS e o Quinteto para cordas em fá maior, de BRUCKNER.


July 8, 2008:
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi:
Frédéric CHOPIN - Scherzo nº 4 em mi maior Op. 54. Nikolai Demidenko (piano). / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Estudo nº 9. Joaquim Freire (violão). / Jean SIBELIUS - Serenata nº 2 em sol menor Op. 69b. Ida Haendel (violino). Orquestra Sinfônica de Bournemouth. Reg.: Paavo Berglund. / Clara SCHUMANN - "Romance: andante non troppo con grazia" do Concerto para piano e orquestra em lá menor Op. 7. Enrica Ciccarelli (piano). Orquestra Filarmônica de Montpellier Languedoc - Roussillon. Reg.: Friedemann Layer.


July 12, 2008:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Uirapuru. Orquestra Sinfônica da Paraíba. Dir.: Eleazar de Cravalho./ Lorenzo FERNANDEZ - Prelúdios do crepúsculo. Miguel Proença (piano).

13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leói:
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART - Sonata para piano KV. 333. Clara Sverner (piano). / Antonio VIVALDI - Concerto em ré maior RV. 121. I Musici. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - "Lento" do Quinteto instrumental para harpa trio de cordas e flauta. Grupo Instrumental de Paris.


July 13, 2008:
10:00 ENCONTRO COM O MAESTRO com João Mauricio Galindo:
O maestro Roberto Duarte e Villa-Lobos.


July 14, 2008:
21:00 ENCONTRO COM O MAESTRO com João Maurício Galindo: Reapresentação de Domingo: O maestro Roberto Duarte e Villa-Lobos


July 16, 2008:
12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO-DIA com o Maestro Walter Lourenção.
CHOPIN - As Folhas estão Caindo, das canções op. 74. Elisabeth Söderström (soprano). Vladimir Ashkenazy (piano). / MOLTER - Concerto n° 2 para trompete e cordas. Wynton Marsalis (trompete). Orquestra de Câmara Inglesa. Dir.: Raymond Leppard./ BERLIOZ - Abertura "O Carnaval Romano", op. 9. Orquestra Nacional Escocesa. Reg.: Sir Alexander Gibson. / MOZART - Concerto para violino n° 3 em sol maior, k. 216.FranK Peter Zimmermann (violino). Orquestra de Câmara de Wurttenburg. Dir.: Jörg Faerber. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Sinfonia "Ameríndia". Nmon Ford-Livene, Carlo Scibelli, Carla wood, sociedade Coral de Santa Bárbara, Coro de Câmara UCSB, o Donald Brinegar Singers e a Orquestra Sinfônica de Santa Bárbara. Regência de Gisèle- Bem-Dor.


July 23, 2008:
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi.
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Cinco prelúdios para violão. Narciso Yepes (violão). / Carl Maria Von WEBER - Introdução, Tema e Variações Op. Póstumo. Jon Manasse (clarinete). Samuel Sanders (piano). Quarteto de Cordas Manhattan. / John FIELD - Noturno No.4 em lá maior. Noel Lee (piano). / Jean SIBELIUS - "Allegretto" da Sinfonia No.2 em ré maior Op.43. Orquestra Philharmonia. Reg.: Vladimir Ashkenazy.

New Villa-Lobos Re-Issue

I was pleased to see Naxos beginning to look to historic recordings of Villa-Lobos music in their Classical Archives. The disc above, Joseph Battista's 1953 recording of the Cirandas for MGM, showed up today in the great Naxos Music Library. I'm looking forward to listening to this carefully in the near future.

I've seen the LP on eBay in the past, but never expected it to show up on CD. I know that Naxos has been praised for their restoration work, and I look forward to a relatively positive sonic experience when I get the CD. The pieces I've heard so far sound fine with my (library's) "Near CD" bitrate on NML.

Joseph Battista is an American pianist and scholar who was born in Philadelphia in 1918, and who died in 1968. There's a page on the Latin American Music Center's website about Battista and the Cirandas disc, and more about his life at this Joseph Battista Memorial Fund page.

It's nice to have this CD issued in time for the 40th Anniversary of Battista's untimely death.

A postscript: if you're not a Naxos Music Library subscriber, get on down to www.naxosmusiclibrary.com. Or ask your public library if they have a subscription for their library members to use. Every Villa-Lobos lover should have access to this great resource. Just in the past two weeks there have been four or five new VL CDs added.

Another postscript: the disc has shown up on the Naxos download site Classics Online. $3.99 will buy you the entire disc in 320 bits per second MP3 files - a real bargain!

Bachianas Brasileiras in Concert

I recently commented on how popular Bachianas Brasileiras #6 has become in live performance, based on my database of Villa-Lobos Concerts. How does it stack up against the other 8 in the series?

Here are the numbers:

• Bachianas Brasileiras #1 (23)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #2 (19)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #3 (12)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #4 (28)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #5 (67)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #6 (16)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #7 (6)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #8 (4)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #9 (24)

It's not a surprise that BB#5 is by far the most popular, and the above list probably under-estimates how often this piece is performed around the world. I don't always pick up every performance, especially in arrangements for voice and guitar (the composer's own, by the way), or for many other combinations of instruments.

BB#4 is in second place, partly because it's programmed as a solo piano work as well as an increasingly popular orchestral piece. Next is BB#9, which has recently become fashionable in its choral version as well as the version for strings. Cellists love BB#1, and there's a spill-over effect, since if you have 8 cellists performing BB#5, you might want to keep them busy in the same concert. BB#2 has the famous "Little Train" movement, so it's next, at 19 performances.

BB#6 follows that work; bassoonists love it. BB#3 used to be the rarest in performance, but it's been taken up by Sonia Rubinsky and others, and so it actually has become the most commonly performed VL work for piano and orchestra. #7 and #8 round out the list. I'm surprised by the relative rarity of #7, which I think is one of Villa's best orchestral works. Not so much with #8, though if you listen closely to a really good performance, it has the merits of many less-often-performed musical works in famous series (much like Beethoven's 8th Symphony).

There it is; Villa's signature series, from the more-or-less comprehensive list of world-wide concerts from 1999-2009.

---

And speaking of the Bachianas Brasileiras series, I missed this programme when it was on BBC Radio 3 a year ago, but here are the recommendations for these works from the CD Review programme of June 30, 2007:

Building a Library Recommendations

VILLA-LOBOS Bachianas Brasileiras



Reviewer: Catherine Bott

Nos. 1, 2, 5 & 9:
Victoria de los Angeles (soprano), French Radio National Orchestra, Heitor Villa-Lobos (conductor)
(recorded 1956-8)
EMI CLASSICS 5669122 (CD, mid-price)

Nos. 1 & 5:
Juliane Banse (soprano), The 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic
(recorded 2000; from CD entitled 'South American Getaway')
EMI CLASSICS 5569812 (CD)

Nos. 2, 3 & 4
Jean Louis Steuerman (piano), Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra, Roberto Minczuk (conductor)
(recorded 2002)
BIS CD-1250 (CD)

Nos. 7, 8 & 9
Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra and Choir, Roberto Minczuk (conductor)
(recorded 2003)
BIS CD-1400 (CD)

Complete - Nos. 1-9:
Rosana Lamosa (soprano), Jose Feghali (piano), Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Kenneth Schermerhorn, Andrew Mogrelia (conductors)
(recorded 2004-5)
NAXOS 8557460/2 (3-CD, budget)

Todas as Ondas do Rádio

This 2000 CD "Todas as Ondas do Rádio", performed by the Coro de Câmara Villa-Lobos, is fascinating. Learn more, including purchase information, at the MUBI website.

The concept is really interesting: a chamber choir performs on a Brazilian radio station in the 1940s. You can listen to some clips on the MUBI site. The Our Sponsors jingle and This Reporter are both reminiscent of Villa's music-for-the-masses works of the period. Villa's in charge in this cool picture:


Even though I can't understand what's being said, this is still really cool stuff. It reminds me a lot of listening to Latin American radio on shortwave when I was a kid.

You can still hear interesting Brazilian music, and radionovelas, on shortwave today. Rádio Nacional da Amazônia is fairly easy to hear in North America, evenings on 11,780 kHz. You can listen online, but it's more atmospheric, and more fun, on shortwave.

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: June 2008

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.

The highlight of the month is on June 28 (my birthday), when the featured work on the excellent Ciranda programme is Gil Jardim's new recording of the Nonetto.

June 10, 2008:
06:00 A ESCRITA DE CÂMARA - Solistas e pequenas formações:
Luigi NONO - Fragmentos. Silencio. A Diotima para quarteto de cordas. Quarteto La Salle. Walter Levin (violino). Henry Meyer (violino). Peter Kamnitzer(viola). Lee Fiser(viloncelo). / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS. Choros N°10. Orquestra Sinfonia da Venezuela. Dir. Simon Bolívar.

June 16, 2008:
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi:
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART - "Allegro" do Concerto para violino n° 3 em sol maior, K 216. Frank Peter Zimmermann (violino). Orquestra Filarmônica de Berlim. Reg.: Wolfgang Sawallisch. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - "Tímido - poco andante" da Suíte para cordas. I Musici. Reg.: Yuli Turovsky. / Frédéric CHOPIN - Noturno em si bemol menor Op. 9 n° 1. Yundi Li (piano). / Edvard GRIEG - Abertura No Outono Op. 11. Orquestra Sinfônica Iceland. Reg.: Petri Sakari.


20:00 AS MIL e UMA INTERPRETAÇÕES com Turíbio Santos:
Edvard GRIEG. Suite Holberg. Heitor VILLA-LOBOS. Bachianas número 3. Orquestra de Câmara Banespa. Claudio Cruz (Spala)

June 21, 2008:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
CARLOS GOMES - Condor. Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira. Dir.: Yeruham Scharovsky. Francisco BRAGA - Trio. Trio Brasileiro./ VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas Brasileiras no. 4. Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo.OSESP. Dir.: John Neschling.


June 28, 2008:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Camargo GUARNIERI - Suite Vila Rica. Orquestra Sinfónica do Estado de São Paulo. OSESP. Dir.: John Neschling. / VILLA-LOBOS - Noneto. Toninho Carrasqueira (flauta). Luís CArlos Justi (oboé). Sérgio Burgani (clarinete). Aloysio Fagerlande (fagote). Dílson Florêncio (saxofone). Maria Elisa Risardo (celesta). Paulo Braga (piano). Elizabeth Del Grande (tímpanos). Ricardo Bologna e Eduardo Gianesella (percussão). Coro Misto. Dir.: Gil Jardim. André / MEHMARI - Sete Miniaturas. Quinteto de Sopros Villa-Lobos.

The second volume in the BIS Choros series (CD-1450) has been released, and it looks like a winner. It includes three big orchestral works that aren't as well known as they should be. John Neschling conducts the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra in Choros #6, #8, and #9, each of which is 20 minutes or longer.

Rounding out the disc is Fabio Zanon performing Choros #1 (by far the most-performed in the Choros series - there are scores of versions of this seminal work for guitar on CD, and hundreds of performances in concert and on YouTube.) The last little piece on this well-filled disc is the charmingly complex whatever-it-is, Choros #4 for three horns and trombone.

You'll have to wait for the disc to ship from Amazon and to show up on the Naxos Music Library. But there's no waiting at eClassical.com, where you can download the disc right now for US$7.95.

June 8, 2008 update: you now can pre-order this CD on Amazon.com:

Experiencing Villa-Lobos Conference Report

The important International Villa-Lobos Conference in Richmond VA held in March 2008 was a great success. Lee Boyd has sent a detailed report from Richmond, which I've posted on the Villa-Lobos Website. Thanks, Lee!

Wines from Brazil

I've been putting together information on the Marsalis Brasilianos project. I'll be posting about this exciting project soon.

In the meantime, I came across this note about the concert in Birmingham AL:

Free Prelude Musical Discussion @ 6 p.m. Enjoy a tasting of Brazilian wines prior to the show.

A very long time ago, before my life as a librarian, I used to work in the wine business. Since then, I've lost touch a bit with the new world of wines from the Southern Hemisphere. I love New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Hunter Valley Semillon, Argentina Cabernet Sauvignon, but I've never tasted wine from Brazil.

So I immediately spent some time at the excellent website Wines from Brazil. I'm learning about where they make wine in Brazil, who makes it, and where in the world it's exported to. Now I'm off to find out where in Alberta I can buy some bottles.



Here's a picture of a vineyard from the Serra Gaucha in Rio Grande do Sul in Southern Brazil, where 90% of Brazilian wine is made. The most important wine district is called “Vale dos Vinhedos”.

Calgary Concert on CBC Radio 2

A March 2008 Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra concert featuring Bach and Villa-Lobos will be played on CBC Radio 2 on Sunday, April 4th, on Bill Richardson's "Sunday Afternoon in Concert", beginning at 1 p.m. EDT.

I was really sorry to miss this concert, just down Highway 2 from my home in Red Deer. Conductor Roberto Minczuk [above, in a CBC picture from the concert] put together an excellent program, which included BB#5 (with soprano Donna Brown) and BB#7, along with a Bach cantata and a Brandenburg Concerto. Listen online to CBC Radio 2 here.

NEW: This concert is now available online on the fabulous Radio 2 website. I'm very impressed by this playing.

Baylor Concert and Lecture

Amarilis de Rebua is professor of voice at the Federal University of Paraíba, and an amazing singer to boot.

She shows off the latter in a concert at Roxy Grove Hall, on the campus of Baylor University, on April 30th. And as professor, she'll be giving a lecture the following day:

On Thursday, May 1, Rebua will discuss the works of 20th-Century composer Heitor Villa-Lobos as a part of the Global Issues Lecture Series from 4-5 p.m. in Recital Hall II of Waco Hall.

"Heitor Villa-Lobos is one of Brazil's most important classical composers of the early 20th century and a leader of the country's Modernist movement," said Dr. Lizabeth Souza-Fuertes, director of Latin American Studies. The concert and lecture will provide students with a rare opportunity to learn about Latin American classical music at Baylor, she said.

I haven't been able to track down any of Rebua's CDs online. This one looks especially interesting:

Heitor Villa-Lobos – Atualmente está gravando as obras completas para canto, tendo sido já gravadas 2 CDs num total de 45 Canções.

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: May 2008

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.

May 1:
12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO-DIA com o Maestro Walter Lourenção:
Chôros n° 9 de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS com o maestro Kenneth Schermerhorn e a Orquestra Filarmônica de Hong Kong.

May 24:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
VILLA LOBOS - Uirapurú. Orquestra Sinfônica da Paraíba. Dir.: Eleazar de Carvalho. / Edino KRIEGER - Prelúdio e Fuga. Beatriz Balzi (piano). / Claudio SANTORO - Vocalise. Bruno Wyzuj (baixo). Maria Lúcia Pinho (piano). / Marlos NOBRE - Convergências. Musica Nova Philarmonia. Dir.: Marlos Nobre. / Ernst MAHLE - Concerto para trombone e orquestra. (transcrição para piano). Wagner Politschuk (trombone). Káthia Bonna (piano).

12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO DIA com o maestro Walter Lourenção:
O pianista Paulo Emiliano Pía de Andrade é o solista das Bachianas Brasileiras n° 3 de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS.

May 28:
06:00 A ESCRITA DE CÂMARA - Solistas e pequenas formações.
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Trio para cordas. /MOZART Camargo GUARNIERI - Trio para cordas. /Amaral VIERA - Quinteto para piano e cordas op.297
Ensemble Capricio.Chouhei Min (violino).Korey Konkol(viola).Mina Fisher(cello).Artistas convidos:Max Barros(piano).Willam Schrickel(contra baixo). [repeated May 29, 06:00]

May 30:
06:00 A ESCRITA DE CÂMARA - Solistas e pequenas formações:
Silvestre REVUETAS - Quarteto n° 4-Quarteto n° 2. /Alberto GINASTERA. Quarteto n° 1 op./Heitor VILLA LOBOS - Quarteto n°17. Quarteto Latino- Americano.

Quarteto de Brasilia

It was nice to come across the website of the Quarteto de Brasilia, a group established in 1986. The site isn't especially up-to-date, so there's no information about upcoming concerts, but the discography section shows the significant recording history of the group over the years. As a small bonus, there are short MP3 clips from each disc, including the 1st and 17th quartets of Villa-Lobos.

Sonora Brasil: Heitor Villa-Lobos

Here's a project that demonstrates the importance of Villa-Lobos to the musical life of Brazil today. It's called Sonora Brasil: Heitor Villa-Lobos, and it's a project of the Orquestra do Estado de Mato Grosso. The project will bring concerts built on the music of Villa-Lobos to 78 cities in 22 states.

Music will include Bachianas Brasileiras #4 and 9, Choros #5, Danças Características Africanas, Ciranda das Sete Notas, and Cirandas.

The tour begins in Rio de Janeiro on April 30th, and finishes in Jequié, Bahia, on August 1st.

Thanks to João Bosquo's blog for the heads-up on this.

Jules Dassin Dead at 96

Director Jules Dassin died yesterday at the age of 96.

Dassin, who is better known today as a Hollywood director (and Hollywood Blacklist victim) than a Broadway director, directed the Villa-Lobos Broadway Musical Magdalena in 1948.



My favourite films of Dassin are Rififi, Topkapi, and The Naked City.

The World of Villa-Lobos, in Kalamazoo

It's nice to see that conductor Raymond Harvey has included Villa-Lobos as one of three featured composers (along with Debussy and Rachmaninoff) in the "World of..." concerts in the coming season's Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra programme.


The World of…Villa-Lobos
Sunday, April 5 (2009) – 3pm Light Fine Arts Center (Kalamazoo College Campus, corner Academy & Thompson)
Raymond Harvey, Conductor
Raymond Harvey guides you through the life, times, and music of Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. Villa-Lobos combined the color, rhythms, and flavor of Brazil with classical structures to create an evocative and beautiful sound.

Conference Season

Villa-Lobos scholars are heading to the Southern U.S. in the week after Easter.

Richmond VA:
Virginia Commonwealth University will host an International Villa-Lobos Conference from March 27 to March 29. This is a big deal, both for its scholarly papers and the performances by such great performers as the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, saxophonist Albert Regni, and pianist Sonia Rubinsky. Watch for Villa-Lobos Magazine posts with the Experiencing Villa-Lobos tag for more information. The website of the Conference is here.

Chapel Hill NC:
Meanwhile, down Interstate 85 to the south-east from Richmond, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill presents Festival on the Hill 2008 - Transcending Borders: Latin American and Latina/o Music in North Carolina and the United States, March 27-30, 2008. This conference has a broader theme, but there are two important Villa-Lobos works on the program: Bachianas Brasileiras #5, and the Quintette en forme de Choros.

Y'all have a good time!

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: April 2008

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.


April 12:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
André MEHMARI - Variações Villa-Lobos. Opus Brasil Ensemble. /Edino KRIEGER - Choro Manhos./ Choro Seresteiro. Alexandre Dossin (piano). / VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas Brasileiras no. 7. Orquestra Filarmônica Süwestfalen. Dir.: Ricardo Rocha.

April 19:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Raimundo PENAFORTE - Sweet New Yor. Fernando Dissenha (trompete). Carlos Assis (piano). / Octavio MAUL - Tríptico. Balada. Miriam Ramos (piano). / VILLA-LOBOS - Francette e Piá. Lydia Kennedy e Frans vab Gurp (violões)

April 28:
20:00 AS MIL e UMA INTERPRETAÇÕES com Turíbio Santos:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Choros n° 6. Orquestra Sinfônica da Petrobrás. Reg. Roberto Tibiriça.

O Descobrimento do Brasil

Here's something I've wanted to see for a very long time - it's from Humberto Mauro's 1937 film
"O Descrobrimento do Brasil":



There's a second part out there on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJmJ0UKQSFA&feature=related.

Unfortunately, though, no DVD or VHS available, or not that I could track down on the web. This is superb music, a very interesting subject, and an interesting film overall.

Villa-Lobos on Bartok Radio

I received this comment on my last post:

Bartok Radio (Hungary) Mar 8th 22:36

Villa-Lobos concert with Emmanuel Krivine conducting Orchestre National de Lyon

Bachianas Brasileiras No 2
Guitar Concerto (Roberto Aussel)
Amazonas

broadcast on the web.

Bartok Radio is a really interesting station that has a variety of web streams. Click here for the current playlist.

Here are the streams:
80 kpbs Windows Media
MP3 Stream
RealAudio Stream

Check out this concert on Saturday - Budapest is on Central European Time, so 22:36 is 21:36 Universal Time, 4:36 p.m. EST, and 2:36 in the afternoon here in Red Deer.

Zeppelins!

Gotta love the Internet - there are market niches out there you never would have thought of. A Portuguese-language blog on Zeppelins? Naturally!

A while ago on Tumbling Villa-Lobos I posted a small story on Villa-Lobos's Zeppelin trip across the Atlantic in 1936, coming home from the Congress for Musical Education in Prague. Now here's a story on the same topic: Dirigível no Brasil, from Projeto Blimp View One. Here's a picture from this interesting post, of the famous Hindenburg over Rio:

Dia da Música Clássica celebrations in Rio

There's lots happening in Rio de Janeiro this week, in celebration of the Dia da Música Clássica. Classical Music Day is celebrated on Villa-Lobos's birthday, March 5th. There's a complete list at the Portal VivaMúsica, or check out all the concerts on the Villa-Lobos Website.




By the way, Happy Birthday, Villa! He's 121 years old on Wednesday.

Missa São Sebastião in Toronto

Though their concert is called "Graçias a la Vida - The Gift of Spanish Song," the Victoria Scholars, a Toronto-based choral group, are fully aware of Villa-Lobos's Brazilian nationality. They'll be performing the Missa São Sebastião, an amazing but rarely-heard choral work by Villa-Lobos, on Sunday March 2, 2008 at 7:30pm, at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Toronto.

If you don't know this work, listen to excerpts from each of the six movements from the awesome Hyperion disc of Villa-Lobos choral works on the Amazon.com music sampler player featuring the Corydon Singers.

New Choros CD on BIS

I'm enjoying listening to the new BIS Choros CD , with pianist Cristina Ortiz, and John Neschling conducting the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra. This is the first disc in a projected BIS series of the complete Choros. Some people think that the series of 13 Choros (or 14 or 15 or 16) is Villa-Lobos's greatest group of works. I'm inclined to think so, myself.

This is my second post on this CD this month; today I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about the Naxos Music Library. People in Red Deer can access this excellent resource through Red Deer Public Library's subscription; check to see if your local public or academic library subscribes on your behalf. If not, you can always get a personal subscription; they're very affordable.

NML gives you access to more than Naxos and Marco Polo (as large as those two labels loom for Villa-Lobos lovers!) There are many, many independent labels on NML, like BIS (recently named the Label of the Year by Midem). It's great to be able to listen to this music even before the discs are available to buy. The new BIS disc hasn't showed up yet on the main BIS site, and isn't up on Amazon.com yet, though you can buy it at Presto Classical in the UK.

And Choros #11 is certainly worth listening to!

Speaking of pianist Cristina Ortiz, who also shines in this CD in the solo Choros #5 ("Alma Brasileira"), I've been checking out the Concert Diary on her website. She's certainly a busy pianist, and a great advocate of the music of Villa-Lobos.

She takes Bachianas Brasileiras #3 on a long, long road trip this spring, with stops in Ljiepaja Liepaja, Latvia for the 16th International Piano Stars Festival, in Riga, Talinn, Vilnius, Bergen and Palma, Spain.

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: March 2008

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.

Though the station that most consistently plays Villa-Lobos inexplicably misses out on Villa's March 5th birthday, there are some gems this month. There's a live concert from Sao Paulo on the 22nd (repeated on the 26th). And, on the 29th, an interesting bunch of works: Odisséia de uma raça (Odyssey of a Race, the 1945 work dedicated to the state of Israel), plus other rarely heard orchestral pieces: the 2nd Sinfonietta, the first Suite, and Elegia.

March 8:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música: LORENZO FERNANDEZ - Batuque. Orquestra Petrobrás Pró Música. Dir.: Ernani Aguiar. /Cláudio SANTORO - Sonata no. 4. Elisa Fukuda (violino). Giuliano Montini (piano). / AMARAL VIEIRA - Toccata. Max Barros (piano). / Osvaldo LACERDA - Cançoneta. Duo Quanta. VILLA-LOBOS - Quinteto instrumental. Grupo Instrumental de Paris./ Prelúdio de Bachianas 4 / Modinha / Melodia Sentimental. Carlos Barbosa Lima (violão)

12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO DIA com o maestro Walter Lourenção: Roberto Duarte rege a Sinfonia n° 6, "Sobre a Linha das Montanhas do Brasil", de VILLA-LOBOS.

March 14:
22:00 SALA DE CONCERTO: ANTÔNIO MENEZES: Johann Sebastian BACH - Suíte n° 6 em ré maior, BWV 1012. Antônio Meneses (violoncelo). / Franz SCHUBERT - Sonata em lá menor para violoncelo e piano, D. 821 - Arpeggione. Antônio Meneses (violoncelo). Gilberto Tinetti (piano). / Robert SCHUMANN - Fantasiestücke, Op. 73 para violoncelo e piano). Antônio Meneses (violoncelo). Gérad Wyss (piano). / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Fantasia para violoncelo e orquestra. Antônio Meneses (violoncelo). Orquestra Sinfônica da Galícia. Reg.: Víctor Pablo Pérez.

March 15:
23:00 NOTURNO: Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Trio n° 3. Artistrio.

March 19:
07:00 DESPERTE COM OS CLÁSSICOS: VILLA-LOBOS - Canção de Amor, de "A Floresta do Amazonas". Bidu Sayão (soprano). Symphony of the Air. Dir.: Heitor Villa-Lobos/ SPOHR - Duo Concertante, op. 67 n° 2. Itzhak Perlman e Pinchas Zuckerman (violinos)/ VIVALDI - Concerto op. 8, n° 1 RV 269 " A Primavera " , de "As Quatro Estações". Itzhak Perlman (Violino). Orquestra Filarmônica de Israel. Reg.: Zubin Mehta/ DELIUS - On Hearing the first cuckoo in the spring. Orquestra de Câmara Inglesa. Reg.: Daniel Baremboim/ BEETHOVEN - 7 variações sobre "Bei Männern, welche Liebe Fühlen". Ronald Turini (piano). Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi (violoncelo).

March 22:
16:30 OSESP AO VIVO - Gravações exclusivas realizadas na Sala São Paulo: VILLA-LOBOS - Alvorada na Floresta Tropical. / TCHAIKOVSKY - Concerto n° 1 para piano em si bemol menor, Op. 23. Solista: Olga Kern. / BEETHOVEN - Sinfonia n° 3 em mi bemol maior, Op. 55 - Heróica. Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. John Neschling, regente.

The above concert is repeated on March 26, at 22:00.

March 29:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música: VILLA-LOBOS - Odisséia de uma raça. Suíte no. 1 para orquestra de câmara. Orquestra Sinfônica do teatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro. Dir.: Silvio Barbato. Elegie / Sinfonieta no. 2. Orquestra Sinfônica do teatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro. Dir.: Silvio Barbato. / Saudades das Selvas Brasileiras. Anna Stella Schic (piano).

Villa-Lobos on the Marimba

This excellent New York Sun review of a recent New York City concert introduced me to the marimba virtuoso Makoto Nakura. The Villa-Lobos Etudes and Preludes for guitar sound like excellent candidates for transcription to this fascinating instrument. Unfortunately, they're not included in any of Nakura's CDs so far. Let's hope that's coming soon, though!



In the meantime, if you're close to upstate New York on March 2nd, check out this free concert at Binghamton University, part of the fascinating series South of the Border: Explorations, organized by the Binghamton Philharmonic's composer-in-residence Carlos Sánchez-Gutiérrez.

Dia da Música Clássica

The Dia da Música Clássica - Classical Music Day in both the city and the state of Rio de Janeiro - is celebrated (naturally) on March 5th, Villa-Lobos's birthday. This year, the Museu Villa-Lobos will present "Villa-Lobos e Eu" - conversations with people who met Villa-Lobos. They are, in this case, bassoonist Noel Devos, conductor Nelson Nilo Hack, and flutist Odette Ernst Dias.


The Sala Bidú Sayão at the Museu Villa-Lobos in Rio de Janeiro

If you're lucky enough to be in Rio de Janeiro that day, the event starts at 2 p.m. at the Museu, and it's free.

By the way, I don't know of any other place in the world with a Classical Music Day. In a nice coincidence, considering Villa's leadership in Music Education, March is "Music in our Schools" Month in the U.S. (the logo of which is pictured below).



On the fifth of March, and for the next couple of weeks, Rio celebrates the Dia da Música Clássica. You can see what's on by searching for "Dia da Música Clássica" at the Villa-Lobos Website.

New Choros Series

Here's an exciting new series coming on CD, from BIS: it will include all of the Choros series, and will feature musicians from Brazil.



The first disc, due to be released March 3rd, includes a great selection from this amazing series: #5 for piano (with Cristina Ortiz), #7 for winds, violin & cello, and #11 for piano (Ortiz) and orchestra (the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, conducted by John Neschling). The CD # is BIS CD440. This CD hasn't showed up on Amazon.com yet (I'll add a link here when it does), but you can pre-order it at Presto Classical in the UK.

The recently completed BIS Bachianas Brasileiras series also features Brazilian artists: #1+#4+#5+#6, #7+#8+#9, and #2+#3+#4. The São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP) plays the orchestral works in this series as well, though the conductor in this series is Roberto Minczuk.

This is an encouraging trend in the world of classical music CDs: complete series (and often with a choice of more than one series) of Villa-Lobos's greatest works (Choros, BB, the piano music, the string quartets) and the not-so-great but still interesting (Symphonies), with excellent performers on enterprising labels (Naxos, BIS, cpo).

Explore on Amazon.com: Villa-Lobos Choros

Thanks to Affonso Risi in São Paulo for the heads-up on this.

Villa-Lobos in the WSJ

There's an excellent story in this morning's Wall St. Journal, "Villa-Lobos, Composer Without Borders," by Barrymore Scherer, author of the fine book A History of American Music. It's written on the occasion of The Villa-Lobos Event: Encounters With Brazil, in New York, which takes place this evening, February 9. Besides the great picture,

by Ismael Rodan, there are perceptive quotes from pianist Marcelo Bratke, who helped to organize the event:

"Villa-Lobos's eclectic freedom and openness to stylistic experimentation are at the root of his greatness as a composer."

Searching for Heitor

BBC Music Magazine, one of my favourite periodicals, has revamped its Review database. Of the 20,000 records included (every review in every issue since the magazine began in 1992), there are 40 by Villa-Lobos. That's only 2/10s of one percent - not a lot. Still, these are usually pretty perceptive reviews, though some are quite terse. They include catalogue information, and you might find some discs in this list that you haven't heard yet.

Here's an example of a good one: Christopher Wood's review of Marc-André Hamelin's disc, which recognizes the true nature of A prole do bebê: "dense-textured, hugely complicated scores." So often one sees these two suites referred to as mere "works for children." That they are, but they're also two of the most important works in the 20th century piano repertoire. Buy the Hamelin disc from Amazon.