O Trenzinho do Caipira

O Trenzinho do Caipira: Projeto Villa-Lobos is a children's theatre project "para Crianças de Todas as Idades" - for children of all ages. Check out their blog for pictures, video, and stories about their many awards.

Choros #10 on New Year's Eve

From a gala New Year's Eve concert with the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, John Neschling conducts Choros #10.



Part II is here.

VL Concerts in 2009

I came across this story at the Audições Brasileiras blog; it's by Irineu Franco Perpetuo, from Folha de S.Paulo. It's about the 2009 celebrations connected to the 50th anniversary of Villa-Lobos's death. It mentions Friday's concert by Luis Carlos de Moura Castro in Rio, and many others around the world, from now to December. Watch out for new concerts at the Villa-Lobos Concerts Calendar. I'll make sure all of the concerts in this article are there; there's bound to be something coming soon to a concert or recital venue near you. It promises to be another banner year.

Besides the concerts, some publishing projects are highlighted, including new DVDs from Marcelo Bratke and the Sinfônica do Teatro da Paz in Belém. Also a new book by guitarist Fabio Zanon "Folha Explica Villa-Lobos", and a four-volume anthology of "Guia Prático" from the Academia Brasileira de Música.

Wayne Shorter's Alegria

Wayne Shorter's 2003 Grammy Award-winning jazz album Alegria includes my favourite arrangement (by Robert Sadin) of Bachianas Brasileiras #5 (my second favourite is Branford Marsalis's version on his Romances for Saxophone album). I wanted to feature this amazing album, since I've been listening to it lately, and also reading Michelle Mercer's excellent 2007 book Footprints: the life and work of Wayne Shorter. Mercer has this to say about the Bachianas performance:

On his version of the Heitor Villa-Lobos composition "Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5" a plucked cello chorus and layered Brazilian rhythms combined into a luxurious Baroque. Wayne's practice sessions with Coltrane on string exercises paid off in his saxophone solo, the tone of which showed an uncanny empathy for the cellos' delicate strength; like his work with Milton Nascimento, the Brazilian piece brought out Wayne's romantic side.

(p. 266). Mercer points out at another place in the book that Milton Nascimento's mother was a musician who played with Villa-Lobos - I'm not sure in what context, but I'll see if I can find out. I'm also anxious to listen again to Shorter's collaboration with Nascimento (1974's Native Dancer, for example).

Very highly recommended music, and book.

Wayne Shorter has another Villa-Lobos connection, that came to the fore last month with his (Wayne Shorter Quartet) concert in Los Angeles with the Imani Winds (which celebrated Shorter's 75th birthday). Read this review in Variety, and this one in the LA Times.

String Quartet video

From a concert in Kiel last November, here's the (audio from the) Matrix Quartett playing the 5th movement (Melancholia) from Villa's First String Quartet.



The Matrix Quartett's website is here.

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: January 2009

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. Check out the live concert from the OSESP on the 14th.

New Year's Day:
12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO-DIA com o Maestro Walter Lourenção:
Chôros nº 9 de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS com o maestro Kenneth Schermerhorn e a Orquestra Filarmônica de Hong Kong.
15:00 TARDE CULTURA - Música e Notícia com Sérgio Roberto Ribeiro:
Entre outras obras, Sonata op.120 n°2 de Johannes BRAHMS. Emmanuel Pahud (flauta). Yefin Bronfman (piano). Quatro Cirandas de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS. Marcio Carneiro (cello). Wener Genuit (piano). Sonata n° 29 op. 106 "Hammerklavier" de Ludwig van BEETHOVEN. Daniel Baremboim (piano).

January 3:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
André MEHMARI - Sete Miniaturas para quinteto de sopros. Quinteto Villa-Lobos. / Radamés GNATTALI - Sonatina. David Chew (violoncelo) Fernanda Canaud (piano). / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Rudepoema. Nelson Freire (piano).

January 10:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Pensées d'enfant. Claudia Riccitelli (soprano). Toninho Carrasqueira (flauta). Diogo Maia (clarinete). Watson Clis (cello). Dir.: Gil Jardim. / 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./ Ciranda das sete notas para fagote e cordas. Lev Petcherski (fagote). Orquestra de Câmara de Leningrado. Dir.: Lazare Gozman.

January 14:
21:00 OSESP AO VIVO - Gravações realizadas na Sala São Paulo:
VILLA-LOBOS - Alvorada na Floresta Tropical. / TCHAIKOVSKY - Concerto nº 1 para piano em si bemol menor, Op. 23. Solista: Olga Kern. / BEETHOVEN - Sinfonia nº 3 em mi bemol maior, Op. 55 - Heróica. Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. John Neschling, regente.

January 18:
10:00 ENCONTRO COM O MAESTRO com João Mauricio Galindo:
Roberto Duarte rege Villa-Lobos.

January 22:
07:00 DESPERTE COM OS CLÁSSICOS:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas Brasileiras n° 2. Orquestra Filarmônica Real Britânica. Reg.: Enrique Bátiz.

January 24:
12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO DIA com o maestro Walter Lourenção:
O pianista Paulo Emiliano Pía de Andrade é o solista das Bachianas Brasileiras nº 3 de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS.

January 25:
23:00 NOTURNO - Musica romântica na Cultura FM:
PUCCINI - Prelúdio Sinfônico. Orquestra Radio-Sinfonie, Berlim. Dir.: Riccardo Chailly. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas Brasileiras no. 3. Orquestra Nova Filarmonia. Dir.: Vladimir Ashkenazy.

January 31:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Pequena Suíte./ Elegia op. 87. Rebecca Rust (cello). David Apter (piano). Bachianas Brasileiras no. 6 de Villa-Lobos. Emmanuel Pahud (flauta). Friedrich Edelmann (fagote).

New String Trio recording

I've been waiting for this disc for a while. The Jacques Thibaud Trio Berlin has been performing the great String Trio recently. It's one of my favourite chamber works of Villa-Lobos, and it's nice to have another recording. I'm a big fan of this kind of programming on CD: the JTTB has chosen three string trios written in 1944 (Gideon Klein, who died soon after at Auschwitz), 1945 (Villa-Lobos) and 1946 (Arnold Schoenberg).

This blog seems to be stuck in 1945 (which was a busy year for Villa-Lobos). Read the last few posts for more.

1945 again!

Meanwhile, back in New York in 1945, here's a picture of Villa-Lobos between Aaron Copland and Brazilian Consul-General Oscar Correia, at a reception at the Waldorf Astoria. This is one of the many great photos on the website of the Museu Villa-Lobos.

New Piano CD

The stream of strong new recordings of Villa-Lobos's piano music continues. Fabiane de Castro's new disc A Prole do Bebê on the Oïda label looks like a winner, to judge by the streaming audio of three Villa-Lobos pieces - Branquinha, A Baratinha de Papel, and the 5th Choros - on her excellent website.

Talk of the Town 1945

"...we rolled over to the Waldorf last week to have a talk with Heitor Villa-Lobos, the Brazilian composer..."

So begins a typically breezy "Talk of the Town" story, from the February 10, 1945 issue of The New Yorker.

"When we encountered him he was perched on the edge of a chair, like a small, plump, excited sparrow, wearing a sleeveless sweater, gray slacks, blue shoes, and a look of vast amiability."

Here's the amiable composer from the same year, in this LIFE photograph by W. Eugene Smith - © Time Inc.:

"A few years ago he composed 'New York Skyline' after studying a photograph of Manhattan. We asked him how the city compared with his preconception of it and whether he thought his 'Skyline' needed any remodelling. His musical interpretation, he said proudly, was right on the nose."

Here's a 1945 photograph of the New York Skyline by Andreas Feininger, also from Google's LIFE archive:


I came across the "Talk of the Town" thanks to Alex Ross's mention of the New Yorker Digital Reader, which is indeed an amazing resource. What riches here! All of Pauline Kael's reviews, complete with period ads + cartoons! Oliver Sacks's long articles! And plenty of Alex Ross as well! Oh, and the amazing Hockey columns from the 1930's. Go Maroons!


This column is one of a regular series the New Yorker ran, in this case from March 31, 1934. The Maroons went on to beat the Rangers, but lost to the Black Hawks in the finals.

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: December 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.

December 6:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Doze Estudos. Timo Korhonen (violão)./ Gilberto MENDES - Três Contos de Cortázar. Henrique Morozowicz, Variações Frère Jacques. Mireille Gleizes (piano).

December 10:
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi:
Edmundo VILLANI CÔRTES - "Luz" e "Águas Claras". Cristiano Alves (clarineta). Tamara Ujakova (piano). / César GUERRA-PEIXE - Sonatina No.2. Midori Maeshiro (piano). / Amaral VIEIRA - Sonata fantasia para oboé e piano. Christian Schneider (oboé). Sorina Aust-Ioan (piano). / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Concerto para violão e orquestra. Turíbio Santos (violão). Orquestra Sinfônica Rio. Reg.: Sílvio Barbato.

23:00 NOTURNO - Clássicos Românticos na Cultura FM:
Andre JOLIVET - Chant de Linos. Philippe Racine (flauta). Robert Zimansky (violino). Monika Clemann (viola). Curdin Copray (cello). Xênia Schindler (harpa)./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Quatuor. Lontano. Dir. Odaline de La Martinez.

December 20:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Leopoldo MIGUEZ - Sylvia - Elegia para cordas op. 22. Orquestra Sinfônica da Escola de Música da UFRJ. Dir.: André Cardoso. / Henrique OSWALD - Sonata. Claudio Cruz (violino). Nahim Marun (piano)/ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Ciranda das sete notas. Frank Morelli (fagote). Orquestra de Câmara Orpheus. / Francisco MIGNONE - Aquela modinha que o Villa não escreveu. Sexta Valsa Brasileira. Frank Morelli (fagote)./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Ária de Bachianas Brasileiras n° 5. Frank Morelli (fagote). Benjamin Verdery (violão).

December 27:
20:00 O MUNDO DA ÓPERA com o Maestro Walter Lourenção:
A voz do meio-soprano Elína Garan?a. No programa obras de Heitor
VILLA-LOBOS, Ruperto CHAPÍ. Jacques OFFENBACH. Richard STRAUSS. Staatskapelle de Dresden. Reg. Fabio Luisi.

46th Festival Villa-Lobos

Sorry I missed this when it first was announced. Thanks to the excellent AVRio blog for the heads-up.

LIFE photos

Tuesday's launch of the LIFE photo archives on Google Images has created quite a stir. Most exciting for me are the great photographs of Villa-Lobos by W. Eugene Smith that show the composer's geniality, intensity, and humanity.

The Smith photos are undated, but they look to me to be from the early 1950s (Smith left LIFE in 1955). Compare Villa in the Smith photos with the three 1945 pictures from the LIFE archive; he has a bit less hair, but just as much vitality. Pictures from the mid- and late-1950s often show an older man dealing with major illness.

Here's a great example of Smith's genius (© Time Inc.):

Choros vol. 3

2008 has been a banner year for Villa-Lobos recordings; high on the list were the first two discs in the complete Choros series from BIS. In February they released the first volume, with Choros #5 (with Cristina Ortiz), Choros #7 and #11 (with John Neschling conducting the Sao Paul Symphony Orchestra). Then, in May 2008 came the second volume, with Fabio Zanon's Choros #1, and the SPSO musicians performing #4, #6, #8, and #9. (pictured below)


That leaves #2 (3 min.), #3 (4 min.), #10 (16 min.), and #12 (40 min.), and perhaps the two Choros Bis (10 min.), and the Introduction to Choros (10 min.). It adds up to a single well-filled disc.

It's good to see, then, that a new disc in the BIS series is coming soon. Amazon.com shows that Choros vol. 3 is due to be released on Dec. 9, 2008. There's no information yet on the BIS site, but I'll post information here as I receive it.

UPDATE: This didn't take long, thanks to the comment below from ничего (Thanks!). The new disc indeed contains #2, 3, 10, and 12, plus Choros (bis) and the Introduction to Choros, and it's available from eclassical.com. I'm downloading as I type!

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: November 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.

November 1:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS /Mario de Andrade - Suíte para voz e violino. Jill Gomez (soprano). Peter Manning (violino). / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Amazonas. Orquestra Sinfônica Símon Bolívar da Venezuela. Dir.: Enrique Arturo Diemecke. Suíte floral, op. 97. Anna Stella Schic (piano).

November 3:
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi:
James DEMARS - Concerto para piano e orquestra. Caio Pagano (piano). Orquestra Sinfônica Nacional Checa. Reg.: Paul Freeman. / Ernesto NAZARETH - Tupinambá Ameno Resendá. Pedro Amorin (bandolim). Maria Teresa Madeira (piano). / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Saudades da minha vida, Modinha e Na paz do outono. Cláudia Riccitelli (soprano). Nahim Marun (piano).

November 5:
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi:
Francesco Saverio GEMINIANI - Sonata I para violoncelo e baixo contínuo. Gaetano Nasillo e Tobias Bonz (violoncelo). Jesper Christensen (cravo). / Cristofaro CARESANA - La Vittoria dell'Infante. Roberto Invernizzi e Roberta Andalò (soprano). Daniela Del Mônaco (contralto). Giuseppe De Vittorio e Rosario Totaro (tenor). Furio Zanasi (baixo). / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas Brasileiras No.2. Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. Reg.: Roberto Minczuk.

15:00 TARDE CULTURA - Música e Notícia com Sérgio Roberto Ribeiro:
Entre outras obras, destaque para o Quarteto de cordas em mi bemol maior de Felix MENDELSSOHN, a transcrição pra piano de Liszt para a abertura "Jubileu" de Carl Maria von WEBER, e as Bachianas Brasileiras n° 7 de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS.

November 10:
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Trio No.1 em dó menor para violino, violoncelo e piano. Yang Zhang (violino). Miriam Braga (piano). Tânia Lisboa (violoncelo). / Arturo MÁRQUEZ - Danzón No.4. Orquestra De Las Américas. Reg.:Benjamin Juárez Echenique. / Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART - Ballet No.32 K367 Chacona. Coral e Orquestra Sinfônica da Radio Bávara. Reg.: Sir Collin Davis.

November 15:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Henrique de CURITIBA - Três episódios. Norton Morozowicz (flauta). Henrique Morozowicz (piano)./ Alceo BOCCHINO - Suíte Miniatura de Ballet. Orquestra Sinfônica do Paraná. Dir.: Roberto Duarte. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Introdução ao Choros para orquestra e violão. Timo Korhonen (violão). Orquestra Sinfônica da Rádio Finlandesa. Dir.: Sakari Oramo.

November 18:
07:00 DESPERTE COM OS CLÁSSICOS:
Johann Sebastin BACH/ BUSONI - Prelúdio e Fuga em ré maior, BWV 532. Emil Gilels (piano)/ Antonio VIVALDI - Concerto em lá maior, RV 552, "Per ecco lontano". Christophe Coin (violoncelo). Il Giardino Armonico. Dir.: Giovanni Antonini/ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Prelúdio n° 1. Yves Storms (violão).

November 19:
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi.
Mario CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO - Sonata Op.77 (omaggio a Bocherini). Susanne Mebes (violão). / Balys DVARIONNAS - By the Lake. Orquestra de Câmara da Lituânia. Dir.: David Geringas. / Heitor VILLA LOBOS - Evocação. Cláudia Riccitelli (soprano). Nahim Marun (piano).

November 21:
15:00 TARDE CULTURA - Música e Notícia com Sérgio Roberto Ribeiro:
Entre outras obras, Choros n° 9 de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS, Quinteto com clarinete em si menor opus 115 de Johannes BRAHMS e Sinfonia em Sol menor de Alberto NEPOMUCENO.

November 22:
08:00 QUATRO ESTAÇÕES - A Música Ocidental em Épocas e Estilos:
O BARROCO: Johann Jakob Froberger, compositor alemão - Suíte XXX em lá menor. Pedro Persone (cravo)./ O CLASSICISMO: Franz Joseph Haydn - Quarteto de cordas em ré maior n°4, opus 20. Movimentos: Allegro di molto, Un poco adagio e affetuoso, Menuetto alla zingarese-trio, presto e scherzando. Quarteto Melos-Stuttgart. / O ROMANTISMO: Robert Schumann - Träumerei. (Devaneio). Leonard Hokanson (piano). / O SÉCULO XX: Heitor Villa-Lobos - Momoprecoce. Magda Tagliaferro (piano). Orquestra Nacional da Rádio Francesa. Reg.: Heitor Villa-Lobos. (Repeated on November 29 at 08:00)

November 27:
15:00 TARDE CULTURA - Música e Notícia com Sérgio Roberto Ribeiro:
Entre outras obras, As três Maria de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS, Sonata n° 2 para trompa e cordas de Luigi CHERUBINI e com Ballada para piano e orquestra opus 19 De Gabriel FAURE.

Aldo Parisot interview

I came across this 2001 interview with Aldo Parisot, the great Brazilian cellist, on the International Cello Society website.

Parisot, of course, commissioned the second Villa-Lobos cello concerto in 1954:

"My manager suggested that I ask Villa-Lobos to write a concerto for me, which I would play in my debut with the New York Philharmonic. I wrote a letter to Villa-Lobos and he agreed to do it. In 1954 he came to New York and requested that I spend a week with him so that he could get an idea of how I played. So I'd go to his hotel and he'd ask me to play anything -- scales, etudes, sonatas,concertos, etc. Then he'd write a phrase and ask me to play it. If he didn't like how I played it, he would take the cello and demonstrate what he wanted. He was a cellist, after all, and he earned a living playing in a trio in a restaurant in Brazil. He was also a wonderful guitarist and could improvise on it for hours. Interestingly, while we worked together, he sat on the table with two scores, one was the cello concerto and one was a symphony, which he was working on at the same time.

"Almost always sitting silently in the background each morning was guitarist André Segovia, who was a close friend of Villa-Lobos. Villa-Lobos and Segovia would tell jokes to each other in Portuguese, usually dirty. I often thought that the only reason Segovia came was for the lunches. Villa-Lobos' wife, Arminda, would make feijoada for us, a very popular Brazilian dish, which he would devour."

October 31, 2008: The original picture I posted (from a Stock Image library) is apparently not really Feijoada. See the comments below (and thanks to the commentor!)



So, here's the new picture, from Wikipedia:



Feijoada is an important Brazilian dish [pictured above]. I read once about Villa-Lobos writing a "Fugue Without End" on the theme of Feijoada, but I can't track down the reference. I can see the appeal for Villa-Lobos: he loved life, which includes good food and good wine, along with snooker, flying kites, playing with kids and listening to all kinds of popular and erudite music. People often comment on how the mix of ingredients in Feijoada is like the mix of diverse peoples making up Brazil. That's something Villa-Lobos would probably have agreed with as well.

Update: Found it! This is from John & Matt Lewis Thorne's "Serious Pig: An American Cook in Search of His Roots," p. 313

"Brasileiros traditionally eat the meal for Sunday lunch, leaving the rest of the afternoon free to sleep it off. Heitor Villa-Lobos composed a four-part fugue in honor of feijoada, each part representing one basic element of the dish. One is tempted to suspect that the piece, entitled "Fugue without End," was never finished because somnolence overcame the composer before he could gather together the completing measures."

Here's Elsie Houston's recipe for Feijoada, from Robert's Basement.

Here's another October 31, 2008 update: by an amazing coincidence, just when I was updating this post, I was listening to Sonia Rubinsky's new CD (vol. 7) from her Complete Villa-Lobos Piano Music series on Naxos, and came across the little piece entitled Feijoada sem perigo. Here is an explanation of this piece, from the liner notes by James Melo:

Finally, the extremely condensed gem Feijoada Sem Perigo seems to capture Villa-Lobos in the very moment of creation. In its brevity it manages to express the very essence of a musical thought, primeval and unaltered by further elaboration. The piece was dedicated to Dora Vasconcellos, the Brazilian consul in New York at the time, and the author of a few poems that Villa-Lobos set to music. Villa-Lobos dedicated the piece to Dora Vasconcellos to thank her for an invitation to partake of the quintessential Brazilian dish at her home in New York.

FINALLY, November 13, 2008: So, here's the proper Brazilian feijoada, with ingredients from the Wikipedia article:

Guitar Concerto in Geneva

Choros #10 at the Festival Villa-Lobos 2007

The 2008 Festival Villa-Lobos is just around the corner. So it's nice to see this YouTube post of an important concert from last year's festival: Choros #10 performed by the famous Sinfónica de la Juventud Venezolana Simón Bolivar under the direction of the great conductor Isaac Karabtchevsky. Here's the first part:



and the second:



Wow! These guys are good! (and great singing as well).

Top Scores

Here are the most popular Villa-Lobos scores from sheetmusicplus.com.

Bank notes

When the Bank of England announced that 150-anniversary-guy Sir Edward Elgar was being replaced on the £20 note by Adam Smith, there was some negative reaction. When I was in London last week, I came across a few Elgar notes, but they'll be history soon.

Here's Villa on the 500 cruzados note from Brazil:

and the other side:


This note is no longer legal tender, but I'm sure there's no slight intended to Villa-Lobos in this. The cruzado was replaced by the cruzado novo in 1989, and then replaced by the cruzeiro in 1990, the cruzeiro real in 1993, and that's when I stopped reading the Wikipedia articles....

New Villa-Lobos Book

Thanks to Borris Mayer for this tip: a new book in German on Villa-Lobos.

Heitor Villa-Lobos und der Aufbruch der brasilianischen Musik

Manuel Negwer, Heitor Villa-Lobos und der Aufbruch der brasilianischen Musik, Mainz: Schott Music, 2008.

The book, which also includes a CD, is available from JPC online and Amazon.de

Marsalis Brasilianos Tour Begins

The first concert of the Marsalis Brasilianos tour was last night in Eugene OR. Here's a review from the Mainly Music Meanderings blog. It's interesting that Marsalis and the Brazilians (the Philarmonia Brasileira and their conductor Gil Jardim) didn't connect until the day of the concert. Looks like that only enhanced the music. Villa-Lobos's music comes from the informal, improvisational world of the choroes, and that seems to be the style aimed for in this concert tour. Thanks to Dan for this up-to-date information - great blog, by the way.

He points out that the published programme was changed - rather than the Suite for Strings (a very early work, from 1912), they've chosen one of Villa's great works: Bachianas Brasileiras #9. That will provide some gravitas for the second half of the show.

Instruments of Amazonas

Amazonas is one of the great orchestral works of Villa-Lobos's early period - it was written in 1917, the same year as Uirapuru and the Second Symphony. The orchestra used by Villa-Lobos (under the obvious influence of Stravinsky) was a large one; according to the publisher Max Eschig:

4(2flpic).3(1cor ang).4(1clpic, 1clB).3(1cbn) - 1 sarrusophone - 4(ou 8).4.3.1 - 3perc, 1timb, 1cel, 1pno, 2hp - 1 cythara do arco (ou 1 violinophone), 1viole d'amour - crd

Besides the orchestra taking up the full stage, there are a few interesting items here.


The Sarrusophone is a band instrument with the range similar to a saxophone.

The violinophone is also called the Stroh violin (referred to by Eschig as a cythara do arco). The Wikipedia article doesn't mention any use by classical composers, though the instrument was apparently in vogue in Buenos Aires in the 1920s. This is another example (along with the use of a prepared piano in Choros #08) of Villa-Lobos being ahead of the curve technology-wise.

Just to make it difficult for orchestras to revive this piece, Villa-Lobos added a viole d'amour to the score. It all wasn't enough to keep it off the stage in Albuquerque and Brussels, and there are two three excellent recordings, from Apex, Dorian, and Marco Polo.

Alma Brasileira

Here's a beautiful arrangement for orchestra - by Leandro Carvalho - of Choros #05 for piano (subtitled "Alma Brasileira" - the "Soul of Brazil"). This is from the Sonora Brasil 2008 tour by the Orquestra do Estado de Mato Grosso.

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: October 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.

Oct. 1
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi:
Georg Phillip TELLEMANN - Sonata "Metodische" para flauta e baixo contínuo. Hans-Joachim Fuss (flauta). Siegfried Petrenz (cravo). / Giacomo PUCCINI - "Intermezzo Atto III" da ópera Manon Lescaut. Kiri te Kanawa (soprano). Orchestre de L'Opéra National de Lyon. Reg.: Kent Nagano. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Choros No. 7 - Settimino. Músicos da Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. / Louis SPOHR - Concerto para clarinete No.2 em mi bemol maior Op.57. Ernst Ottensamer (clarinete). Orquestra Sinfônica da Rádio Eslovaca. Reg.: Johannes Wildner.

Oct. 8
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Capriccio Op.49. Rebecca Rust (violoncelo). David Apter (piano). / George Joseph VOGLER - Variações sobre "Marlborough, s'en va-t-en guerre". Felicja Blumental (piano). Nova Orquestra de Câmara de Praga. Reg.: Alberta Zedda. / Radamés GNATALLI - Concerto para violoncelo e piano. Orquestra de Câmara Rio Strings. Reg.: Ernani Aguiar.

Oct. 15 (repeated Oct. 16)
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi. Karl Ditters von DITTERSDORF - Quarteto para cordas No.3 em sol maior. Quarteto Franz Schubert. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Deuxième Sonate-Fantasie. Paul Klinck (violino). Claude Coppers (piano). / Enrique GRANADOS - La Maja y el Rulseñor. Roberto Bravo (piano). / Johann Sebastian BACH - "Allemande" da Suíte BWV 1012. Gustav Leonhardt (cravo).

Oct. 17
12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO-DIA com o Maestro Walter Lourenção:
Terceira Suíte de "Descobrimento do Brasil" de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS pelo maestro Roberto Duarte.

Oct. 20
22:00 SALA DE CONCERTO:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas Brasileiras n° 3. Cristina Ortiz (piano). New Philharmonia Orchestra. Reg.: Vladimir Ashkenazy. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Sinfonia n° 1, Op. 112 - O Inesperado. Orquestra Sinfônica da Rádio de Stuttgart. Reg.: Carl St. Clair. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Sinfonia n° 2 - Ascenção. Orquestra Sinfônica da Rádio de Stuttgart. Reg.: Carl St. Clair.

Oct. 21
15:00 TARDE CULTURA - Música e Notícia:
Entre outras obras, Concerto de Brandemburgo n°5 de Johann Sebastian BACH, "A Floresta do Amazonas" de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS e de Johann STRAUSS II, Valsa "Vida de Artista", op. 316.

Oct. 26
22:00 KALEIDOSCÓPIO com Almeida Prado:
Karlheinz STOCKHAUSEN - Gruppen para três orquestras. Orquestra Filarmônica de Berlim. Reg.: Cláudio Abbado. Friedrich Goldman. Marcus Creed./ György KURTÁG - Grabstein para Stephan. Stele. Jürgen Ruck (violão). Orquestra Filarmônica de Berlim. Reg.: Cláudio Abbado./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Pensées d'Enfant. Claudia Riccitelli (soprano). Toninho Carrasqueira (fluta). Diogo Maia (clarinete). Watson Cliss (cello). Reg.: Gil jardim.

Oct. 27
07:00 DESPERTE COM OS CLÁSSICOS:
WAGNER - Abertura da ópera "O Holandês Voador". Orquestra Filarmônica de Munique. Reg.: Hans Knappertsbuch. VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas Brasileiras n° 5. Barbara Hendricks (soprano). Eldon Fox (violoncelo). Oito Violoncelistas da Filarmônica Real Britânica. / CHOPIN - Polonaise n° 6, op. 53, "Heróica". Elisabeth Leonskaja (piano).

Oct. 28
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Kika Leoi:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Première Sonate-Fantasie (Desesperança). Paul Klinck (violino). Claude Coppers (piano). / Ernesto NAZARETH - Odeon e Duvidoso. Ida Maltese e Sylvia Maltese (piano). / Alexander BORODIN - Quarteto para cordas em ré maior No.2. Quarteto Brodsky.

Oct. 31
15:00 TARDE CULTURA - Música e Notícia:
Entre outras obras, Fantasia-Polonaise, opus 61 de Frederic CHOPIN, Trechos de "Romeu e Julieta" de Sergei PROKOFIEV e "Uirapurú", balé para orquestra de VILLA-LOBOS.

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: