Festival Internacional de Inverno de Campos do Jordão

The 40 edition of the Festival Internacional de Inverno de Campos do Jordão runs from July 5 to July 26th. In honour of the Ano Villa-Lobos, there are many Villa-Lobos works featured this year. The other focus of this year's event is French music, as the Ano da Franca no Brasil is celebrated.


Here are some highlights:

July 5: Orquestra Sinfônica Jovem do Estado. Três Cirandas, orchestrated by Nelson Ayres
July 5: Coro de Câmara da Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. Ave Maria, and Cor dulcis, cor amabilis
July 7: Camerata Fukada. Bachianas Brasileiras #9
July 8: Orquestra Sinfônica de Ribeirão Preto. Bachianas Brasileiras #9
July 10: Chamber Music Concert. String Quartet #1
July 11: Banda Sinfônica do Estado. BB#7 and the Choro movement from the Fantasia em três Movimentos
July 12: Chamber Music Concert. Choros #4 and BB#1
July 13: Grupo de Câmara do Festival. Choros #7
July 15: Chamber Music Concert. Quatuor, Sexteto Mistico, Ciranda das sete notas
July 17: Nelson Freire. BB#4 and A Lenda do Caboclo
July 18: Grupo de Metais do Festival. BB#5
July 18: Orquestra Sinfônica de Santos. BB#2 and BB#7
July 20: Chamber Music Concert. Fantasia concertante for clarinet, bassoon, and piano
July 22: Orquestra Sinfônica Municipal + Fabio Zanon. Guitar concerto
July 23: Cristina Ortiz. A Prole do Bebê nº 1, Alma Brasileira, Valsa da Dor, Festa no Sertão
July 24: Quinteto Villa-Lobos. Quinteto em Forma de Choros, Choros nº 2, BB#5, BB#2, O Trenzinho do Caipira
July 25: Orquestra de Metais Lyra Tatuí. A Lenda do Caboclo
July 25: Fabio Zanon. Choros #01, Preludes, Etudes

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: July 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.

Beginning this month, and continuing to the end of the year, Cultura FM will be presenting Turibio Santos in a regular series on Sundays at 11:00 a.m., entitled "O Brasil de Villa-Lobos". The programme on July 26 includes music from the CD "O Raro Villa-Lobos", with the late conductor Silvio Barbato.

Another highlight this month: a concert by Nelson Freire at the 40º Festival Internacional de Inverno de Campos do Jordão (recorded on July 17, and presented on Cultura FM on July 23).

July 2:
20:00 VOZES - canto coral com Naomi Munakata:
Francisco MIGNONE / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS. Coro e Orquestra do Estado de São Paulo. Reg. Naomi Munakata e John Neschiling.

July 4:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Hermeto PASCOAL - Bebê. Camerata Brasílica / Suite Norte-Sul-Leste-Oeste. Quinteto Villa Lobos. / Egberto GISMONTI - Um anjo. Quaternaglia. / Sérgio ASSAD - Uarekena. Quaternaglia. / VILLA LOBOS - New York Skyline./ A lenda do caboclo. Arthur Moreira Lima (piano) / VILLA-LOBOS - Dança dos mosquitos. Orquestra Sinfônica da Rádio Eslovaca. Reg.: Roberto Duarte.

July 7:
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Teresa Lima:
Radamés GNATTALI - Suite brasiliana n° 4. Miguel Proença (piano). / VILLA-LOBOS - Concerto para violão e pequena orquestra. Narciso Yepes (violão). Orquestra Sinfônica de Londres. Reg.: Garcia Navarro. / Johannes BRAHMS - Quarteto para cordas Op. 51 n° 1. Quarteto Belcea.

July 12:
11:00 O BRASIL DE VILLA-LOBOS com Turíbio Santos - Edição Especial:
Doze Estudos para Violão Pedro Pedrassoli (violão) / Suíte Popular Brasileira. Fabio Zanon (violão)

July 19:
11:00 O BRASIL DE VILLA-LOBOS com Turíbio Santos - Edição Especial:
Choros nº 10 (Rasga Coração) / Momoprecoce / Danças Africanas e O Trenzinho do Caipira (sexteto). Orquestra da Radiodifusão Francesa. Reg. Villa-Lobos. Magdalena Tagliaferro (piano)

July 23:
21:00 SALA DE CONCERTO ESPECIAL - 40º Festival Internacional de Inverno de Campos do Jordão:
RECITAL NELSON FREIRE: Robert SCHUMANN - Papillons, Op. 2. / Johannes BRAHMS - Sonata em fá sustenido menor, Op. 2. / Frédéric CHOPIN - Noturno em Sol maior, Op.37 n° 2. Noturno em dó menor, Op. 48 n° 1. Scherzo n°4 em Mí maior, Op. 54. / Claude DEBUSSY - Prelúdio n° 4 - Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir. Prelúdio n° 5 - Les Collines d'Anacapri. Prelúdio n° 8 - La fille aux cheveux de lin. Prelúdio n° 12 - Ministrels. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Prelúdio das Bachianas brasileiras n° 4. A Lenda do Caboclo. Gravação realizada em 17 de julho no Auditório Cláudio Santoro.

July 24:
12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO-DIA com o Maestro Walter Lourenção:
Chôros n° 9, de Villa-Lobos, com Kenneth Schermerhorn e a Orquestra Filarmônica de Hong Kong.

July 26:
10:00 ENCONTRO COM O MAESTRO com João Mauricio Galindo:
Villa-Lobos em Paris

11:00 O BRASIL DE VILLA-LOBOS com Turíbio Santos - Edição Especial:
Sinfonieta nº 2 / Primeira Suíte para Orquestra de Câmara / Naufrágio de Kleônicos. Orquestra do Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro. Reg. Silvio Barbato

22:00 KALEIDOSCÓPIO com Almeida Prado:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Choros nº 12 / Eric Satie - Trendement / Poudre d'or /Lê Piccadilly e Je te Veux. Orquestra Sinfônica de São Paulo. Reg. John Neschling / Jean-Pierre Armengand (piano)

July 27:
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Teresa Lima:
27-VILLA-LOBOS - Sonata n° 2 para violoncelo e piano. Marcio Carneiro (violoncelo). Werner Genuit (piano). / SAINT-SAËNS - Suíte para violoncelo e piano Op. 16. Christoph Henkel (violoncelo). Huseyin Sermet (piano).

20:00 ENCONTRO COM O MAESTRO com João Maurício Galindo:
Villa-Lobos em Paris

Fairfax Symphony plays BB#2

The Fairfax Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marcelo Lehninger played the Little Train of the Caipira movement from Bachianas Brasileiras #2 at a concert at George Mason University last October. You can listen to the piece, along with music by de Falla and Rimsky-Korsakov, at Instant Encore.

There's lots of other excellent Villa-Lobos available at Instant Encore:

• BB#5 with Hyunah Yu at a Chamber Music Northwest performance from August 2008;
• Assobio a Jato with Art of Élan from April 2009; and with Gili Schwartzman, Gili, flute, and Gilad Kaplansky, cello, at the Jerusalem Music Center in December 2007;
  
• Celin Romero playing a couple of Preludes, from the Romeros 50 Anniversary concert last April; and Pepe Romero playing all five Preludes;
  
• Distribuiçao de flores, with Eugenia Zukerman, flute, and David Starobin, guitar, at Music Mountain in August 2007; and
  
• Plus music for guitar by David Leisner, and for flute and guitar by Gary Schocker and Jason Vieaux.

This is only a portion of the many resources available at the Heitor Villa-Lobos page at Instant Encore: it's highly recommended.

Marsalis Brasilianos in Lisbon

Branford Marsalis (who's in Alberta this weekend - in Calgary tomorrow and Edmonton on Sunday - my birthday, hint, hint) is reprising his very successful 2008 Marsalis Brasilianos tour in Europe. He's in Lisbon on July 16th, performing with the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa. I'm assuming the program will include the Fantasia for Saxophone and Orchestra, which Marsalis has pretty much made his own after 27 performances during his US tour.

Villa the Conductor

In his review of the monster (22 CD) Composers in Person set from EMI, "Composers at the wheel", Scott Foglesong gets a chance to critique various composers as performers/conductors. He's pretty positive about Villa-Lobos:

"There are those composers who have played and/or conducted their own music but were really better served by others: Aaron Copland comes to mind in that respect, Paul Hindemith ditto. Heitor Villa-Lobos, on the other hand, did at least as well as anyone else and considerably better than most."

Though many have slammed Villa's conducting, Foglesong is in line with some pretty perceptive critics from the past:

Virgil Thompson:
“The composer conducted one through both pieces with courtesy, making everything clear and keeping us interested at every moment.”

Wesley Wehr:
"Mr. Villa-Lobos was a good conductor, especially of his own music. He could conduct with a glance."

Paul Bowles:
"In his conducting he bounced along with the beat animatedly and managed to keep the sometimes complicated rhythms clear of each other…. The further afield he goes, the more likely he is to bring back discoveries of true charm and value."

Villa-Lobos Children's Book

Portions of this children's book by S Santa Nereide Santa Rosa, and Angelo Bonito are available in Google Book Search. Unfortunately, the cover scan didn't work out. Here it is, from the Sebo do Messias bookstore in Brazil:

Arranging Bachianas Brasileiras #5

A recent post at Albert Combrink's Blog discusses the complicated and interesting matter of arranging Bachianas Brasileiras #5 for voice and piano. The sound that 8 cellos make is not easily reproduced by the piano. The solution of Combrink and Louise Howlett using the guitar-and-voice versions by Villa-Lobos and Segovia as transitions is clever. We'll have a chance to hear it in an upcoming CD, and hopefully it will be published for other musicians to perform.

I agree with Combrink that Villa-Lobos would have approved of an arrangement like this. The whole series of Bachianas Brasileiras includes many different versions by Villa-Lobos (#4 for piano & for orchestra; #2 for cello/piano & for orchestra; #9 for strings & for choir, among others). Villa-Lobos's music came from various traditions that relied on practical arrangements (piano trio and piano-4-hands versions of opera arias from Europe, for example), and on-the-fly improvisations (with the Choroes serenaders as well as the cinema orchestras that Villa played in). I look forward to hearing Howlett & Combrink's BB#5.

Combrink has a couple of other BB#5 posts, including this report on recordings and arrangements. I look forward to following up on some versions I hadn't heard myself. I'm also impressed that Combrink thinks so highly of Wayne Shorter's version, which is my favourite jazz version of Villa-Lobos.

Brazilian Composers at Google Squared

From Google Labs comes Google Squared. Right out of the box, it provides this nifty table of Brazilian composers. Try your own squares at http://www.google.com/squared.

Villa-Lobos Popular

Cristina Braga Trio (with pianist João Carlos Coutinho) presents "Villa-Lobos Popular", in Niterói.

Yerma in Brazil

Yerma, Villa-Lobos's opera based on Federico García Lorca's play, hasn't been heard in Brazil since 1983, and in America since the Santa Fe Opera's production in 1971. This weekend audiences in Campinas SP will be able to hear arias and duets from the opera, with soprana Elaine de Morais, tenor Rubens Medina, baritone Sebastião Teixeira, and pianist Marcos Aragoni.

The poster to the left is by José Caballero, an artist who painted many works inspired by García Lorca.

Happy Birthday Blogger

Blogger is about to turn 10 years old. Time to reminisce!

I've been blogging at The Villa-Lobos Magazine for most of those ten years - my first post was in October 2001. I learned about blogging from Peter Scott at a Netspeed Conference in Calgary, and could see right away that a blog would solve my "What's New" problem at the Villa-Lobos Website (which has been up and running since 1996, by the way).

Those were heady days in the Villasphere: Prof. Tarasti announced the Villa-Lobos Paris Conference, Daniella Thompson published "Stalking Stokowski", and we began seeing reviews for the film Villa-Lobos: Uma Vida da Paixao.

The early posts are full of dead links, I'm afraid. You can no longer listen to the Live365 and Radio Sonicnet all-Villa-Lobos all the time stations. Still, it's nice to revisit some sites that are still in operation: Klassika - die deutschspachigen Klassikseiten is very cool, for example.

Over the years I've met so many very nice people from around the world thanks to The Magazine. I'm not surprised that Brazil has the second highest Blogger traffic after the U.S. - many Brazilians are avid followers of The Magazine, and many of those have Blogger sites of their own. Canada, by the way, is #5 in Blogger traffic. Since I turned on Google Analytics in October 2007, The Villa-Lobos Magazine has had about 100,000 visits from 170 countries/territories: the US is #1, Brazil is #2, and Canada #3.

Congratulations to Google on 10 years for Blogger.

The mystery of Leopold Stokowksi

William Ander Smith's 1990 book The mystery of Leopold Stokowksi is a good read, which isn't a surprise considering the subject. I've meant to mention it before, but here's a technology-related reason to do so. I just heard about the new features available in Google Book Search, one of which is embedding book previews. Here's Smith writing about the famous Stokowski recording of Uirapuru:



You can search within the embedded application to find more references to Villa-Lobos. Villa and Stokowski, two larger-than-life characters, seem to have really hit it off. Smith's book is still in print and available at Amazon.com.

Villa-Lobos's Musica Sacra

Jill Burleson's overview of Villa's sacred music is the feature piece in the latest issue of Choral Journal, the official publication of the American Choral Directors Association, which is available on their website in PDF format. I was especially impressed with Burleson's discussion of the Musica Sacra collection published by Vincente Vitale in 1951/52. It's no coincidence, since her 2007 Doctoral thesis was "Selected choral works from 'Musica Sacra' by Heitor Villa-Lobos: A performance edition critical notes and commentary." It's encouraging to see this increased interest in Villa's sacred music. I hope it results in more performances and recordings in the future.

PostScript: Here's a coincidence. Right after I posted this, I came across this tweet @onradio3now from BBC Radio3 with the playlist for tonight's Through the Night program. It includes this performance from Danish Radio:

4.00am
Villa-Lobos, Heitor (1887-1959): Kyrie and Gloria (Missa Sao Sebastiao)
Danish National Girls Choir
Michael Bojesen (conductor)

You can listen to this program (June 17/09) on BBC's iPlayer for the next 7 days. Thanks again, Twitter.

South American Getaway

Martin Menking during the recording session for the EMI-CD Southamerican Getaway in the Siemens-Villa, Berlin, January 2000 - a photo by Koettlitz from Die 12 Cellisten der Berliner Philharmoniker website. This is an album that has stood the test of time.

International Guitar Research Archive

The International Guitar Research Archive has a Digital Collection at California State University Northridge's Oviatt Library. There are 243 Villa-Lobos discs in the IGRA discography, most of them from the LP period.

Here's a 1986 Wergo LP by Konrad Ragossnig (which was re-released on CD - here's the discography reference at Ragossnig's website):


I love the look and feel of LPs. The Digital Collection includes high-resolution scans of the back covers, and it took me back to a time when discs had two sides. I don't miss the scratches and pops though.

This collection of LPs is certainly a challenge to my idea of how many Villa-Lobos discs are actually out there. I recently passed 400 discs in my database at The Villa-Lobos Website, most of which are from the CD period, and perhaps only 100 of which are guitar discs. Someday I'll attempt to add these discs to database, and someday I'll attempt to listen to them all. Ebay, here I come!

São Paulo Samba DVD

A newly-released DVD with John Neschling conducting the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra includes an exciting mix of music by Latin American composers: Piazzolla, Ginastera, Mignone, and many others. I'm looking forward to watching Villa-Lobos's Choros #10 in a high quality video with surround-sound. This is one of Villa's greatest works, and Neschling's reviews for his Villa-Lobos performances with the Osesp have been universally positive.

I'm guessing that the performance included in this DVD is from last year's New Year's Eve concert at the Sala Villa-Lobos. That version is available on YouTube, and it's exciting:

The second part is available here.

Brazilian World Music on NML

The Naxos Music Library comes through again. As I've mentioned many times to people here in Red Deer (where my Public Library licenses NML for our customers) there's a wealth of non-classical music available from this service. I love their Jazz Legends and Nostalgia discs; you can't go wrong with Charlie Parker or Fred Astaire.

NML has always been strong in the World Music arena as well, but I hadn't paid much attention until I started listening to Brazilian discs from Nimbus, a recent addition to NML's large stable of independent labels.

I knew the four-disc set NI1741 Dance Music from Brazil (Choros & Forro). Included are great songs by masters like Pixinguinha, Nazareth, and Jacob do Bandolim. This is the music of the Chorões that Villa first heard as a young boy around the turn of the 20th century, and then had a chance to participate in himself as a young man (his nickname was "Classical Guitar").

NI5523 Modinhas Brasileiras (Songs from 19th Century Brazil) provides a window into an earlier period which also had an important influence on Villa-Lobos's music. Soprano Andrea Daltro is supported by a small chamber ensemble in an interesting mix of salon pieces and folk-songs from the late 1800s, some of them in arrangements by later composers like Hekel Tavares, Santoro, and (in the anonymous folk-song Viola quebrada) Villa-Lobos. A stand-out is the traditional tune Se esse rua fosse minha - I love the way Daltro whistles at the end. There are many other lovely pieces in this disc, and all are beautifully sung.

The disc NI5462 Quintetto Brassil plays Brazil (Brass Music from Northeast Brazil) includes three of Villa's Cirandas (originally written for piano), arranged for brass quintet. These little folksong-inspired pieces sound great in their new brass clothes.

I look forward to exploring more of the Nimbus catalogue, and also to broaden my horizons in Brazilian folk, instrumental, and world music in the Naxos Music Library.

Video from O Entrelinhas on TV Cultura

This video clip from the program O Entrelinhas on TV Cultura includes all sorts of goodies for the Villa-Lobos lover:



Unfortunately, a non-Portuguese-speaking VL lover like myself is in the dark for much of the 8:20 minutes included here. The highlight for me, though, is the little bit with Tom Jobim and Villa's cigar-holder, beginning at 5:25. This is true hero-worship!

Other items of interest:

• at 0:35, some video clips of Villa-Lobos playing the piano and composing;
• at 6:00, a clip from Sinfonia da Alvorado (1960), with music by Jobim, poetry by Vinicius de Moraes, and scenes of the construction of Brasilia;
• at 6:35, a picture of the new Guia Pratico edition published by Funarte and ABM, with some images of Villa's Canto Orpheonico period that I haven't seen before; and
• finishing off the video, Antonio Meneses playing the cello with the Osesp under the direction of John Neschling, in the 2nd Cello Concerto.
  

Robert Bonfiglio plays the Harmonica Concerto on YouTube

Robert Bonfiglio has been the Villa-Lobos Harmonica Concerto's best advocate for many years. He's played in venues large and small all around the world. It's great to have the lovely second movement of this piece (in a live performance from Leipzig) matched with lovely pictures of the Amazonian rainforest.

Publication of a new edition of the Guia Prático

To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Death of Villa-Lobos, the Academia Brasileira de Música has released the first volume of the revised edition of the Guia Prático para educação artística e musical.

ISBN: 978-85-88272-16-3 (ABM)
ISBN: 978-85-7507-105-2 (FUNARTE)
Editoras: Academia Brasileira de Música/FUNARTE
Ano: 2009
Número de páginas: 440 (Completo)
Acabamento: Lombada quadrada
Formato: 20 cm x 28 cm
Autor: Manuel Corrêa do Lago

Alvaro Henrique plays Villa-Lobos

Audio from guitarist Alvaro Henrique's May 9, 2009 concert in Switzerland is available on his website. Download the five Preludes, three Etudes, and Choros #01 here.

Silvio Barbato

I was saddened to hear of the death of Brazilian conductor Silvio Barbato, who was aboard the Air France 447 flight which went down in the Atlantic earlier this week. A pupil of Claudio Santoro, Barbato conducted Santoro's Statues of Man at the 1990 re-opening of the Manaus Opera House. He was best known as the Musical Director of the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro.

Barbato was referred to as a Villa-Lobos champion in this sympathetic obituary in the Telegraph. He was music director for Zelito Vianna's 2000 film Villa-Lobos: Uma Vida de Paixão. The only Villa-Lobos recording I know of that Barbato conducted (besides the film soundtrack) is the 2006 Violão Sinfônico disc with Turibio Santos, which includes Villa's Introdução aos Choros.

BB#4 from the OCC

Luís Gustavo Petri conducts the OCC (Orquestra de Câmara Portuguesa)in a performance of the first movement of Bachianas Brasileiras #4. The sound is pretty good in the HQ version of this video, but I wish we could have seen more of the orchestra and the venue: the 10th Century Convento de Arouca. Check out this excellent site for more on this important building.

Villa-Lobos Quartet in Montréal

James Darling, cellist from Le Quatuor Saint-Germain, sends information about an upcoming concert series on the Île de Montréal which features the great First Villa-Lobos String Quartet. Coincidentally, I've just flown back from Montréal to Red Deer. Would that I could have stuck around in one of my favourite cities until October!

The program of the concerts:

Adagio et Rondo, K 617........W.A. Mozart
Winds of Thera.........Andrew MacDonald
pause
Quatuor no. 1 en do majeur......Heitor Villa-Lobos
Five Tango Sensations........Astor Piazzolla

Le Quatuor Saint-Germain avec Joseph Petric, accordéon de concert

- October 9, 2009 20h Maison de la culture Villeray Saint-Michel (Montréal)
- October 11, 2009 20h Chapelle historique du Bon Pasteur (Montréal)
- October 14, 2009 20h Maison de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (Montréal)
- October 16, 2009 20h Maison de la culture Rivière-des-Praries (Montréal)
- October 17, 2009 20h Maison de la culture Lasalle (Montréal)
- October 18, 2009 16h Théâtre Mirella et Lino Saputo, Maison de la culture Saint-Léonard (Montréal)

String Quartet #01 is becoming very popular; it couldn't happen to a better piece!

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: June 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.

June 4:
15:00 TARDE CULTURA - Música e Notícia:
Entre outras peças, Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - As três Marias.Nelson Freire (piano). Camargo GUARNIERI - Dança Negra. Yo-Yo-Ma (cello). Kathrin Stott (piano). Ludwig van BEETHOVEN - Aberura Leonora. Orquestra Filarmônica Promenade de Londres. Reg.: Sir Adrian Boult.

June 6:
07:00 DESPERTE COM OS CLÁSSICOS:
Jacques OFFENBACH - Barcarola de "Os Contos de Hoffman". Orquestra Filarmônica de Berlim. Reg.: Herbert von Karajan./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Élégie. Orquestra Sinfônica do Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro. Marcelo Salle (cello). Reg.: Silvio Barbato....

08:00 QUATRO ESTAÇÕES - A Música ocidental em épocas e estilos:
O BARROCO - Antoine FRANCISQUE - (1575 - 1605) - Três danças para alaúde: Courante, Pavane e Bransles. Nancy Allen (harpa). / O PERÍODO COLONIAL -ANÔNIMO - Canções recolhidas no Brasil por Von MARTIUS (1817 - 1820). Coro e Orquestra Vox Brasiliensis. Reg.: Ricardo Kanji. / O ROMANTISMO - Edvard GRIEG (1843 - 1907) - Concerto para piano e orquestra em lá menor, opus 16. Jorge Bolet (piano). Orquestra Sinfônica da Rádio de Berlin. Reg.: Riccardo Chailly. / O SÉCULO XX - Heitor VILLA-LOBOS, (1887 - 1959) - Chôros nº 5 "Alma Brasileira". Aline van Barentzen (piano). Orquestra Nacional da Radiofusão Francesa. Reg.: Heitor Villa-Lobos.

June 7 / June 8:
10:00 ENCONTRO COM O MAESTRO com João Mauricio Galindo:
A música de câmara de Villa-Lobos

June 8:
23:00 NOTURNO:
Johan Sebastian BACH - Ária (Andante) Orquestra Rádio Sinfonia de Berlim. Reg.: Jesús Lopez-Cobos. / Fuga em lá menor. Julian Bream (violão)./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Francette e Piá. Lydia Kennedy e Frans van Gurp (violões).

June 13:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
VILLA-LOBOS - Danças características africanas. Alfred Heller (piano). / O papagaio do moleque. Symphony of the Air. Dir.: Heitor Villa-Lobos. / Sérgio ASSAD - Jobiniana. Aliéksey Viana (violão). / GUERRA PEIXE - Sete Lúdicas para violão e cordas. Marcus Llerena (violão). Orquestra Brasil Consort. Dir.: David Chew. / Egberto GISMONTI - Memória e Fado. / Água e Vinho. Marcos Vinícius (violão).

June 19:
07:00 DESPERTE COM OS CLÁSSICOS:
Astor PIAZZOLLA - Tango Suíte. Yo-Yo-Ma (cello). Sergio e Odair Assad (violões)./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Choros n°1. Edelton Gloeden (violão)./ Gabriel FAURÉ - Elegia opus 24. Frederic Lodéon (violoncelo). Orquestra Filarmônica de Monte Carlo. Reg.: Armin Jordan. / SOLLIMA - Violoncelles Vibrez!. Kremerata Baltica./ Edvard GRIEG - Suíte Lírica, op. 54. Orquestra Hallé. Reg: Sir John Barbirolli./ Franz LISZT - Aleluia. Philip Thomson (piano).

June 20:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Brenno BLAUTH - Concertino para oboé e orquestra de cordas. Isaac Duarte (oboé). Orquestra de Câmara Acadêmica de Zurique. Dir.: Carlos Moreno. / Sergio BARBOZA - Ciranda I. Turíbio Santos (violão). / VILLA-LOBOS - Uirapurú. Orquestra Sinfônica da Paraíba. Dir.: Eleazar de Carvalho.

13:00 DELICATESSEN com Teresa Lima:
Claude DEBUSSY - Balada. Roberta Rust (piano). / VILLA-LOBOS - Concerto para violoncelo e orquestra n° 2. Ulrich Schmid (violoncelo). Filarmonia do Noroeste da Alemanha. Reg.: Dominique Roggen. / Giuseppe TORELLI - Concerto em ré maior. St. James Baroque Players. Reg.: Ivor Bolton.

June 22:
07:00 DESPERTE COM OS CLÁSSICOS:
Jean FRANÇAIX - O Relógio de Flores. John de Lancie (oboé). Orquestra Sinfônica de Londres. Reg.: André Previn./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Prelúdio das Bachianas Brasileiras nº 4. Orquestra Petrobrás Pró-Música. Dir.: Armando Prazeres./ Pjotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY - Variações "Rococó", op. 33. Reiner Hochmuth (violoncelo). Orquestra Filarmônica de Câmara Polonesa. Dir.: Wojciech Rajski./ Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART - Sonata para flauta e piano K. 12. Lise Daoust (flauta). Louise Bessette (piano)./ Alberto NEPOMUCENO - Serenata para cordas. Orquestra Esproarte. Dir.: Arnold Allum.

June 23:
07:00 DESPERTE COM OS CLÁSSICOS:
Maurice RAVEL - Balé "A Mamãe Gansa". Orquesta Sinfônica de Londres. Reg.: André Previn./ Marin MARAIS - Prelúdio da primeira suíte do quarto livro para três violas da gamba. Jean-Louis charbonnier, Anne-Marie Lasla e Marion Middenway (violas da gamba). Mirela Giardelli (cravo)./ Ferruccio BUSONI - Sonata para clarinete e piano. Dieter Klöcker (clarinete). Werner Genuit (piano)./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas Brasileiras nº 9. Orquestra de Câmara da Argentina. Dir.: Fernadno Hasaj.

June 24:
12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO-DIA com o Maestro Walter Lourenção:
Carl St. Clair rege a Orquestra Radio-Sinfonie de Stuttgart para a obra de VILLA-LOBOS.

June 27:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Alexandre LEVY - Variações sobre um tema popular brasileiro. Marina Brandão (piano). / VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas Brasileiras nº 1. Rondo Violoncello. Dir.: Peter Buck.

Van Cliburn Competition

There are lots of blog postings and tweets out there about the 2009 Van Cliburn Competition, which is under way right now. It's interesting that two previous winners of this competition are now major advocates of Villa-Lobos's music:

• José Feghali: the gold medalist from the seventh competition in 1985. Feghali is best known for his involvement in the Nashville Symphony's complete Bachianas Brasileiras set from Naxos.
• Cristina Ortiz: the gold medalist from the third competition in 1969. Ortiz plays the piano in Choros #5 and #11 in the recent BIS series of the complete Choros. Her set of the five piano concertos on Decca is a classic.

Live streaming of the competition is available on the web at http://www.cliburn.tv.

Forest of the Amazon Ballet in Recife

The music that Villa-Lobos wrote for MGM's movie The Green Mansions was first adapted for the ballet in 1975, at the Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro. The production has been revived for two performances at the Teatro Guararapes in Recife next week (May 26 & 27), with Ana Botofago dancing the role of Rima the bird-girl (played by Audrey Hepburn in the movie).

The picture is from Globo.com

Here's more information on the 1975 production in Rio de Janeiro. The production was designed by Dalal Achar, the choreographer who was born in Rio of Lebanese descent. From this page at the One Fine Art website, we see that Achar co-choreographed Forest of the Amazon with Sir Frederick Ashton. This production was created for the great ballerina Margot Fonteyn, and also featured David Wall, Doreen Wells, Georgina Parkinson, Cynthia Gregory, Desmond Kelly and Ivan Nagy.

From a website about Frederick Ashton comes this description of the Achar/Ashton ballet:

[Floresta Amazónica]
Choreography by Dalal Ashcar and Frederick Ashton
M Heitor Villa-Lobos (Suite from the film Green Mansions, 1958)
C Jose Varona
Pas de deux
D Ela: Margot Fonteyn; O Homen Blanco: David Wall
FP Ballet do Rio de Janeiro, Teatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro,
6 August 1975

ST Pas de deux only; FP Curitiba, Brazil, 20 August 1975

ST New London Ballet; pas de deux only; D Margot Fonteyn, Ivan Nagy; Teatro Nacional, Madrid, 1 October 1975

ST An Evening with Fonteyn and Nureyev; under the title Final Pas de deux from Amazon Forest; D Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev;
FP Uris Theatre, New York NY, 18 November 1975

ST Royal Ballet: under the title Amazon Forest; D Margot Fonteyn, David Wall; FP Royal Opera House, London, 23 November 1976

ST Gala Ballet Season: D Margot Fonteyn, Stephen Jefferies;
FP Royal Festival Hall, London, 10 August 1978

I will add a record about the Forest of the Amazon ballet to the Villa-Lobos Works database.

Orquestra Sinfônica Nacional‏ UFF Plays BB#9

A really interesting programme from the OSN - UFF under Ricardo Rocha. Thanks to (who else?) Carlos at Audições Brasileiras.

Marlos Nobre

Marlos Nobre has been called the successor of Villa-Lobos. The picture above, from the Marlos Nobre Website, shows him, in full 1980s costume, with Villa's widow, Mindinha.

Nobre certainly has as high a profile as any other Brazilian composer today. I recently came across the Marlos Nobre Channel on YouTube (thanks once again to the Audições Brasileiras blog!). There are many orchestral, chamber music, and instrumental videos to watch there. Together they'll give you a good idea of Nobre's styles, though you'll also want to check out his large, and growing, discography.

Audiences in the U.S. will have a chance to hear a new work of Nobre's during the upcoming tour of the Orquestra de São Paulo, when Evelyn Glennie performs the Percussion Concerto she commissioned from Nobre.

I'll leave you with one of my favourite Nobre pieces, the Concertante do Imaginário,from YouTube:

Educational Concerts with the Quarteto Radamés Gnattali

The Quarteto Radamés Gnattali will be embarking on a major tour of three Brazilian provinces - Acre in the far west, Mato Grosso in the central part of the country, and Piauí in the north-east. They'll be performing 15 educational concerts in some fairly small towns & cities, all based on arrangements of Villa-Lobos's Guia Pratico.

The model for this kind of tour is the 1931 Excursão Artistica Villa-Lobos, in which Villa and a group of musician friends (including Souza Lima, Nair Duarte and Antonieta Rudge) performed 54 concerts in the back woods of the states of São Paulo, Minas e Paraná. Things have changed a bit since 1931; I'm hoping that some YouTube videos will be posted during the 2009 tour.

Besides this huge undertaking, the Quarteto RG will also be performing all 17 Villa-Lobos string quartets at the Museu Villa-Lobos, on Aug. 12 & 13, 20 & 21, and 27 & 28. The group is taking the Ano Villa-Lobos seriously!

Thanks to Audições Brasileiras for this information.

BB#6 Audio from the Spoleto Festival

Tara Helen O’Connor (flute) and Peter Kolkay (bassoon) play Bachianas Brasileiras #6 in this concert from the Spoleto Chamber Music Festival. There are some great concerts available on the prx.org site, including many others from the 2009 festival in Charleston SC.

The Fred Flaxman Compact Discoveries progrom also available on this site are also great. Flaxman seems to be a big Villa-Lobos fan.

Free registration is required at prx.org.

Villa-Lobos- um clássico popular

The Quinteto Villa-Lobos launches its new CD this weekend at the Auditório do Ibirapuera in São Paulo. The CD, entitled "Villa-Lobos- um clássico popular", presents popular VL works - including BB#2, #4, and #5, arranged for wind quintet.

After the May 17th event, the group goes on a long road-trip in Brazil to promote the CD, visiting Belo Horizonte (May 23), Florianópolis (June 27), Porto Alegre (July 10), Curitiba (October 23-24), Campinas, and Salvador. Watch for more information on the Quinteto VL website and blog.

Parisot and the Yale Cellos

I've posted about Aldo Parisot and The Yale Cellos a few times. Here's the cover of the programme from the recent 50th Anniversary concert. You can see the whole programme at this really cool site: issuu.com. One of the excellent things inside: another painting by Parisot, of Copacabana Beach.

XII Prêmio Carlos Gomes de Ópera & Música Erudita.

The major annual classical music competition in Brazil is named for the composer Carlos Gomes. At this year's event, some musicians well-known for their Villa-Lobos recordings won awards.

The conductor John Neschling, late of the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo won the Troféu Guarany. Ironically (or not - I'm not sure if this is really ironic), the OSESP won the award for best orchestra.

Sonia Rubinsky won for best instrumentalist, while the Quarteto Villa-Lobos won for best chamber ensemble. All the details are here. Below is the Quarteto VL's trophy, from the QVL blog.

Villa-Lobos in Israel

Villa-Lobos was in Israel in June, 1952. This photo from the National Photo Collection of Israel is in the public domain - I found it at the Wikimedia Commons site.

"Composer Heitor Villa-Lobos bows to the public after his concert at the "Ohel Shem" Hall in Tel Avis," National Photo Collection [1] ,serial#-054817, photo code- D597-077, 1 June 1952(1952-06-01). The photo is by Fritz Cohen.

Villa-Lobos conducted the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert which included Choros #6 and the 2nd Piano Concerto, and works by Corelli & Bach. See Lisa Peppercorn's article "Villa-Lobos in Israel", in Villa-Lobos: Collected studies by L.M. Peppercorn, p. 242-3.

State Music and Dictatorship

An international conference entitled "Musique d'Etat et Dictature / State Music and Dictatorship" deals with an issue that is central to the story of Villa-Lobos, but which is not at all well understood. The conference is presented by the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, from May 14-16, 2009.

Gabriel Ferraz, from the University of Florida, will make a presentation entitled "Heitor Villa-Lobos and Getúlio Vargas: Indoctrinating Children through Music Education." This sounds like a fascinating talk.

Here is my take on this. Villa-Lobos had an ambiguous relationship with Getúlio Vargas, who came to power in a bloodless coup on October 24, 1930. Vargas's long (though interrupted) reign started in reaction to the coffee oligarchs that held real power in Brazil. It was at first a liberal, populist revolution, though before the end it had turned into something closer to the contemporary fascism of Europe. When Villa took over his responsibilities in music education, he was perhaps more in tune with those liberal roots. This was all entwined with his own love of country, his deep commitment to music education, and his ideals of democracy.

In his book My Guitar & My World, Abel Carlevaro talks about how much this all meant to Villa-Lobos:

"It was his firm belief that musical education through group singing at primary level was the way to the establishment of a truly Brazilian musical conscience, and he enjoyed social and collective art of all types, particularly massive choral works involving huge choirs."

Carlevaro worships Villa-Lobos. His chapter on the composer is a long and heart-felt eulogy to Villa the man as well as Villa the musician. He doesn't go into Villa's relationship with a regime which moved fairly quickly to the dark side, coming to resemble those of Peron in Argentina, Salazar in Portugal, and Mussolini in Italy (if not quite Stalin or Hitler).

I've read few serious discussions of this issue, and I must admit that I've ducked it myself over the years. I suspect that Villa's ego was involved here: it must be hard to stand in front of forty-thousand singing children and not feel a sense of power. Villa's music often seems to be at least partly about Villa himself. Empowering children through music and building a nation from diverse races and classes is one side of the coin. Manipulating the masses through that same power, in aid of a repressive regime, is the other. It's instructive that Carlevaro ends his discussion of this period with a quote of Villa's: "My music is a reflection of sincerity." I don't know that I'm completely convinced.

In June of 1936 Villa-Lobos traveled to Prague for an International Conference on Music Education. In one of the 'Presença de Villa-Lobos' books of essays and reminiscences published by the Museu Villa-Lobos,

"...there is an anecdote of how Villa-Lobos was waiting with the other passengers in the departure lounge at Frankfurt when several officials entered, accompanying a man who had a small, black moustache. Everyone jumped to their feet and saluted - except for Villa-Lobos, who remained seated and unimpressed. The officials asked to see his passport, decided that this Brazilian national, who was described as a composer, was of no consequence to the Nazi party, and took the matter no further." [Thanks to Harold Lewis for bringing this great story to my attention.]

I love this story, but I wonder if Villa's courage in Frankfurt was a small stand against fascism in his own country, which he couldn't sustain when he got back home.

Pequena Suite score

Though Villa-Lobos scores will go into the public domain in Canada (and other countries who use death+50 years) in 2010, works written before 1923 are already in the public domain in the U.S. That's why you can download the 1913 Pequena Suite for cello and piano from the Internet Archive. This PDF file is digitized by Google, and is from the David P. Appleby collection at the University of Texas at Austin.

Gewandhaus Concert Poster

From Europeana, the European digital library, a poster for a Villa-Lobos Centennial concert in Leipzig.

Educational Concerts at the Museu Villa-Lobos

This series of educational concerts at the Museu Villa-Lobos will take place later this month, during Brazil's National Museums Week. Thanks to the Audições Brasileiras blog for this.

Alex Ross in Brazil

New Yorker music critic Alex Ross will be in Brazil in July for Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty (FLIP) 2009. In this article in today's Atarde Online, some people (including musicians Isaac Karabtchevsky, Arthur Moreira Lima, and Ricardo Castro) wonder why Ross didn't feature more Brazilian composers in his prize-winning book The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. I appreciated the mentions of Villa-Lobos in the book, but I do hope that Villa-Lobos the modernist might loom a bit larger in a future edition of the book.

Villa's stock as a modernist has risen, I think, even since Ross wrote his book. The recent BIS series of the complete Choros gives one a better feel for how important they are in the music of Villa-Lobos and more generally in the whole world of music in the 1920s. Ross focussed more on the Bachianas Brasileiras series.

As to other Brazilian composers of the 20th century, it's hard to be noticed in Villa's shadow. I look forward to reading The Rest is Noise blog during the Flip trip, and hearing what Ross thinks of the state of Brazilian classical music in this century as well as the last.

Magdalena in Paris

An exciting revival in Paris of the 1948 musical Magdalena begins later this month this time next year (May 18-22, 2010). This music certainly deserves a wider audience.

I guess the work has fared pretty well over the years. Previous runs were in Germany in 1999, and Oregon in 2000, along with the famous revivals in Ohio in 1992 and the Centennial performance at Alice Tully Hall in New York in 1987. Luckily the 1989 Boston performance with Orchestra New England was recorded; you can still track it down from used CD vendors.

Thanks to Affonso Risi Jr. for the head's-up on this.

Villa's Cabernet

When I post about wine here at The Villa-Lobos Magazine I either add the picture above, which really captures Villa's bon vivant persona, or mention that I used to work in the wine industry.

Back in those olden days, there were no easily available Brazilian wines, but the industry seems to have made some real strides lately. The Casa Valduga winery has a very impressive website; I'd love to get my hands (and corkscrew) on a bottle of this!

Thanks to this blog post for the head's-up on this.

Villa-Lobos Concerti on WGBH

Here's some great programming from one of my favourite radio stations: WGBH (it's at the top of my iPhone radio list). I've never counted before, but like nearly every genre, the Villa-Lobos concertos add up. Let's see: 5 piano concertos (plus Momoprecoce, BB#3, Choros #11, and Introduction to Choros), 3 cello concertos, the concerto grosso, and concertos for harp, bassoon, harmonica, guitar, saxophone. Looks like WGBH might be including fairly obscure works in addition to these, to come up with 21 altogether. It's so great that we get to hear something other than a few Bachianas Brasilieras or works for guitar.

Mondays–Fridays, May 1–29, 10am on 89.7
(5pm on All-Classical WGBH) Classics in the Morning
The music of Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959) offers a chance to explore the intertwining of European and South American roots that make up Brazil's vibrant culture. In this 50th anniversary year of the composer's death, hear one of his 21 concerti each weekday in May, including the early works, which spotlight piano and cello, as well as the later, less conventional textures of soprano saxophone and harmonica.

Naxos Music Library at InstantEncore

I've always been a fan of the Naxos Music Library. Two of the top labels for Villa-Lobos are Naxos and Marco Polo, and then there are independents like BIS, Albany Records, Chandos, and Ondine. Many public libraries (including mine) license NML for their customers, but a personal subscription is also definitely worth the money.

I also really like another, newer web service: InstantEncore. Their Villa-Lobos page is turning into an important web source, and they're constantly adding new features.

The newest feature is exciting: many upcoming concert listings at InstantEncore include a "Listen Now" feature in partnership with the Naxos Music Library. Here's an example: the Boston Symphony Chamber Players will be playing the Quinteto em forma de Choros at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival on June 28th (my birthday, as it happens). You can listen online to the NML streaming audio of the Villa-Lobos work, as well as the Poulenc and the Beethoven works in the same concert, without a subscription.

I'm looking forward to using this service in the future.

Bachianas Brasileiras blog thread

I online-overheard this very interesting blog conversation about BB#1 and BB#6:

From:

Beyond the Canon - A New Perspective on Late Music History - A Synthesis of Styles: Heitor Villa-Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras nos. 1 and 6

to:

Cons. 352 Journals by Ben Cross - Response to Hannah's Bachianas Brasilerias

to:

Nick Baker's Musical Thoughts - The Bachianas Brasileiras of Heitor Villa-Lobos - A Response to Hannah Porter's Journal Entry

It's nice to see these interesting issues being debated online. Bachian vs. Brazilian themes is a great starting point. I agree with Nick's introduction of a regional musical geography. BB#1 is a great place for this discussion. It's one of many musical tours of Brazil that Villa wrote.

I find it interesting that Villa the Carioca (urban and urbane citizen of big-city Rio) has such a feel for the North-East portion of Brazil. One minute he's in the cafe drinking his cafezinho, listening to the choroes, and the next he's in the wilds of the Sertão Nordestino. And he does it all through 8 cellos playing together.

Is there a composer with a stronger sense of place in music?

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: May 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.

May 5:
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Teresa Lima:
Louis SPOHR - Quinteto em dó menor para piano, flauta, clarinete, trompa e fagote Op. 52. Wolfgang Sawallisch (piano). Quinteto Residenz Munich./ Frederic CHOPIN - Polonaise em dó menor Op. 40. n° 2. Artur Rubinstein (piano). / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas brasileiras n° 1. Mstislav Rostropovitch (violoncelo). Ensemble de violoncellistes.

May 9:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
VILLA-LOBOS - Fantasia Concertante para piano, clarinete e cello. Paquito D'Rivera (clarinete). Pablo Zinger (piano). Gustavo Tavares (violoncelo). / Edino KRIEGER - Prelúdio e Fuga. Beatriz Balzi (piano). / Osvaldo LACERDA - Andante. Wagner Politschuk (trombone). Káthia Bonna (piano). / Brasiliana n° 8. Paola Tarditi e Silvia Maltese (piano a quatro mãos).

May 13:
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.

May 14:
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Teresa Lima:
Joseph HAYDN - Sonata n° 54. Hob.XVI: 40. Jenõ Jandó (piano). / Henryk WIENIAWSKI - Polonaise em ré maior Op. 4. Konstanty Andrzej Kulka (violino). Jerzy Marchwinski (piano). / Ludwig van BEETHOVEN - Concerto para piano n° 2. Op. 19. Till Fellner (piano). The Academy of St. Martin in the fields. Reg.: Sir Neville Marriner. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Choros n° 4. Vitali Bouianovski. Pavel Evstigneev. Anatoli Soukoroukov. Victor Benglovski.

May 17:
10:00 ENCONTRO COM O MAESTRO com João Mauricio Galindo:
Villa-Lobos para iniciantes - (repeated May 18 at 18:00)

May 22:
13:00 DELICATESSEN com Teresa Lima:
Anton ARENSKY - Suíte para dois pianos n° 4 Op. 62. Stephen Coombs e Ian Munro (pianos). / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Concerto para piano n° 4. Cristina Ortiz (piano). Royal Philarmonic Orchestra. Reg.: Miguel Gómez-Martínez. / Bohuslav MARTINU - Sonata para violoncelo e piano n° 3. Steven Isserlis (violoncelo). Peter Evans (piano).

May 26:
21:00 SALA DE CONCERTO:
Mozart CAMARGO GUARNIERI - Concerto nº 1 para violino e orquestra. Luiz Felipe (violino). Orquestra Sinfônica Municipal de São Paulo. Reg.: Lutero Rodrigues. / Mozart CAMARGO GUARNIERI - Concerto nº 2 para violino e orquestra. Luiz Felipe (violino). Orquestra Sinfônica Municipal de São Paulo. Reg.: Lutero Rodrigues. / Mozart CAMARGO GUARNIERI - Choro para violino e orquestra. Luiz Felipe (violino). Orquestra Sinfônica Municipal de São Paulo. Reg.: Lutero Rodrigues. / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Concerto nº 1 para piano e orquestra. Cristina Ortiz (piano). Orquestra Filarmônica Real. Reg.: Miguel Gómez-Martinez.

May 27:
15:00 TARDE CULTURA - Música e Notícia:
Entre outras peças, Johann Nepomuk HUMMEL - Septeto Militar op.114. Conjunto Capricórnio./ Joseph HAYDN - Sonata nº 36 para piano. Jenö Jandó (piano)./ Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas Brasileiras nº 2. Orquestra Sinfônica de Cincinnati. Reg.: Jesús Lópes-Cobos./ Jean SIBELIUS - Serenata, op. 69 n° 1. Ida Haendel (violino). Orquestra Sinfônica de Bournemouth. Dir.: Paavo Berglund.

May 30:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Concerto para violão e pequena orquestra. Roland Dyens (violão). Ensemble Instrumental Jean-Walter Audoli. Reg.: Jean-Walter Audoli.

Gismonti Plays Villa-Lobos

All Villa-Lobos lovers must have Gismonti's album Trem Caipira in their collections.

Fantasia Concertante in Karlsruhe

From a concert in Karlsruhe earlier this month (April 6, 2009), a spirited performance of a movement from this chamber piece written in 1953. Aloysio Fagerlande, bassoon, Paulo Sergio Santos, clarinet, Fany Solter, piano

Chamber Music MP3s

The Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet website has an impressive archive of recorded performances, which you can download in MP3 form. It includes four important Villa-Lobos chamber works:

• Choros #02 for flute & clarinet (influenced, perhaps, by Villa's friend Edgard Varese?)
• Choros #07 for seven instruments
• Trio for clarinet, oboe, & bassoon
• Quinteto em forma de Choros
  

Orquestra de São Paulo 2009 US Tour

In October the Orquestra de São Paulo begins its 2009 Tour of the U.S. The CAMI website has some preliminary information. I'm anxious to see the programme for the tour. The Tour Press Release mentions that conductor Kazem Abdullah (whose career got a big boost when he took over for James Levine at a Metropolitan Opera performance of Gluck’s Orfeo last January) will include music by Villa-Lobos and Camargo Guarnieri. Another highlight will be a brand new percussion concerto written for Evelyn Glennie by Marlos Nobre.

Naturally, this announcement caused a bit of a stir in Brazil, where the controversy over the firing of John Neschling still simmers. See this story at the Concerto website.

Villa-Lobos: Uma Vida em Sete Notas

From April 16 to June 7, 2009, Shopping Villa-Lobos in Sao Paulo will be the scene of an important exhibition: "Villa-Lobos: Uma Vida em Sete Notas". Each week of the display has a theme, and each represents one of the "7 notes" of the title.

The exhibition has an online version: a very flashy Flash website, which is worth the wait to load.

Here's a picture of a portion of the exhibition from VivaMusica:

Face of a Nation

Librarians have access to shelves & shelves of books and other forms of information, but don't always have much time to read. That's my only excuse for missing Philip Clark's article on Villa-Lobos in the September 2008 issue of Gramophone: "Face of a nation" (p. 44-47).



So pop down to your local library and dig up the September 2008 issue. Luckily, you can read the full article online at the excellent Gramophone website, with only the occasional optical character recognition glitch marring Clark's excellent prose.

The list of essential CDs is excellent: Norbert Kraft for the guitar music (though he should be referred to as a Canadian rather than an American guitarist); Sonia Rubinsky for the piano music; Neschling + SPSO's Choros; Minczuk + SPSO's Bachianas Brasileiras; and the St.Clair + Stuttgart Orchestra Symphonies.

One of the best things about the article are the quotes Clark gets from John Neschling, who isn't afraid of being controversial:

"Villa-Lobos didn't give a damn whether musicans could play his music..."

and

"He was a terrible conductor and did his reputation tremendous harm!"

The latter quote is probably worth a post of its own!

Villa-Lobos String Quartet

The Villa-Lobos String Quartet is off on a significant tour of Southern California and France, with an impressive program of Brazilian music for String Quartet. Learn more at their website (and check out some videos). The mission of this excellent group is "...to spread the work of Villa-Lobos and other great Brazilian composers."

04.19.2009 San Gabriel, California, Loskota Hall
04.25.2009 Orange County, California, Orange County High School
04.27.2009 Azusa, California
05.01.2009 Pasadena, California, Place TBA
05.30.2009 Belfort, France, FIMU, www.fimu.com
05.31.2009 Belfort, France, FIMU
06.01.2009 Belfort, France, FIMU
06.05.2009 Los Angeles, USA

Program:

Villa-Lobos String Quartet n 1
Villa-Lobos String Quartet n 5
Osvaldo Lacerda, Pequena Suite Para Quarteto de Cordas
Guerra-Peixe, Mourao
Alberto Nepomuceno, Serenata
Sivuca, Joao e Maria
Carlos Gardel, Por una Cabeza
Astor Piazzola, Contrabajeando
Astor Piazzola, Muerte del Angel

The View from Inside

This is the kind of video you never used to see...

Villa-Lobos on Radio MEC

The program Sala de Concerto (Fridays at 17:05 Brazil time = 20:05 UTC = 16:05 EDT = 14:05 MDT here in Red Deer) on Rio de Janeiro's Radio MEC will be featuring a number of interesting Villa-Lobos pieces in the next month. Listen online here. The Turibio Santos concert should be a real highlight.

April 24 - O Violão de Villa-Lobos (obras comentadas)

TURÍBIO SANTOS - violão

• Programa:
  CINCO PRELÚDIOS
  1º - Mi menor
  2º - Mi Maior
  3º - Lá menor
  4º - Mi menor
  5º - Ré Maior
• ESTUDOS
  Vários
• SUÍTE POPULAR BRASILEIRA
  Mazurca-Choro
  Schottisch-Choro
  Valsa-Choro
  Gavota-Choro
  Chorinho

May 08 - CLARICE PRIETTO, Mezzo-Soprano
JOSÉ RESCALA, Tenor
Participação especial: KÁTIA BALLOUSSIER – Piano
A PALAVRA CANTADA DE MANUEL BANDEIRA

Programa:

VILLA-LOBOS

O Anjo da Guarda

Modinha – (tenor)

OSVALDO LACERDA

Poemeto Erótico

Valsa Brasileira

Poema retirado de uma noticia de jornal

Felicidade

O Menino Doente

Cantiga I

LORENZO FERNANDEZ

Canção do Mar

JAIME OVALLE

Modinha

Azulão

CAMARGO GUARNIERI

Vai, Azulão

NÊMIA FERNANDEZ

Madrigal

JOSÉ SIQUEIRA

Madrigal

FRANCISCO MIGNONE

Berimbau

Cantiga – (tenor)

D Janaína

O Menino Doente

GUERRA-PEIXE

Vou-me embora pra Pasárgada

EDINO KRIEGER

Desafio – (tenor)

May 15:CELINELENA IETTO, soprano

ELIANE SALEK, mezzo-soprano

PRISCILA BOMFIM, pianista

Programa:

Padre Nosso - Francisco Braga (Dueto)

Amor que partiu - Claudio Santoro (Eliane)

Lundu da marquesa de Santos - H.Villa-Lobos (Eliane)

Acalanto da Rosa - Claudio Santoro (Celinelena)

Teus olhos - Murilo Santos (Celinelena)

Choro urbano - Edmundo Villani-Côrtes (Dueto)

Roseas flores d'Alvorada - anônimo (Eliane)

Lua Branca - Chiquinha Gonzaga (Eliane)

Ave-Maria -Carlos Gomes (Celinelena)

Soneto - Nepomuceno (Celinelena)

Duettino Viens,Mallika - Léo Delibes (ópera Lakmé) (Dueto)

Les Chemins de l'amour - F.Poulenc (Eliane)

Chanson Bohèmme - Bizet (ópera Carmen) (Eliane)

Ária de Delia - Carlos Gomes (óperaFosca ) (Celinelena)

Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour – Offenbach (ópera Os Contos de Hoffmann) (Dueto)

May 30: EDNALDO BORBA, piano

Programa:

F. Chopin

Mazurkas Op. 6:
No. 1 - em F# menor
No. 2 - em C# menor
No. 3 - em E (Vivace)
No. 4 - em Eb menor (Presto, ma non troppo)

F. Chopin

Fantasia Op. 49

F. Schubert

Improvisos Op. 142:
No. 3 - Thema (Andante) mit Variazionen em Bb
No. 4 - Allegro scherzando em F menor

H. Villa-Lobos

Do ciclo brasileiro:

Festa no Sertão.

Aldo Parisot's Yale celebration

The 2008-2009 edition of the Music at Yale Magazine is available online. It includes a fascinating story (on pp. 6-9) about the great cellist Aldo Parisot. He's shown here, in a picture I haven't seen before, with his close friend Heitor Villa-Lobos (channelling, perhaps just a bit, Elvis). Villa wrote the second Cello Concerto, which seems to be in vogue lately, for Parisot in the year that this photo was taken, 1953.

Besides his obvious skills as an instrumentalist, conductor, and teacher, Parisot is an accomplished painter. Check out musicyale's Flickr photostream here. I love the picture of Parisot with one of his paintings, and also, of course, the one of Parisot with one of my favourite jazz artists, Dave Brubeck.

The YouTube Symphony plays BB#9 at Carnegie Hall

That's a pretty tight performance of Bachianas Brasileiras #9 (at the 43:00 mark in this entertaining video), considering these musicians have only been playing together for a couple of days!

Flute Concert in Marseille

The Festival International des Musiques d'Aujourd'hui will be held in Marseille from the 6th to the 26th of May. One of the highlights is an Andrea Ernest Dias flute concert that includes Bachianas Brasileiras #6. This concert program is one of the most interesting I've ever seen; I'd love to be there.

A Visit to the Museu Villa-Lobos

A new YouTube video from the TV Cultura program Vitrine includes some great footage of Villa-Lobos playing the piano and the guitar, and composing. Also, Museu Villa-Lobos Director Turibio Santos shows off the many pictures, scores, and personal effects of the composer you can see up close at the Museum.

YouTube Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall

It's been fun watching the YouTube Symphony Orchestra come together. Their first public performance is on April 15, at Carnegie Hall. Artistic Advisor & Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas has included a work by Villa-Lobos in this concert, and it looks like it will be the Bachianas Brasileiras #9.

Here is MTT talking with violinist Alexander Barantschik about the fugue from BB #9, which will be a real challenge for the YouTube SO string players with such a short period to practice together!



As MTT says, "Primitive and sophisticated at the same time..."

Apparently, 10 minute clips from the concert will go up on YouTube the day after the concert.