The Villa-Lobos Website moves to Indiana

Here's a nice present for Heitor Villa-Lobos's birthday: the new version of the Heitor Villa-Lobos Website is now officially up on the web, at http://www.villalobos.iu.edu. Thanks to Erick Carballo and everyone at the Latin American Music Centre at Indiana University for all their work in making the move from Red Deer to Bloomington.

Gil Jardim conducts the 1st Sinfonietta

The Sinfonietta #1, from 1916, is rarely performed, so it's nice to see this excellent video of Gil Jardim conducting the Orquestra de Câmara da USP. This is from the 4th Leo Brouwer Guitar Festival. Also on the video is Brouwer's Concierto Elegiaco, plus an Albeniz encore.

Jennie Tourel's Serestas on 78

 

My last post was about the Columbia Masterworks LP that included 6 Villa-Lobos songs, 5 from the Serestas cycle. Here is the original 78rpm album, an important part of my Villa-Lobos music library.

 

The five Serestas are Modinha (#5), Abril (#9), Na Paz do Outono (#6), Cancao do Carreiro (#8) and Desejo (#10). These are important compositions, written by Villa-Lobos in Paris in 1925-26.  The sixth song, Sino de Aldeia, is the sixth song from the Miniaturas cycle of 1916-17.

Here is the back cover. Unfortunately, there's no date on this album, but I believe this was recorded (and released on 78?) in 1945. The songs made it to LP in 1950.

Jennie Tourel sings Villa-Lobos

 

In 1950 Columbia released this Songs of Rachmaninoff LP by soprano Jennie Tourel, which included six songs accompanied by an orchestra conducted by the composer. Since this has never been released on CD, and the LP shows up on eBay only very rarely, it's nice that the Brazilian Concert Music blog has posted the songs.

Total Immersion: Villa-Lobos

Tom Service introduces Total Immersion: Villa-Lobos, presented in London in March 2014 by the BBC Symphony and Sakari Oramo. "Be prepared to be totally immersed in the sound world of Villa-Lobos."

Villa-Lobos conducts

I haven't seen this picture before. It's from the Viva Villa! exhibition at Shopping Villa-Lobos.

Clara Rodriguez at St. Martin-in-the-Fields

 

Later this month pianist Clara Rodriguez will be playing a couple of pieces by Villa-Lobos, Beethoven's Appassionata sonata, plus such interesting composers as Teresa Carreño, Luiza Elena Paesano, and Luis Zea, all in one of my favourite London venues: St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square. Wish I could be there!

Here she is playing Impressoes Seresteiras, from an earlier London concert:

A memoir by Lucilia Guimarães Villa-Lobos

Fred Sturm has translated portions of the memoir of Villa-Lobos's first wife Lucilia Guimarães Villa-Lobos, Villa-Lobos, Visto da plateia e na intimidade (Villa-Lobos seen on stage and intimately). The work was actually written by Lucilia's younger brother Luiz, in the early 1970s, and includes family stories and some stories told by Lucilia:

"In spite of the difficulties we experienced, Villa (so we called him) began to compose his first works, with energy, and, as he did not play the piano yet, it was I who gave the first partial performances."

Besides his excellent recordings and concerts featuring the music of Villa-Lobos and other Latin American composers, the Albuquerque-based pianist Sturm is contributing valuable source material in English for Villa-Lobos scholars. There are more interesting and useful documents here: http://fredsturm.net/villa_lobos/.

n spite of the difficulties we experienced, Villa (so we called him) began to compose his first works, with energy, and, as he did not play the piano yet, it was I who gave the first partial performances.” - See more at: http://fredsturm.net/lucilia/#sthash.zsA81fiY.dpuf

memoir Villa-Lobos, Visto da plateia e na intimidade (Villa-Lobos seen on stage and intimately). This work, written in the early 70s, goes back to the time Lucilia met the young composer in 1912

(Villa-Lobos seen on stage and intimately)

(Villa-Lobos seen on stage and intimately)

(Villa-Lobos seen on stage and intimatel

The 17th String Quartet, played by the Cuarteto Carlos Gomes

The 17th String Quartet, the final work in one of the most important 20th Century cycles, is one of Villa-Lobos's greatest late works. Written in 1957, it was premiered by the Budapest String Quartet in Washington DC in the year of the composer's death, 1959. This excellent version of the first movement is played by the Quarteto Carlos Gomes, which seems to be a new group. The first violinist is Claudio Cruz, famous as a violin soloist and conductor.

Rio International Cello Encounter

This excellent video by Noilton Nunes showcases the incredible diversity of the Rio International Cello Encounter, which had its 19th annual event last August in Rio de Janeiro under the direction of the amazing British-born cellist David Chew. There's more on this series at the Rio International Cello Encounter website.

O Martírio dos Insetos on CD

 

The violin concerto O Martírio dos Insetos is one of the last of Villa-Lobos's major works to be recorded commercially. Up until now we've had to make do with YouTube videos from Miami and Astana, Kazakhstan. The latter performance, with violinist Askar Duisenbayev and The State Chamber Orchestra "Academy of Soloists" conducted by Daniel Bortholossi, has been released on the CD BrasilCazaquistão. I have no idea where you can buy this, but it's posted on the Brazilian Concert Music blog here.

Lots of cellos from Happy Valley

The Penn State University Cello Choir, under the direction of Professor Kim Cook, plays two movements from Bachianas Brasileiras no. 1.

Choros no. 6 from Caracas

This fine performance of Choros #6 is from the recent Festival Villa-Lobos in Caracas. Marcelo Lehninger conducts the Orquesta Sinfonica Simón Bolívar. [People in Toronto should note that Maestro Lehninger will be conducting the Toronto Symphony Orchestra this weekend, in an all-Tchaikovsky concert.]

Villa-Lobos's cello on CD and DVD

Cellist Hugo Pilger and pianist Lúcia Barrenechea will release a new CD/DVD of music by Villa-Lobos and other Brazilian composers later this month. The recording features Villa-Lobos's own cello, made in 1779 by Martin Diehl. Here's a picture of the instrument from the Museu Villa-Lobos:

6th Festival Villa-Lobos in Venezuela

 

The 6th annual version of Venezuela's Festival Villa-Lobos takes place in Caracas later this month. This Festival has hosted important Villa-Lobos performances in the past, including the cantata Mandu Çarará at the 4th Festival in 2011. This work is still without a commercial recording.  One of the encouraging things about this Festival in the past has been postings of concerts on YouTube. Here is Bachianas Brasileiras no. 4 from last year's Festival, with the Orquesta Simón Bolívar conducted by Roberto Tibiriçá.

Sebastian Benda plays Villa-Lobos

Memoires, the new 2-CD set from Genuin by the Swiss pianist Sebastian Benda (1926-2003), includes works by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Martin, Mussorgsky, and 5 pieces by Villa-Lobos, recorded from 1961 to 1994.

Though the back of the CD only says "Selected works" of Villa-Lobos, the actual tracks are:

• Alma brasileira 
• Festa no sertão 
• Lenda do caboclo 
• Impressões seresteiras 
• Dança do indio branco 

These pieces were recorded in 1981.

Benda spent nearly 30 years (1952-1981) in Brazil, though he traveled extensively in Europe during that period as well. During that time he had a significant impact on the musical life of the country. In a short note on Villa-Lobos that Benda provides for the liner notes, he says this about Brazil's greatest composer:

Villa-Lobos’s personality is energetic and highly authentic; his music is the music of Brazil, the music of the jungle and the sertão, the dry outback in the northeast, and the music of the sea. It describes the unique characteristics of the people, the way of life and the natural environment of Brazil and is uncommonly vital and impressive. He transforms the folklore, which has a regional character at its center, into a universal language whose message reaches audiences on all continents with ease.

Here is Benda in Sao Paulo in 1952:

 

I know Benda best from his chamber music recordings (especially the Naxos recording of the Martinu cello sonatas with his son Christian). This wide-ranging collection shows he was a gifted pianist and musician.

Villa-Lobos at the Latin Grammys

The Best Classical Album category of the 14th Annual Latin Grammy Awards includes three of the six nominations featuring the music of Villa-Lobos. All are albums that I would have put close to the top of the list for my favourite albums in the past year.

First up is a piano disc from the great Nelson Freire, Brasileiro: Villa-Lobos and Friends, on Decca. This one stands out, even amongst the plethora of great Villa-Lobos piano discs of the past decade. It not only includes a generous sample of Villa-Lobos works, some of which aren't that well-known, but also pieces by Villa's colleagues Guarnieri, Oswaldo, Levy, Lorenzo Fernandez, Santoro and Mignone.

 

Next is a really entertaining album from composer/arranger/pianist Mario Adnet: Um Olhar Sobre Villa-Lobos, on Borandá from Brazil.

Finally, the excellent 2nd disc in the new Naxos series of Villa-Lobos Symphonies from OSESP and Isaac Karabtchevsky, with the 6th & 7th Symphonies.

We'll see who wins on November 21, 2013. Good luck to all!

Estrella é Lua Nova in Toronto

Villa-Lobos lovers in Toronto can hear one of Villa's best vocal works, Estrella é Lua Nova, at the premiere performance of the Concord Vocal Ensemble on Monday, December 9, 2013, at Windermere United Church. This song, adapted by Villa-Lobos from the African-Brazilian Macumba ritual, is becoming a favourite piece for choirs around the world.

Bachianas Brasileiras no. 9 with the OSB

Roberto Minczuk conducts the Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira in the 9th Bachianas Brasileiras, from an August 2013 concert.

Choros no. 7 from Iowa

 

This concert from Ames, Iowa includes one of Villa's greatest works, the 7th Choros, and a key piece by his close friend Edgard Varese. I'm looking forward to hearing all four works. The concert will be streamed live at http://www.music.iastate.edu/feeds/recital/ tomorrow, October 24, 2013, at 7:30pm CDT. 

I couldn't find out much about the Neil Thornock piece "Lurgy" on the web, though as a big Goon Show fan, I'm hoping it makes reference to the episode "Lurgi Strikes Britain". The dreaded lurgi!

Another performance of the 3rd Symphony

 
I mentioned in a post yesterday that I hoped the newly-revised scores of the Villa-Lobos Symphonies would result in more performances. Here's one, with conductor Isaac Karabtchevsky (a supervisor on the score publication project) and the Orquestra Petrobras Sinfônica. This is the last movement of Symphony #03, from April 2013.

Symphony scores from Criadores do Brasil

 

The new series of Villa-Lobos Symphonies recordings on Naxos has been based on revised scores prepared by Thomas Hansen, Cláudio de Freitas, João Maurício Galindo and conductor Isaac Karabtchevsky, published by Criadores do Brasil. The scores for Symphonies 3, 4, 6 and 7 are included in this catalogue, available for purchase and rental. I hope this easier availability might increase the chances of hearing these works in concert halls around the world.

Festival Villa-Lobos preview

A very cool preview of the 51st Annual Festival Villa-Lobos, coming to Rio de Janeiro this November.

Nicholson Baker on Villa-Lobos

Nicholson Baker's new novel Traveling Sprinkler includes a long, beautifully written passage about Victoria de los Angeles's classic recording of Bachianas Brasileiras #5:

"She sings like a mad tropical bird, and it's just a fondue of molten wanting and grieving and everything that you wish you could remember and feel and know."

I once compared BB#5 to a 'black box'. Baker is one of the few people I've come across who can go inside the box and tell us something insightful and interesting about what he's heard.

51st Festival Villa-Lobos

 

The Museu Villa-Lobos in Rio de Janeiro is the site of another Festival Villa-Lobos; the 51st annual event takes place from November 8-24, 2013. Follow the Festival on Twitter, on Facebook, and at the Festival's website.

Violin Sonatas from Germany

 

A new CD of Villa-Lobos's music for violin and piano comes from the German label Telos Music. Violinist Laurent Breuninger and pianist Ana Flavia Frazao play the 3 sonatas and 6 shorter pieces. I'm looking forward to hearing this; especially the third sonata, which is a favourite chamber work. You can buy the CD at JPC.

The Villa-Lobos Website moves to Indiana

The Heitor Villa-Lobos Website, originally at http://www.villalobos.ca from 1994 to 2013, will soon be resurrected at its new home: the Latin American Music Center at Indiana University.

New Bratke piano disc

T
he third volume in Marcelo Bratke's complete Villa-Lobos piano music series is now out from Quartz Music.

The Cello Fantasia

Lars Hoefs and Rose Chen play the 2nd movement of the piano & cello version of the Fantasia for Cello & Orchestra. This is a great work, and one that I've been thinking about lots since I heard about the recent death of Janos Starker. Starker played the work with the Paraiba Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eleazar de Carvalho, on a classic Delos CD called A Brazilian Extravaganza.

The cello and the guitar were Villa-Lobos's two favourite instruments: the ones he dreamed in. When I think of Villa-Lobos, I hear the sound of the cello (or lots of cellos) in my head.

Bachianas Brasileiras #3 in Barcelona

The Third Bachianas Brasileiras is, after the 8th, the least-performed of the 9 works in Villa-Lobos's most popular series. It's a big, sprawling piano concerto, and it deserves to be played more often. Alexandre Tharaud and L'Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona under conductor Hernández Silva will perform the work three times in early May.

Here are the latest numbers for performances in the Villa-Lobos Concert Database (2001-2013):

• Bachianas Brasileiras #1 (89)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #2 (142)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #3 (27)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #4 (236)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #5 (377)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #6 (82)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #7 (33)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #8 (22)
• Bachianas Brasileiras #9 (103)

Leonard Bernstein's The Latin American Spirit

 

Part of the script for Leonard Bernstein's The Latin American Spirit, one of his famous Young People's Concerts broadcast on CBS Television. The full script is here. and the original marked-up scripts can be found at the Library of Congress website.

Uirapuru from Madrid

From Madrid, a performance of Villa's first great orchestral work, Uirapuru. This is from a November 2012 concert. Carlos Kalmar conducts the Orquesta Sinfonica de RTVE.

Carlé Costa concert in Lucerne

Carlé Costa plays the 12 Etudes at a concert in Lucerne in June. I highly recommend his recent Villa-Lobos CD Alma de uma terra.

OSB plays BB#7

The last movement from Bachianas Brasileiras no. 7, played by OSB, conducted by Roberto Minczuk. This is a from a concert earlier this month.

Amilton Godoy plays O trenzinho do Caipira

Pianist Amilton Godoy plays a beautiful jazz arrangement of the Trenzinho do Caipira movement from Bachianas Brasileiras no. 2, which has become almost a national song in Brazil.

The Talich String Quartet plays Villa-Lobos

The Talich String Quartet recently added the 1st Villa-Lobos String Quartet to their repertoire, playing it in a January 2013 concert in Switzerland. They play the Melancolia 5th movement in this live recording from Vermont Public Radio. The Villa-Lobos finishes the program, after music by Beethoven, Dvorak, Ravel and Debussy.

The future of the Heitor Villa-Lobos Website.

This is the 19th year of the Heitor Villa-Lobos Website, which has been an information resource on the web since before blogs, Twitter, even before Google. The website is hosted by Red Deer Public Library, a great organization that I've been Director of all that time. As I look towards my retirement from the Library in July 2013, though, it's time to make a change or even retire the site.

I'm wondering if there's an organization out there that might want to host this site. It would be a shame to lose the information on more than 950 recordings, and especially the fairly comprehensive database of concerts from 1999 to the present. A new host could either post a read-only archive of the existing site, or add content moving forward. Let me know if you have any ideas!

The site has had some significant traffic: 425,000 visits and 1.2 million page views since Google Analytics was turned on in 2008. This is from 205 countries, with 23% of the traffic from Brazil, 22% from the US, and 5% from each of the UK, Canada, & Germany. The site is built in Drupal v.5.

Villa-Lobos the Modernist

Here is a compressed version of an important concert from last October, from the Maison du Brésil at Cité Universitaire in Paris. Felipe Magalhães organized and conducted the event, which focused on Villa-Lobos the modernist. The Choros series naturally were an important part of the program, with #01, 02, 05 and the rarely performed #03 and #07. It was great to see a performance of the great Quarteto simbolico (Quatuor symbolique) with the optional female choir (though a piano stood in for the celesta which adds so much to this piece's sound.)

Villa-Lobos Centennial

From O Globo's Projeto Aquarius photo gallery comes this picture from the 1987 celebration of the Villa-Lobos Centennial. I'm guessing the guy on the left is from Descobrimento do Brasil, but I can't for the life of me figure out the weird figure to the left of the Amazon Indian. The photo is by Luiz Avila.

 

The picture caption: "1987 - O Projeto Aquarius prestou homenagem a Heitor Villa-Lobos no ano de seu centenário. No programa, 11 obras do compositor, das 'Bachianas' ao 'Trenzinho do caipira', que o público ouviu na Quinta da Boa Vista mais uma vez lotada."

Villa-Lobos: the Albuquerque Connection

"Speaking of the cello, I wish to remember here the cello art of Villa-Lobos. His performances evoked well what he must have been earlier, the young cellist Villa-Lobos.

"He still played with gallantry, with perfect intonation, and with such virtuosity. Not without effort. He arose at eight in the morning and practiced until lunch, and all the time . . . with the inseparable cigar in his mouth. What a curious temperament!"

This is pianist João de Souza Lima speaking of his old friend Villa-Lobos, in a 1967 lecture. Printed in 1969 in Presença de Villa-Lobos, we now have an English translation thanks to Fred Sturm.This entertaining memoir adds so much to one's understanding of Villa's character.

Fred has added a number of really interesting items to his website that advance Villa-Lobos scholarship. The most important is his translation of Antônio Chechim Filho's Excursão Artística Villa-Lobos, the fascinating story of Villa-Lobos's 1931 excursion to rural Brazil by the team's piano technician. Another is the section of family life from Luis Guimarães Villa-Lobos, Visto da plateia e na intimidade, by Villa's first wife. Finally, Fred has added scans of the Cirandas as they appear in the original Guia pratico, which will be of great interest to pianists.

Fred continues his valuable Villa-Lobos performances this spring, with all-Villa-Lobos concerts at UNM in March and May 2013, and a Villa-Lobos/Nazareth/Milhaud concert at the Outpost Performance Space. New Mexico has always been important to Villa-Lobos fans because of the 1971 production of Yerma by the Santa Fe Opera. Now Fred Sturm is turning Albuquerque into a prime Villa-Lobos city, with his concerts, recordings and scholarship.

Here's Sexteto mistico, from a concert Fred organized last February. The whole 125th Anniversary Concert is available on YouTube here.

Symphony no. 10 in Sao Paulo

 

The Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP) continues their series of complete performances of Villa-Lobos's Symphonies with the presentation of no. 10 this weekend. This is a big, big work in the style of Choros no. 10. It was written in 1952 in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the city of Sao Paulo.

And while OSESP and Isaac Karabtchevsky continue their recordings of the series for Naxos, the second CD (with #3 & 4) is all set to be released early next month.

Total Immersion: Villa-Lobos

I've been writing about Villa-Lobos on the Internet for 19 years, and in that time I've seen a major shift in Villa's reputation. Here's an indication that the music of Villa-Lobos may be moving even closer to the mainstream. The Barbican Centre will be presenting Total Immersion: Villa-Lobos, an entire day of his music, with concerts by the BBC Singers, the Guildhall Music Ensemble, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. One of the great things about the event is that some very important but rarely programmed works are featured, including Choros #08, Descobrimento do Brasil, and the choral version of Bachianas Brasileiras #9.

The climax of the day is Choros #10, which knocked the socks off Londoners when it was featured in the 2009 Last Night of the Proms. I'm already looking into travel arrangements for this special day!

Stefan Barcsay's Nocturnes

Here, a bit late, is my review of  Stefan Barcsay's excellent CD Nocturnes.

As Martin Wilkening states in his illuminating long liner-note essay, all of the pieces on Stefan Barcsay's Nocturnes relate in some way to the 19th century character pieces written for piano: by Chopin, Schumann, Debussy and others. The character piece in this tradition needs to do only one thing, but it's a very, very hard thing to do right. It must paint for the audience a picture. Writing music like this for guitar has advantages, for the five strings can evoke nearly as wide a range as the piano, and the guitar tradition brings with it built-in connections to the landscapes of Iberia and South America.

This disc of character pieces for guitar juxtaposes a series of works written in the late 20th century with the (arguably) greatest series of character pieces in the entire guitar repertoire, the five Villa-Lobos Preludes. The Villa-Lobos Preludes were written in 1940, and judging by their popularity in recital, in the recording studio and on YouTube, nearly every classical guitarist feels the need to master this 20 minutes of music.

Part of the appeal of this music is, I believe, the strikingly real pictures that Villa-Lobos paints in each prelude: a home-spun farmer from the poor, dry north-east of Brazil; a colourful small-time urban gangster; the abstract beauty of Bach; the mystical, eternal Amazonian Indian; and a street musician of Rio (a self-portrait, perhaps, from Villa's time as a teenage guitarist playing with the choros bands). It requires musical imagination as well as technical mastery to make this music come alive, and German guitarist Stefan Barcsay has both. This is a very satisfying series of Preludes which holds its own among the bewildering variety on disc.

What of the works by the four composers who were all born after Villa-Lobos wrote his preludes, but before Villa-Lobos died in 1959? Enjott Schneider who wrote his three Nocturnes for Barcsay, Dusan Bogdanovic, Richard Heller and Ross Edwards all provide a focus on the mysterious, with shifting harmonies that evoke landscapes lit or obscured by clouds passing in front of the moon. The most interesting of the pieces, Ross Edwards' second Blackwattle Caprice, Richard Heller's second Impromptu and Schneider's second Nocturne, add interest through insistent folk music rhythms. Each of these works perhaps owe as much to Villa's Etudes, which transform technical exercises into abstractly beautiful music, as they do to the pure story-telling of the Preludes. All are interesting and colourful, if not quite the works of towering genius that finish this marvellous CD.

This is very highly recommended.

1940s Caricature of Villa-Lobos

An article from the Washington Times Herald of January 30, 1949. This is from the Gallica Digital Library; unfortunately, there's no higher resolution version available.

The caption reads "Batoneer From Brazil: Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazil's leading composer, will be guest conductor of the National Symphony today in Constitution Hall. His program includes music inspired by the savage rhythms he has heard in Brazilian jungles."

It's hard to decipher all the text of the story by Glenn Dillard Gunn, but what I can make out is very interesting, in a gossipy way. Gunn visited Villa-Lobos in Rio in 1940, during Stokowski's visit. Meeting Villa-Lobos at his office, he noticed the composer was uncommunicative and edgy.

"Then I learned why he was nervous. He wanted to get to the Teatro Municipale, where Stokowski was rehearsing his new piano concerto. The pianist, a statuesque blonde named Tagliaferro, did not please him. Nor, seemingly, did Stokowski."

Villa-Lobos String Quartets on DVD

The recent DVD by the Radamés Gnattali Quartet of the complete Villa-Lobos String Quartets is a nominee for the 24th Brazilian Music Awards. Here is the 1st movement of the great 7th Quartet, taken from that set.

Another symphony disc from Karabtchevsky & OSESP

Coming soon: the eagerly-awaited next issue in the complete symphonies series from Naxos. Isaac Karabtchevsky conducts OSESP, the Sao Paulo State Symphony Orchestra, in the 3rd and 4th symphonies, both written in the year 1919.  The disc will be available at Amazon.com on February 26.

 

After the war, with such important orchestral works as Uirapuru and Amazonas under his belt, Villa-Lobos was ready to try out some more formal writing for large orchestra. In the 4th symphony especially his work on large canvasses began to pay off, though once the 1920s began he moved to a more modernist style, and shifted his focus to chamber and instrumental works. He wouldn't return to the symphony until the 2nd World War, with #6 in 1944.

New York Skyline arranged for flute & guitar

An arrangement of New York Skyline for the NYC Duo, by Michael Gilsinan.

Presença de Villa-Lobos

 

Between 1961 and 1985 the Museu Villa-Lobos published a number of volumes of the periodical Presença de Villa-Lobos, containing essays, appreciations and reminiscences about the composer. This brand new edition celebrates the life of Arminda Villa-Lobos on the occasion of the Centennial of her birth. Its launch takes place at the Museu Villa-Lobos next Monday, December 17th. The Trio d'Ambrosio provides the music.

See this entertaining essay by Harold Lewis, which contains some great stories from the earlier volumes.

New Villa-Lobos Symphonies disc

 

Here is my review of the first disc in the new Naxos Villa-Lobos Symphonies series, released earlier this year.  I'm a big fan of the 6th Symphony!

Rémi Jacobs à propos de Villa-Lobos

"Rémi Jacobs à propos de Villa-Lobos" - a short interview with the author of the 2010 Editions Bleu nuit book Heitor Villa-Lobos. I'm not sure if this is the whole thing, or an excerpt of a larger documentary film by Eric Denut.

Julio Bittencourt Trio's Trenzinho Caipira

The Julio Bittencourt Trio plays The Little Train movement from Bachianas Brasileiras #2. Julio Bittencourt on guitar, Luciano Bittencourt on bass, Benjamin BJ Bentes on drums. Not sure who the guest saxophonist is.

Bachianas Brasileiras no. 4 in Rio

Leandro Carvalho conducts the Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira in Bachianas Brasileiras #4 this Thursday in Rio, along with Beethoven & a piece by Dimitri Cervo. The OSB celebrates its 15th anniversary this year.

1st Annual Symposium on Latin American Music

This Conference at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg VA will be of interest to Latin American music scholars. Back in 2008, Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond VA hosted "Experiencing Villa-Lobos". The call for papers is out now; the due date is October 26, 2012.

Thanks to @IULAMC for the heads-up on this.

Symphony #10 from Sao Paulo

The new series of Villa-Lobos Symphonies being recorded by Naxos with Isaac Karabtchevsky conducting the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP) began with a well-regarded issue of the 6th and 7th Symphonies this summer. I'm assuming the next disc might be the 10th Symphony, which OSESP presented in concert last March. You can listen to a recording of one of those concerts on Svergies Radio P2.  Click on "Heitor Villa-Lobos tionde symfoni" on the right side of the page, and "Lyssna (85 min.)". The concert begins with Armando Albuquerque's Evocação de Augusto Meyer. 

Get to this soon; I'm not sure how long the concert will be available for streaming.

Villa-Lobos e a Apoteose Brasileira

I never get tired of watching this: the Heitor Villa-Lobos-themed parade by Mocidade from the 1999 Carnaval in Rio. "Villa-Lobos e a Apoteose Brasileira" was the title; the show was designed by Renato Lages.

Look for Marco Palmeira, who played the young Villa-Lobos in the film Villa-Lobos: Uma Vida de Paixão, and the great cellist David Chew.

Tom Jobim by Otto Stupakoff

Tom Jobim, Brazil's 2nd greatest composer - an iconic photo by Otto Stupakoff.

Clara Rodriguez in London

Londoners should check out this concert at the Southbank Centre in December. Follow Clara on Twitter @VenPianista. Unfortunately my trip to London is earlier in the year.

The Brazilian Way

Great to see this BBC broadcast of Nelson Freire's performance of Momoprécoce, from a Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall, August 15, 2012. The São Paulo Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Marin Alsop, who introduces the work.

Guitar Etudes for Piano

Julija Bal plays her piano arrangement of the 11th & 12th Etudes for Guitar. She has more audio at her website.

Museu Villa-Lobos on Facebook

The Museu Villa-Lobos is now on Facebook.

Brazilian World Music Day

It's Brazilian World Music Day! Enjoy these great tracks of music, brought to you by ABMI, the Brazilian Independent Music Association. Learn more at the website.

Choros #06 restored

In 1954 Villa-Lobos visited the recording studio in Berlin, and the result was an LP with Choros #06 on one side, and Bachianas Brasileiras #7 on the other.  The LP shows up occasionally on eBay, but I know it as a Kuarup CD re-issue from 2005. Now we have a new transfer/restoration of the Choros from Naxos Classics, which is unfortunately only available for download and streaming on the Naxos Music Library (and also unfortunately unavailable for copyright reasons in the US).

The new sound is a major improvement. Though Villa-Lobos didn't have as much time to rehearse with the German orchestra as he did in his later Paris recordings with L'Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Francaise, this has the same authenticity that comes with the composer at the podium. The preferred recording of Choros #06 remains the recent BIS CDs with John Neschling conducting OSESP. But this is worth a listen & a download.

Jess-Trio-Wien play Villa-Lobos

The Jess-Trio-Wien play the 1st movement of Villa-Lobos's 2nd Piano Trio.

Spring programming at the Museu Villa-Lobos

Spring programming at the Museu Villa-Lobos. "Tuhú" was Villa's nickname as a child.

Thanks to the BlogAdão for this.

Jorge Amado's Centennial

Today, August 10, 2012, is the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great Brazilian novelist Jorge Amado, who is best known for his 1966 novel Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands.

Just over 10 years ago a Villa-Lobos Conference was held in Paris.  One of the presentations was by my friend Lee Boyd:

Leah Arbelada Boyd - Truth & Justice for Dona Arminda, as well as for Dona Lucilia, and even Dona Lisa - "Leah Arbelada Boyd described the allegory on the life of Villa-Lobos which is embedded in Jorge Amado's Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, and discussed some of the circumstances surrounding it."

Coincidentally, Dona Arminda had her own Centennial earlier this year, just a few weeks ago, in fact. I wish Lee were still around to discuss this today.

The painting of Amado above is by Gilberto Gomes, from 1997, and is re-used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 1.0 Generic license..

The Martyrdom of the Insects from Kazakhstan

Here's video from an important concert of Brazilian music from Astana, Kazakhstan. O Martírio dos Insetos, The Martyrdom of the Insects, is a work for violin & orchestra that's only been performed a very few times. The violinist is Askar Duisenbayev, and The State Chamber Orchestra "Academy of Soloists" is conducted by Daniel Bortholossi. Thanks to my friend Wellington Müller Bujokas for this!

Rostropovich plays Villa-Lobos at Buckingham Palace

Mstislav Rostropovich and cellists from the London Philharmonic Orchestra play the first movement of Bachianas Brasileiras #1. This is from the Prom from the Palace concert held in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, hosted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Broadcast live on BBC Television, June 1st 2002.

Rostropovich recorded this movement with the Moscow Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kyrill Kondrashin, back in 1964.

Desert Island Discs

The BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs has been broadcast since 1942. The standard format of the show involves interesting people explaining their choice of 8 favourite gramophone records to take with them when they're marooned on a desert island.  The DID archive includes a big subset (1500) of the 2800 programmes available to download in MP3.

You can search the entire archive of castaways and their music choices on the DID website. It was great to see Villa-Lobos included in 22 programmes, chosen by such interesting castaways as Captain Jacques Cousteau, soprano Regina Resnik, and actors Richard Attenborough and Peter Ustinov. All of these chose Bachianas Brasileiras #5; it's not a surprise to see BB#5 chosen by 16 of these 22. Even guitarist Julian Bream chose BB#5, rather than one of the guitar works. Other interesting choices: James Mason picked guitar Prelude #3, while Goon Show writer Michael Bentine chose Uirapuru. Though less popular than other pieces - Elgar's Nimrod Variation was the choice of twice as many castaways, while Beethoven's 9the Symphony was the top pick - it's still a pretty impressive list.

The amazing presenters - only 4 in all those years! - often dig deep in their questions, and the musical choices say a lot about the guests.  Lately I've been listening to a DID MP3 - about 25 minutes - on each leg of my bicycle commute, and I've really been enlightened and entertained. Check it out!

Here is the evocative theme of the show "The Sleepy Lagoon", written by Eric Coates in 1930.

The Naxos Villa-Lobos Symphonies Series begins

Here's a CD I've been waiting for impatiently; it's the first in the new Naxos series of Villa-Lobos symphonies from OSESP, the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Isaac Karabschevsky. It showed up first at MDT in the UK, with a release date of September 3rd, 2012.

The new disc includes one of the best symphonies, the 6th, which is subtitled "Montanhas do Brasil", or as presented here, "On the Outline of the Mountains of Brazil." The work, from 1944, has been recorded twice: by Carl St. Clair and the SWR Stuttgart Orchestra on cpo, and by Roberto Duarte and the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra on Marco Polo. The 7th Symphony is from 1945, and has only been recorded once before, in the cpo complete symphonies set.

It seems like a good idea to present these two symphonies on the first disc in the series. In the mid 1940s Villa-Lobos was producing very accessible music; this was the period of the Bachianas Brasileiras. 1945 especially is an important year for the composer, who that year completed BB#9, the String Trio, the 1st Piano Concerto, the 9th String Quartet and the Fantasia for Cello & Orchestra. Perhaps the excitement of his first trip to America in January and February of 1945 got his creative juices flowing, or maybe he had a bunch of music ready to publish after a relatively quite time in Brazil during the war years.

It's become a bit of a cliché to say that the symphonies don't include the best orchestral music of Villa-Lobos. Clearly none of the symphonies can approach the level of Bachianas Brasileiras #1, #7 or #9; Choros #08 or #11; tone poems like Uirapuru or Erosao; or the concertos for guitar or cello. But the judgements in standard works by Appleby, Peppercorn & Tarasti were based on just a few recordings or live performances, and a sketchy availability of scores. Things changed when cpo finished recording the complete series of symphonies in 2000, and we're beginning to see a very few symphonies show up in performance around the world.

The current state of Villa-Lobos symphonies on CD is tilted pretty firmly towards Carl St. Clair & the SWR Stuttgart Orchestra on cpo:

• Symphony 1: cpo only
• Symphony 2: cpo, plus an obscure 1944 LP with the composer conducting the Werner Janssen Orchestra in Los Angeles
• Symphony 3: cpo only
• Symphony 4: cpo; a 1958 recording from France that's included in Villa-Lobos par lui-même; & a Dorian disc with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, conducted by Enrique Arturo Diemecke
• Symphony 5: score is lost
• Symphony 6: cpo, and the Duarte recording on Marco Polo mentioned above
• Symphony 7: cpo only
• Symphony 8: cpo only
• Symphony 9: cpo only
• Symphony 10: cpo; Symphony Orchestra of Tenerife, with Victor Pablo Perez on Harmonia Mundi; Gisele Ben-Dor conducting the Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra on Koch
• Symphony 11: cpo only
• Symphony 12: cpo only

There's not a single Brazilian orchestra included in the list above. Previous OSESP recordings on BIS (the Bachianas Brasilieras with Roberto Minczuk and the Choros with John Neschling) are to my mind the best, and in a very competitive field.  So I feel there's a good chance that when the dust has cleared (in another 6 or 7 years when the new Naxos series is complete) we'll be in a position to judge whether the symphonies might be more successful and more important than the current conventional wisdom holds. I'm hoping that Karabschevsky & Naxos can complete the rehabilitation of the symphonies begun by Carl St. Clair & cpo.

Brazil: Three Centuries of Music

Here's a cool mini-concert on video: some highlights of the November 24, 2011 concert from the Brazil: Three Centuries of Music Festival at South Bank Centre in London.

• Villa Lobos - Festa no Sertao Clelia Iruzun Piano 
• Mignone - Study for Guitar No 4 - Fabio Zanon 
• Marlos Nobre - Desafio for Piano and Guitar - Fabio Zanon and Clelia Iruzun 
• Henrique Oswald - Piano Quintet Op 18 1st Mov - Clelia Iruzun and the Coull Quartet 
• Pixinguinha / Benedito Lacerda - 1 X 0 - Anselmo Neto Band

Mindinha's Centennial

Villa-Lobos & Mindinha

This coming Thursday, July 26, 2012, is the Centennial of the birth in 1912 of Arminda Neves d'Almeida Villa-Lobos, the composer's companion from 1936 to his death in 1959. In celebration, the Museu Villa-Lobos will be publishing in December of 2012 a 14th volume of their important series Presença de Villa-Lobos.

She was nicknamed Mindinha, and though the two were never able to marry after Villa-Lobos left his first wife Lucilia, since divorce was impossible in Brazil at the time, the two were virtually inseparable in their 23 years together. Mindinha appears very often with Villa in pictures, and the two seem very close in their home movies. This quote from a letter to the French pianist Marguerite Long, written 3 years after Villa's death, shows the depth of her love:

"You can understand how I feel, without the one who represented everything to me: my immense love, my mentor, my friend, and how difficult it is to live."

Villa-Lobos dedicated more than 50 of his works to Mindinha, but her influence did not stop with her husband's death in 1959. In 1960 she helped to create the Museu Villa-Lobos, and helped to run it for 25 years until her death in 1985.

Alvorada na floresta tropical from Minas Gerais

I missed this YouTube video when it was first posted. Fabio Costa conducts the Orquestra Filarmônica de Minas Gerais in a concert from May 2008. Alvorada na floresta tropical (Dawn in the Tropical Forest) is an important orchestral work commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra, and released on a 1955 LP, part of the pioneering First Edition records series.

Villa and Mindinha arrive in Los Angeles

Villa-Lobos & Mindinha arrive at Los Angeles Airport. I haven't seen this photo by Otto Rothschild before; it's from the LA Philharmonic Archive, and I found it at University of California's Calisphere.  Though it's undated, I believe it might be from 1958. Compare this picture with one from New York - Villa received an honorary degree from NYU in December. Earlier that year Villa was in Hollywood dealing with MGM about his score for Green Mansions.

Arranging Villa-Lobos

 

An interesting article (with an amazing, uncredited picture, above) from the Continente Online blog: should arrangements of works by Villa-Lobos be allowed under any circumstances?

The Academia Brasileira de Música, which holds the copyright of Villa's works, is having this debate. Speaking in the negative: Guilherme Bauer, who complains about "...a work tampered with arrangements or versions that disfigure, like the inclusion of drumming."  Speaking for is former ABM President Ricardo Tacuchian, who says "A arte é a arena da liberdade": "Art is the arena of freedom".

I'm sure I'm missing all sorts of subtleties having to rely on Google Translate. But it's clear what side of this argument I'm on. It's been amazing to see the many popular versions of Villa-Lobos works and themes that have come out of Brazil in the past few years.  Highlights include the jazz projects A Viagem de Villa-Lobos by Projeto B, and Villa's Voz with Bruce Henri; and O Papagaio do Moleque by the Choro Novo group Rabo de Lagartixa. One of the reasons Brazil has such a strong musical culture is the incredible interplay between erudite and popular music, going back to Villa's involvement with choro and samba, and continuing through Tom Jobim's hero-worship of Villa-Lobos to Villa's high profile in MPB and other forms of Brazilian popular music.

Villa-Lobos was no stranger to copyright controversy in his own career, when he quoted the song Rasga Coração by Anacleto de Mediros and Catulo da Paixão Cearense in Choros #10.

The music of Villa-Lobos is in the Public Domain here in Canada, where we have a reasonable 50-years-after-death rule. Villa-Lobos royalties are undoubtedly welcome to the ABM, which I'm sure does great work for classical music in Brazil.  But I would hope that the ABM doesn't put too many barriers up for new generations of Brazilian musicians to use Villa's works as a stepping-stone for their own music. After all, Villa-Lobos made use of a certain German composer to create some of his own most important pieces. I'm sure there were academicians who didn't appreciate the transformation of Bach's music into the Bachianas Brasileiras. Music marches on!

Miloš Karadaglić plays Villa-Lobos in Brussels

Miloš Karadaglić plays the Valsa Chôro from the Suite Populaire Bresilienne, along with Etude #11.

Villa-Lobos as Conductor

When Villa-Lobos came to New York after the war, it was primarily to present himself to America as a composer.  He was a very busy conductor as well, though, and not just of his own music.  This list of his conducting repertoire is from his file at the New York Philharmonic Digital Archive.

This is an interesting list, with some names I wouldn't have expected. It was a surprise to see Haydn,  Handel and Brahms.  More congenial composers include Ravel, Debussy, Scriabin, Honegger, Stavinsky, his close friend Florent Schmitt, Bach (of course), Beethoven, Liszt and Wagner.  The only Brazilian composer is Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez. The Italian composers Pizzini, Casella and Petrassi were, I think, more popular then than today; their neo-classical style would have appealed to Villa-Lobos in the 1940s.  I wasn't familiar with the music of Paul Le Flem, but from what I've read in Wikipedia, I can see the appeal for Villa-Lobos. Le Flem is from the same generation as Villa-Lobos, he studied with Vincent d'Indy and Paul Roussel, and he had an interest in folklore (from his native Britanny).

Villa was about to enter a period of major success in America and Western Europe, but by the 1950s it was his pretty much only his own music that he was conducting. It's a shame we haven't any recordings of him conducting other composers. I would love to hear his version of the Bach B minor Mass!