Today I would
like to talk about Heitor Villa-Lobos, the 20th-century Brazilian composer
known to be South America’s most famous. There is quite a lot that could be
said about Villa-Lobos and his music but, due to the constraints of one blog
post, I must limit myself to mentioning only a couple of his works.
At the time of Villa-Lobos’
birth, Brazil was embedded in European musical tradition and virtuosi from
Europe and America received greater accolades than those natives from Brazil.
Loving music from an early age, Villa-Lobos longed to modernize a Brazilian
musical style. In the year 1900, the young composer set off to wander the
inaccessible regions of Brazil for ten years, observing folk, geographical, and
musical influences. Culturally diverse Brazil became his inspiration for
composition rather than the rules and formulas taught at the conservatory.
One of
Villa-Lobos’ earlier pieces is below. Amazonas
was written in 1917 and shows his early unique style. In this work, the
composer uses primitivism and folklore ideas he gained from his travels as
inspiration. At the first performance of this work, the violinists actually
tied handkerchiefs to the end of their bows in protest, refusing to create the
sounds Villa-Lobos wrote into his music!
Spending time in
Paris later in life, Villa-Lobos began to appreciate European traditions as
well as Brazilian. In many works, we can see a fusion of these two traditions
as he became a less abrasive nationalist composer. The Bachianas brasileiras (1930-45) is an excellent example of one of
these later works. It consists of a cycle of nine suites written for various
combinations of instruments and voices. In it, Villa-Lobos adapts Baroque
compositional procedures to Brazilian music. You can listen in to the first of
these suites below. Notice the unique instrumentation he uses: an orchestra of cellos!
Join me next time
as we travel to Finland and listen to the music of Sibelius!
