Villa-Lobos, Heitor

(b Rio de Janeiro, 5 March 1887; d Rio de Janeiro, 17 Nov 1959).

Brazilian composer. Heitor Villa-Lobos stands as the single most
significant creative figure in 20 th-century Brazilian art music. This
significance stems not only from his international recognition, but
from his achievement in creating unique compositional styles in
which contemporary European techniques and reinterpreted
elements of national music are combined. His highly successful
career stood as a model for subsequent generations of Brazilian
composers.
1. Youth and early career.
2. The Week of Modern Art and Paris.
3. The Estado Novo and the campaign for music education.
4. International acclaim.
5. Works.
6. Personality and style.
WORKS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
GERARD BHAGUE
Villa-Lobos, Heitor
1. Youth and early career.
He was raised in a middle-class family; his father, Ral Villa-Lobos,
was an employee of the National Library and an amateur musician.
Although he rejected early on many values and conventions of the
period, particularly formal schooling, he later recognized the severe
discipline imposed by his father on his music education as
beneficial. Villa-Lobos recalled in a 1957 interview
With him I always attended rehearsals, concerts and
operas I also learned how to play the clarinet, and
I was required to identify the genre, style, character
and origin of compositions, in addition to recognizing
quickly the name of a note, of sounds or noises
Watch out, when I didn't get it right.
He also learnt the cello from his father and it became a favourite
instrument. However, despite being exposed to classical music, it
was his native city's popular idioms of the turn of the century that
captivated him and exerted a lasting influence on his work. Indeed,
he learnt to play the guitar the epitome of popular culture and
subject to disapproval by polite society on his own and away from
home.
Only after the premature death of his father in 1899 was VillaLobos able to immerse himself fully, at first as a guitarist, in the life
of Rio's street musicians. The music of the chores especially
fascinated him, and the impressions of this vigorous experience
were of such importance that he later gave the generic designation
of choros to his portrayal, in the 1920s, of a variety of Brazilian

musical styles. Villa-Lobos completed his schooling at the

monastery of S Bento in Rio, following which, to please his mother,
he enrolled in a preparatory course for the entrance examination to
the School of Medicine. However, in 1903, unable to maintain any
interest in the classes, he left his mother's house and went to live
with his aunt Zizinha (Leopoldina do Amaral). In his later teenage
years he earned a living mainly by playing the cello in the Teatro
Recreio, in hotels, and in the Odeon cinema, where he met some
of the most celebrated personalities of popular music of the time,
including Ernesto Nazareth, Eduardo das Neves and Anacleto de
Medeiros.
Villa-Lobos's early years remain poorly documented and
contemporary reports are not always reliable. In particular, his
various trips between 1905 and 1913 to the northern and northeastern states, the Amazon, and central and southern Brazil have
been subject to varying theories as to whether or not they
constituted field research into Brazil's folk and traditional music. He
himself never discussed the specific motivation behind these
travels, though he did later emphasize his yearning for freedom, his
fondness for new discoveries, and a search for his own musical
identity as a Brazilian. The music itself, perhaps, provides the best
clues to this period, once Villa-Lobos's reworking of his sources is
taken into account. He undoubtedly learnt dozens of popular tunes
and songs, which he brought into play in many of his works; but if
he truly collected more than 1000 themes of value, as suggested
by Mariz (1949), nowhere did he record this collection
systematically or publish it. This further corresponds to his dislike
of formality or method. Villa-Lobos certainly assembled, arranged
and adapted 137 folksong melodies in his didactic Guia prtico of
1932, but most are commonly known and not of the regional,
exotic variety that his accounts suggest he heard.
Back in Rio, he met the pianist Luclia Guimares whom he
married in 1913. Throughout the 1910s and 20s she gave the
premires of several of his piano pieces, playing a significant role
in the first public concerts of his music in 1915 and during the
Week of Modern Art in 1922. They separated in 1936 but she
remained loyal to him throughout her life. Compositionally, the
period 191217 was one of intense activity and marked the
maturation of Villa-Lobos's creative personality. By 1917 he had
produced some 100 works, including his first guitar pieces (e.g. the
Suite popular brasileira), four string quartets and other chamber
music, two symphonies, and the ballets Amazonas and Uirapuru.
The first official concert fully dedicated to his work took place on 13
November 1915 and established him at once as an enfant terrible
of new Brazilian art music, thanks to the strongly negative
reactions from the critics, in particular Vicenzo Cernicchiaro and
the fearful Oscar Guanabarino, who was a ferocious detractor of
Villa-Lobos and modern music in general. The works performed at
the concert (such as the First Piano Trio, op.25, and the Sonata
fantasia no.2, op.29) while still far from the truly modern idiom of

his music of the late 1910s and 20s, challenged in no uncertain

terms the then current state of composition in Brazil. Between 1917
and 1919 additional major concerts of his music were organized,
presenting some of his main orchestral works of the period. These
concerts helped to establish Villa-Lobos in a very short time as the
controversial, anti-establishment figure par excellence. Such
recognition probably gained him an invitation to participate in the
Week of Modern Art.
Essentially a self-taught composer and an eager and curious
listener, Villa-Lobos assimilated spontaneously, if at times
reluctantly, a number of important influences, especially at first
some of the techniques of Impressionism concerning harmonic
practices and orchestration. His friendship with Milhaud (who lived
in Rio from 1917 to 1918) and Artur Rubinstein (whom he met in
1918) probably also resulted in his acquaintance with the latest
French music and Stravinsky. However, by 1918 Villa-Lobos was
already well advanced in his own innovative experiments in rhythm
and harmony. During the next few years Rubinstein promoted VillaLobos and his music throughout the world.
Villa-Lobos, Heitor
2. The Week of Modern Art and Paris.
The development of Modernism in Brazil took place in the 1920s,
and to mark the centenary of independence a number of literary
figures, artists and intellectuals organized the Week of Modern Art
in So Paulo during 1118 February 1922. Villa-Lobos was invited
as the representative of modern music in Brazil, and several of his
chamber works were performed, most notably the Danas
caractersticas africanas in a special version for five strings, flute,
clarinet and piano. For Villa-Lobos the Modernist aesthetic called
for a break with European Romantic tonality and a strong
determination to renew and legitimize a distinctly Brazilian musical
vocabulary. The event aroused polemic and discussion and
brought further attention to Villa-Lobos. The progressive literary
figures of the time in their praise of the composer's creativity
contributed to the construction of Villa-Lobos as a quasi-mythical
character, whose music appeared as a potential source of
synthesis in a newly confident country. Most reactions were
subsequently summed up in Ensaio sbre a msica brasileira
(1928), a manifesto of musical nationalism by Mrio de Andrade.
Subsidized by several wealthy friends and a government stipend,
Villa-Lobos left for Europe in 1923, where he travelled to a number
of cities and settled in Paris. His main reason for going was selfpublicity, not study, and in Paris he met with enormous success
with concerts of major works in 1924, 1927 and 1930, and won the
support of such figures as Rubinstein, Florent Schmitt and the
music critics Prunires, Le Flem and Klingsor. He met, too, many
other composers, including Ravel, d'Indy, de Falla, Stravinsky,
Prokofiev and Varse, and his music began to be published by Max

Eschig. By 1930, when he returned home for good (he had been
back to conduct several concerts in Brazil and Argentina), he had
attained recognition in Paris unequalled by any other Latin
American composer. His European experience also contributed to
furthering his belief in the freedom to innovate.
Villa-Lobos, Heitor
3. The Estado Novo and the campaign for music education.
In 1930 Villa-Lobos was in So Paulo for concert engagements.
While there he presented to the State Secretariat for Education a
plan to address the precarious condition of musical education in
schools. In the same year a new government under Gtulio Vargas
came to power, and its strong backing of Villa-Lobos's project led
him to dedicate many of his following years to a nationwide
campaign, as well as, from 1931, to taking specific charge of the
Superintendency of Musical and Artistic Education for Rio. He was
subsequently extolled as the patriach of musical learning, but also,
after the inception of the Estado Novo (193745), decried as the
supporter of a dictatorship whose nationalist ideology was often
connected to the contemporaneous fascist regimes in Europe.
Villa-Lobos's programme included not only initial music instruction
in primary and technical schools but also education on a mass
popular scale through choral, or Orpheonic (originally a cappella)
singing, of Brazilian music in particular. Such civic exhortations
involved on one occasion in 1935 some 30,000 voices and 1000
band musicians, and in 1940, and again in 1943, nearer 40,000
singers. The regime's patriotism undoubtedly boosted Villa-Lobos's
own, but whether he truly shared its far-right leanings has been a
matter of considerable debate. That he was initially concerned
more with his individual career is undisputed. But at the same time
his music and education policy was intentionally taken up as
instruments of ideology, and he himself saw the mass gatherings
as a powerful tool for inculcating a nationalist fervour. In 1942 the
government founded a National Conservatory of Orpheonic
Singing, with Villa-Lobos its director. By the time of his retirement in
1957, the impact of the institition had been extensive.
Politics notwithstanding, Villa-Lobos's work in music education only
enhanced his reputation as a composer in Brazil, where his own
compositions had not had as much exposure as in Europe. He
became an official composer, and though this change in status in
no way affected his prolific creativity, nor an essentially free
approach, his manner became less experimental than in the 1920s.
During this period he also began to conduct in earnest, not only in
Brazil but also in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. On the occasion of
his participation in the 1936 Music Education Congress in Prague,
he conducted several of his own pieces for a Berlin radio station. In
the same year he separated from his wife and began his life with
Arminda Neves d'Almeida, who not only devoted herself to him for
the next 23 years, but continued to work assiduously until her

death in 1985 to promote his works in her capacity as director of

the Villa-Lobos Museum, founded in 1960.
Villa-Lobos, Heitor
4. International acclaim.
From the time of his first visit to the USA, Villa-Lobos's career took
an upward turn internationally. During 19445 he conducted his
works with the Janssen SO in Los Angeles, the Boston SO and, at
the request of Stokowski, the New York SO. He also organized a
concert of his chamber music in New York, in which city he met,
among others, Toscanini, Copland, Ormandy, Menuhin, Duke
Ellington and Benny Goodman. His music came to be held in very
high regard. Back in Brazil in 1945, he had time to help found the
Brazilian Academy of Music, which was to be so important in the
development of musical professionalism in the country. Two years
later he was away again, this time conducting in Rome, Lisbon and
Paris, and then going on to New York, where he gave the premire
of his Bachianas brasileiras no.3 with the pianist Jos Viera
Brando and the Columbia SO; it was broadcast across the CBS
network. In mid-1948 he returned once more to New York, but this
time for treatment of cancer of the bladder at Memorial Hospital.
Although the last decade of Villa-Lobos's life was marked by a
gradual deterioration in health, he remained for the most part
remarkably active: in 1949 he made a series of tours in Europe, the
USA and Japan; concerts in Paris in 1951 and 1955 were
especially well received; in 1952 at the Thtre des ChampsElyses with the Orchestre National de France he gave first
performances of his early Symphony no.4 (A vitria) of 1919 and
the four suites Descobrimento do Brasil of 1937. During his final
seven years, Paris became his home once again, from where he
responded to numerous engagements and commissions,
particularly from the USA, including works for the Boston SO and
the Philadelphia Orchestra. On the eve of his 70th birthday a New
York Times editorial (4 March 1957) praised his distinguished
service, while in Brazil, 1957 was declared Villa-Lobos year by the
Ministry of Education and Culture.
The following year Villa-Lobos was still active, working on the film
score of Green Mansions, whose concert version he retitled as
Floresta do Amazonas, and conducting in Europe and New York. In
December 1958 his sacred work Bendita sabedoria for mixed
chorus was first performed at New York University, on the occasion
of his award of an honorary doctorate. However, by the time he
returned to Rio de Janeiro in July 1959 his health had worsened
considerably. Although he continued to preside over the Brazilian
Academy of Music, he died a few months later. His funeral was
attended by many dignitaries, including the country's president.

Villa-Lobos, Heitor
5. Works.
Villa-Lobos was unquestionably a strongly nationalist composer,
though over six decades of extraordinarily prolific work his
nationalism took on many faces. His identification with folk and
popular music was of the utmost significance to him, but it would
be simplistic to classify his works merely in terms of its presence or
absence; or indeed to try to view such references as separate from
his numerous and varied experiments in style and language, even
within a single work.
The period 190122 covers Villa-Lobos's initial search for stylistic
definition. The 50 or so works written during these years include
some of his famous early piano pieces such as the Danas
caractersticas africanas (191415), the Prole do beb nos.1 and 2
(1918, 1921) and the Carnaval das crianas brasileiras (191920)
but also chamber music such as the Sexteto mstico (1917), the
woodwind Trio (1921), the first four string quartets the song cycle
Epigramas irnicos e sentimentais (19213), the first five
symphonies and the ballets Uirapuru (1917) and Amazonas (1917).
Despite the strongly post-Romantic, French Impressionist
character of several of these works, particularly in the harmonies
and tone-colouring, the home-grown is evident too, for example in
the Chorinho from the Suite popular brasileira.
The substantial and attractive Uirapuru is a particularly revealing
example of Villa-Lobos's struggle to establish the elements which
contributed to his own identity as an original national composer,
while still dependent on the French models of the time. Both a
ballet and tone poem, it is based on a legend involving an
enchanted bird from the Amazon, considered by Indian
worshippers to be the king of love. As a ballet it displays many of
the ingredients of similar works of the 1910s (such as Stravinsky's
The Firebird), in its mixture of the romantic, fantastic and primitivist.
As a tone poem it exemplifies the ideal genre for Villa-Lobos, who
revealed throughout his career a frequent use of extra-musical
associations or programmatic concepts as a means of designing
the formal structure of his works.
Although Villa-Lobos was not himself a very accomplished pianist,
his contribution to 20th-century piano literature is remarkable for its
range of expression, the techniques used and the sheer quantity of
different works. Of the earlier works the Prole do beb no.2 stands
out: the nine movements which comprise the piece portray toy
animals, but are in essence a set of transcendental studies
(Souza Lima, 1969). O boisinho de chumbo (The Little Lead Ox),
for example, calls for fast scale passages in different intervals,
diatonic and chromatic glissando figurations, large intervallic skips
and the use of extreme ranges of the keyboard, rhythmic layering
and accentuation of some complexity and up to three simultaneous
dynamic planes. The final grandiose section (ex.1), with its

massive chordal blocks across the registers, clearly depicts the

eponymous ox. However, despite an at times violent and atonal
harmonic vocabulary, the melodic invention, associated with
Brazilian children's tunes, is quite tonal. Some original folksongs
are quoted with few alterations, for instance Fui no toror in the
second part of A baratinha de papel (The Paper Bug) (ex.2),
which at the start also exhibits a typical habanera ostinato pattern
and a theme whose flexible contour and rhythm underlines the
Brazilian spirit. The ostinato reveals an ingenious treatment in the
alternation of black and white keys: in the first group of
semiquavers the first, third and fourth notes are on white keys, with
the second note on a black key; in the second group, the second
and third notes are now white, and the first and fourth black.

In 1923 Villa-Lobos wrote one of his most characteristic works, the

Noneto, given its premire in Paris in 1924. Subtitled Impresso
rpida de todo o Brasil, the piece represented a new synthesis of
national musical expression. Closer to choro than many other
works of the 1920s which bear the title, the Noneto comprises a
comprehensive anthology of the most common but also most
original and appealing rhythms of urban popular music (ex.3). The
atmosphere is added to by the rhapsodic and improvisational
manner of the melodies, whose richly contrapuntal working is
reminiscent of other choro composers such as Pixunguinha, Donga
and Benedito. The employment of the saxophone, flute, harp (in
place of guitar) and cavanquinho in the ensemble also points to
choro, as well as to Impressionist sources. The Chros themselves
are still generally considered the compositions with which VillaLobos most clearly established his aesthetic a daring balance of
the vernacular and the Modernist becoming in the process
Brazil's foremost nationalist musical voice. For a variety of
instrumentations, from solo guitar, solo piano and chamber
ensembles to orchestra and chorus, including one work for two
orchestras and band (no.13), the Chros represent Villa-Lobos's
most extensive vehicle in his crusade to communicate the tropically
fertile, exotic nature of the music of his country.
Although the model of the choro is closely followed in Chros no.1
for guitar, it is in Chros no.5 (Alma brasileira) for piano that VillaLobos best portrays the serenade-like aspect of the style; the
strongly expressive lyricism in the piece may also be related to the
love song genre of modinha. In sharp contrast Chros no.8
conveys a carnival celebration in Rio de Janeiro, by means of
highly infectious rhythmic and timbral play and a large number of
thematic ideas drawn from choro, children's songs and other
popular types. The work also contains aspects of Villa-Lobos's
earlier interest in evoking the dances of South American Indians. It
was well-received at its Paris premire and performed frequently

subsequently. Of all the pieces in the series, Chros no.10 (Rasga

o corao) is generally considered his masterpiece. The subtitle
comes from a modinha by the poet Catulo da Paixo Cearense,
which had previously been adapted by Anacleto de Medeiros to his
piano schottische Yara; passages of this piece are quoted in the
second part of the Villa-Lobos, which describes a tremendous
crescendo of primitive energy. The work's two main themes take on
the form of bewitching, vigorous ostinatos; powerful onomatopoeic
effects are produced by the complex counterpoint of nonsense
syllables, echoing the phonetic sounds of aboriginal languages;
polytonal and tone cluster features become more prominent, and,
in combination with cross-rhythmic groupings, multiple
syncopations and polyrhythm, create textures of quite a high
complexity. The virtuoso orchestration also reveals a sophistication
unknown until then in Brazil.
Of the major piano works composed in the 1920s, Rudepoema and
the series of Cirandas occupy a special place. Rudepoema was
dedicated to Rubinstein and is a portrait of the pianist, who gave its
first performance in Paris in 1927. The technical and aesthetic
complexity of the work arises from its great diversity of moods,
probably the result of Villa Lobos's interpretation of Rubinstein's
personality. The overall character is still decidedly experimental,
especially in the treatment of rhythm and tone colour. By contrast,
each piece of the Cirandas (1926), children's round-dances, is built
on a traditional folk tune.
During the period of the Vargas regime Villa-Lobos composed the
nine Bachianas brasileiras, described by him as a homage the
great genius of Johann Sebastian Bach [who I] consider a kind
of universal folkloric source, rich and profound [a source] linking
all peoples. These works were not intended, however, as stylized
renditions of the music of Bach but as an attempt to adapt freely to
Brazilian music a number of Baroque harmonic and contrapuntal
procedures. The Bachianas are formally conceived as suites, in the
Baroque sense of a sequence of two, three or four dance
movements. With the exceptions of the second movement of no.6,
the outer movements of no.8 and those of no.9, each movement
has two titles one formal la Bach, such as prelude, introduction,
aria, fantasia, toccata, fugue, the other nationalistic, such as
embolada, modinha, ponteio, desafioand choro. These national
elements tend to be conveyed primarily by rhythmic structures, but
also at times by melodic type and treatment, and by timbral
associations.
Bachianas brasileiras no.1 (1930) for a minimum of eight solo
cellos typifies the unique stylistic blend of European Baroque and
Brazilian folk; while in no.2 (O trenzinho do Caipira) a toccata-like
last movement graphically depicts the gradual increase and
subsequent decrease in speed of a locomotive in the Caipira
region of the state of So Paulo. No.4, originally for piano solo, is
perhaps the most Bachian of the set in its techniques; it includes a

chorale prelude as its second movement. Nevertheless, a Brazilian

tropicalism still prevails, mainly through free improvisation-like
passages. A further important trait of the Bachianas, solo songs,
guitar pieces and chamber music of the 1940s and 50s is the
increase in a Puccini-like lyricism, in opposition to a melodic
invention based upon short, rhythmic motifs. Cantabile outpourings
of the modinha type abound, but none as emotionally expressive
and powerfully engaging as the soprano line of the Aria-Cantilena
from the Bachianas brasileiras no.5, Villa-Lobos's deservedly bestknown work (ex.4).
Besides the improvisatory character of the soprano's long, arching
phrases, which suggests something unending and are reminiscent
of the serenading choro, the specifically Brazilian quality is also
underlined by the treatment of the cello ensemble accompaniment,
a kind of amplified version of a guitar technique known as ponteio
(picked). The doubling of the soprano line an octave below by the
first cellos not only adds volume, but also creates a unique blend of
colouristic depth.
Among his numerous chamber works, the 17 string quartets
preoccupied Villa-Lobos throughout his career; they are broadly
representative of his changes in style and technique, though often
remain overlooked. His principal pieces for guitar have achieved a
much wider appeal. The virtuoso 12 tudes, completed in 1929,
are especially challenging for performers, while also evoking
Brazilian popular culture; the five preludes (completed in 1940) and
a concerto (first performed by Segovia in 1956) reveal, on the other
hand, a more Romantic character, while remaining highly
sophisticated and idiomatic additions to the repertory.
Villa-Lobos, Heitor
6. Personality and style.
Villa-Lobos is often reported to have said that music creation
constituted for him a biological necessity. While this may explain in
part his enormous output the fruits of an extensive, generous
and warm land, as he described it it also reveals the instinctive
bent of his own personality which felt and understood the many
facets of the landscape and people of so large and diversified
country as Brazil. It also accounts for the composer's aversion to
preconceived compositional plans and the resulting natural, if
uneven, flow of his music as well as his seemingly spontaneous,
improvisation-like language. Although matching the basic premises
of the nationalist aesthetic agenda of his era, his own nationalism
was kaleidoscopic to correspond to his numerous creative sources,
many of which sublimated the simple incorporation of indigenous
musics. In effect, he created his own individual symbols of identity
and made them acceptable as uniquely national. As widely different
in sound structure or style as many of his works may be, his
express intent was directed towards the best representation of

what he perceived as powerfully suggestive of the wide continuum

of the multiple and varied Brailian cultural traditions. Although his
music is not a comprehensive synthesis of the plurality of Brazilian
oral music traditions, more than any other composer of his
generation he defined the exuberant stylistic eclecticism that has
continued to characterize Brazilian art music.
Villa-Lobos, Heitor
WORKS
dramatic
Femina (op), c1908
Aglai (op, 2), 1909
Elisa (op, 1), 1910
Untitled comdia lrica (3, O.F. Machado), 1911
Izath (op, 4, A. Jnior, Villa-Lobos), 191214, concert perf., Rio de Janeiro,
Municipal, 6 April 1940; staged Rio de Janeiro, Municipal, 13 Dec 1958
Amazonas (ballet), 1917, Paris, 30 May 1929
Uirapuru (ballet), 1917, Buenos Aires, Coln, 25 May 1935
Jesus (op, 3, G. de Andrade), 1918, MS frag.
Zo (op, 3, R. Viana), 1920, MS frag. [perc part]
3 Malazarte (op, 3, G. Aranha), 1921
Possesso (ballet), 1929, Oslo, 1929
Caixinha de boas festas (children's ballet), 1932, Rio de Janeiro, 23 Nov 1932
Pedra Bonita (ballet), 1933, Rio de Janeiro, Municipal, 1933
Descobrimento do Brasil (film score, dir. H. Mauro), 1937
Rud (ballet), 1951, Paris, 30 Aug 1954
A menina das nuvens (aventura musical, 3, L. Benedetti), 19528, Rio de Janeiro,
Municipal, 29 Nov 1960
Gnesis (ballet), 1954, Rio de Janeiro, 21 Nov 1969
Yerma (op, 4, after F.G. Lorca), 19556, Santa Fe, 12 Aug 1971
Emperor Jones (ballet, after E. O'Neill), 1956, Ellenville, 12 July 1956
Green Mansions (film score, after W.H. Hudson), 1958
Perpetual (op, 1, E. Terry), inc.
Amerindia (op, after D. Vasconellos), inc.
vocal-orchestral
Vidapura (Missa oratria), chorus, orch, 1919; Chros no.10, chorus, orch, 1926;
Chros no.14, chorus, band, orch, 1928; Suite sugestiva (O. de Andrade, R.
Chalput, M. Bandeira), 1v, orch, 1929; Mandu-arar, chorus incl. children's vv,
orch, 1940; Invocao em defesa da ptria (M. Bandeira, Villa-Lobos), 1v,
chorus, orch, 1943; Sym. no.10 Sum pater patrium, T, Bar, B, chorus, orch,
1952; Mag alleluia, 1v, chorus, orch, 1958; see also orchestral [Descobrimento
do Brasil, 1937] and solo vocal [orchd songs]
choral
Qt (Impresses da vida mundana), female vv, fl, sax, hp, cel, 1921; Noneto
(Impresso rpida de todo o Brasil), chorus, fl, ob, cl, sax, bn, hp, perc, 1923;
Chros no.3 (Picapau), male vv, cl, sax, bn, 3 hn, 1925; Missa So Sebastio, 3vv,
1937; Bachianas brasileiras no.9, chorus/str orch, 1945; Bendita sabedoria (Lat.
Bible), 6vv, 1958; other works incl. 35 sacred a cappella pieces, 190552

Educational: Guia prtico, 137 children's songs, 1932; Distribuio de flores, girl's
vv, , vn/gui, 1937; Solfejos, 2 vols., 1939, 1945; Canto orfenico, 2 vols., 1940,
1950; a few other pieces
orchestral
with soloists: Vc Conc. no.1, 1913; Suite, pf, orch, 1913; Chros no.8, 2 pf, orch,
1925; Chros no.11, pf, orch, 1928; introduction to the Chros, gui, orch, 1929;
Momoprecoce fantasy, pf, orch, 1929; Ciranda das sete notas, fantasy, bn, orch,
1933; Bachianas brasileiras no.3, pf, orch, 1938; Pf Conc. no.1, 1945; Fantasia, vc,
orch, 1945; Pf Conc. no.2, 1948; Fantasia, sax, chbr orch, 1948; Gui Conc., 1951;
Pf Conc. no.3, 19527; Pf Conc. no.4, 1952; Vc Conc. no.2, 1953; Hp Conc., 1953;
Pf Conc. no.5, 1954; Harmonica Conc., 19556
Other: Elgie, 1915; Myremis, sym. poem, 1916; Naufrgio de Klenicos, sym.
poem, 1916; Sinfonietta no.1, 1916; Sym. no.1 O imprevisto, 1916; Tdio de
Alvorada, sym. poem, 1916; Amazonas, sym. poem, 1917 [from ballet]; Sym. no.2
Asceno, 1917; Uirapuru, tone poem, 1917; Dana frentica, 1919; Sym. no.3 A
guerra, 1919; Sym. no.4 A vitria, 1919; Sym. no.5 A Paz, 1920, lost; Dana dos
mosquitos, 1922; Fantasia de movimentos mistos, 1922; Verde Velhice,
divertimento, 1922; Chros no.6, 1926
Chros no.9, 1929; Chros no.12, 1929; Chros no.13, 2 orchs, band, 1929;
Bachianas brasileiras no.2 (O trenzinho do Caipira), 1930; Bachianas brasileiras
no.4, pf/orch, 193036; Caixinha de boas festas, 1932 [from ballet]; O papagaio do
Moleque, episdio sinfnico, 1932; Descobrimento do Brasil, 4 suites, no.4 with
chorus, 1937 [from film score]; Saudade da juventude, suite, 1940
Bachianas brasileiras no.7, 1942; Bachianas brasileiras no.8, 1944; Sym. no.6,
1944; Bachianas brasileiras no.9, chorus/str orch, 1945; Madona, sym. poem, 1945;
Sym. no.7, 1945; Sinfonietta no.2, 1947; Eroso (Origem do rio Amazonas), 1950;
Sym. no.8, 1950; Sym. no.9, 1952; Dawn in a Tropical Forest, ov., 1953; Odissia
de uma raa, 1953; Sym. no.11, 1955; Sym. no.12, 1957; Fantasia, wind, 1958;
Fantasia concertante, at least 32 vc, 1958; Conc. grosso, wind, 1959; 2 suites, chbr
orch, 1959
8 religious/solemn marches, 190552
chamber
Str qts: no.1, 1915; no.2, 1915; no.3, 1916; no.4, 1917; no.5, 1931; no.6, 1938;
no.7, 1941; no.8, 1944; no.9, 1945; no.10, 1946; no.11, 1947; no.12, 1950; no.13,
1951; no.14, 1953; no.15, 1954; no.16, 1955; no.17, 1957
Other works for 3 or more insts: Pf Trio no.1, 1911; Trio, fl, vc, pf, 1913; Pf Trio no.2,
1915; Sexteto mstico, fl, ob, sax, hp, cel, gui, 1917; Pf Trio no.3, 1918; Trio, ob, cl,
bn, 1921; Chros no.7 (Settiminio), fl, ob, cl, sax, bn, gong, vn, vc, 1924; Chros
no.4, 3 hn, trbn, 1926; Qt, fl, ob, cl, bn, 1928; Quinteto em forma de chros, fl, ob,
cl, eng hn/hn, bn, 1928; Bachianas brasileiras no.1, at least 8 vc, 1930; Corrupio,
bn, str qnt, 1933; Pf Trio no.4, 1945; Divagao, vc, pf, drum ad lib, 1946; Fantasia
concertante, cl, bn, pf, 1953; Qnt, fl, vn, va, vc, hp, 1957
Works for 2 insts: Pequena suite, vc, pf, 1913; Prelude, vc, pf, 1913; Sonhar, vn/vc,
pf, 1914; Berceuse, vn/vc, pf, 1915; Capriccio, vn/vc, pf, 1915; Improviso, vn, pf,
1915; Sonata no.1 (Fantasia), vn, pf, 1915; Sonata no.2 (Fantasia), vn, pf, 1915;
Sonata no.1, vc, pf, 1915; Elgie, vn/vc, pf, 1916; Sonata no.2, vc, pf, 1916; Sonata
no.3, vn, pf, 1920; Sonata no.4, vn, pf, 1923; Chros no.2, fl, cl, 1924, Martrio dos
insetos, vn, pf, 1925; 2 choros bis, vn, vc, 1928; Bachianas brasileiras no.6, fl, bn,
1938; Duo, vn, vc, 1946; Assobio a Jato, fl, vc, 1950; Duo, ob, bn, 1957

Gui: Suite popular brasileira, 190812; Chros no.1, 1920; 12 Etudes, 1929; 5
Preludes, 1940
solo vocal
for 1v, pf unless otherwise stated

Miniaturas (B. Lopes, S. Romero, A. Barreto, A. Guimares, L. Guimares Filho,

A.M.C. de Oliveira), 6 songs, 191217; 3 canes indgenas (M. de Andrade,
Brazilian Indian), 1930; Canes tpicas brasileiras, 13 folksong arrs., 191935;
Historietas (Ribeiro Couto, R. de Carvalho, M. Bandeira, A. Samain), 6 songs,
1920; Epigramas irnicos e sentimentais (Carvalho), 8 songs, 19213, orchd;
Pome de lenfant et de sa mre (Villa-Lobos), 1v, fl, cl, vc, 1923; Suite, 1v, vn,
1923; Serestas (A. Moreyra, Bandeira, O. Mariano, D. Milano, Carvalho, C.
Drummond de Andrade, A. Renault, D. Nasser, Ribeiro Couto, P. Vasconcellos), 14
songs, 192343, 12 orchd
3 poemas indgenas (Brazilian Indian, M. de Andrade), 1926, orchd; 2 vocalisestudes, 1929; Modinhas e canes, series 1 (Gil Vicente, V. Corra, S. Salema,
trad.), 7 songs, 193343; Modinhas e canes, series 2, 6 children's songs, 1943,
orchd; Poema do Itabira (Drummond de Andrade), 1943, orchd; Canes de
cordialidade (Bandeira), 5 songs, 1945, orchd, arr. chorus; Bachianas brasileiras
no.5, S, at least 8 vc, 193845; Samba clssico (Villa-Lobos), ode, 1950, orchd
60 other songs, 18991958; sacred songs
piano
Brinquedo de Roda, 6 pieces, 1912; Petizada, 6 pieces, 1912; Suite infantil no.1,
1912; Suite infantil no.2, 1913; Danas caractersticas africanas, 191415; Suite
floral, 3 pieces, 191718; Simples coletnea, 3 pieces, 191719; Prole do beb
no.1, 8 pieces, 1918; Histrias da Carochinha, 4 pieces, 1919; Carnaval das
crianas brasileiras, 8 pieces, 191920; 2 dances, 1920 [from op Zo]; Lenda do
Caboclo, 1920; A Fiandeira, 1921
Prole do beb no.2, 10 pieces, 1921; Rudepoema, 19216; Chros no.5 (Alma
brasileira), 1925; Cirandinhas, 12 pieces, 1925; Cirandas, 16 pieces, 1926;
Saudades das selvas brasileiras, 1927; Francette et Pi, 10 pieces, no.10 duet,
1929; Bachianas brasileiras no.4, pf/orch, 193036; Caixinha de msica quebrada,
1931; Ciclo brasileiro, 4 pieces, 1936; Poema singelo, 1938; New York Sky Line
Melody, 1939; As tres Marias, 1939; Hommage Chopin, 1949
MSS in Museu Villa-Lobos, Rio de Janeiro
Principal publishers: Associated, Consolidated, Eschig, Napoleo, Peters, Ricordi, Robbins,
Southern, Tonos, Vitale

Villa-Lobos, Heitor
BIBLIOGRAPHY
general studies
D. Milhaud: Brsil, ReM, i (1920), 6061
S. Demarquez: Villas-Lobos, ReM, x/1011 (19289), 122
M. Pedroza: Villa-Lobos et son peuple: le point de vue brsilien,
ReM, x/1011 (19289), 238

F.C. Lange: Villa-Lobos, un pedagogo creador, Boletn latinoamericano de msica, i (1935), 18996
Msica viva, i (194041) [Villa-Lobos issue]
J.C. de Andrade Muricy: Villa-Lobos, Bulletin of the Pan
American Union, lxxix (1945), 110
O. Lorenzo Fernndez: A contribuio harmnica de Villa-Lobos
para a msica brasileira, Boletn latino-americano de msica,
vi (1946), 283300
L.M. Peppercorn: The History of Villa-Lobos' Birth Date, MMR,
lxxviii (1948), 1535
V. Mariz: Heitor Villa-Lobos, compositor brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro,
1949, 11/1989)
D. Milhaud: Notes sans musique (Paris, 1949; enlarged 3/1973 as
Ma vie heureuse; Eng. trans., 1952/R)
C. Paula Barros: O romance de Villa-Lobos (Rio de Janeiro, 1951)
A. Segovia: I Meet Villa-Lobos, Guitar Review, no.22 (1958), 22
3
A.M. de Giacomo: Villa-Lobos, alma sonora do Brasil (So Paulo,
1959, 6/1972)
C. Maul: A glria escandalosa de Heitor Vila Lbos (Rio de
Janeiro, 1960)
M. Romero: Heitor Villa-Lobos, Inter-American Music Bulletin,
no.15 (1960), 45
C.S. Smith: Heitor Villa-Lobos (18891959), Inter-American
Music Bulletin, no.15 (1960), 14
J.C. de Andrade Muricy: Villa-Lobos: uma interpretao (Rio de
Janeiro, 1961)
J.A. Orrego-Salas: Heitor Villa-Lobos: figura, obra y estilo, RMC,
no.93 (1965), 2562; Eng. trans. in Inter-American Music
Bulletin, no.52 (1996) [whole issue]
Presena de Villa-Lobos (Rio de Janeiro,196581)
M. Beaufils: Villa-Lobos, musicien et pote du Brsil (Paris, 1967,
2/1988)
R.T. de Lima: Villa-Lobos: refraes e prospeco, Revista do
Arquivo municipal [So Paulo], no.176 (1969), 22136
H. Menegale: Villa-Lobos e a educao (Rio de Janeiro, 1969)
E.N. Frana: Villa-Lobos: sntese crtica e biogrfica (Rio de
Janeiro, 1970, 2/1973)
Villa-Lobos: visto da platia e na intimidade, 19121935 (Rio de
Janeiro, 1972)
L.M. Peppercorn: Heitor Villa-Lobos: Leben und Werk des
brasilianischen Komponisten (Zrich,1972)
D.E. Vassberg: Villa-Lobos as Pedagogue: Music in the Service of
the State, Journal of Research in Music Education, xxiii/3
(1975), 16371
B. Kiefer: Villa-Lobos e o modernismo na msica brasileira (Porto
Alegre, 1981)
J.M. Wisnik: Getlio da Paixo Cearense (Villa-Lobos e a Estado
Novo), O nacional e o popular na cultura brasileira: msica
(So Paulo, 1982)

A. Chechim Filho: Excurso artstica Villa-Lobos (So Paulo,

c1987)
L.P. Horta: Villa-Lobos: uma introduo (Rio de Janeiro, 1987)
C. Jacobs: Villa-Lobos in his Centennial: a Preliminary Research
Report, Latin American Music Review, viii (1987), 25461
C. Kater: Villa-Lobos de Rubinstein, Latin American Music
Review, viii (1987), 24653
M.C. Machado: Heitor Villa-Lobos: tradio e renovao na
msica brasileira (Rio de Janeiro, 1987)
E. Tarasti: Heitor Villa-Lobos: ja Brasilian sielu (Helsinki, 1987;
Eng. trans., 1995)
F.C. Toni: Mrio de Andrade e Villa-Lobos (So Paulo, 1987)
D.P. Appleby: Heitor Villa-Lobos: a Bio-Bibliography (Westport, CT,
1988) [incl. discography]
E. Storni: Villa-Lobos (Madrid, 1988)
L.M. Peppercorn: Villa-Lobos (London, 1989)
A.S. Schic: Villa-Lobos: o ndio branco (Rio de Janeiro, 1989)
R. Giro: Heitor Villa-Lobos: una sensibilidad americana (Havana,
1990)
R. Gustafson: Villa-Lobos and the Man-Eating Flower, MQ, lxxv
(1991), 111
L.M. Peppercorn: Villa Lobos: Collected Studies (Aldershot, 1992)
S. Wright: Villa Lobos (Oxford, 1992)
G. Bhague: Heitor Villa-Lobos: the Search for Brazil's Musical
Soul (Austin, 1994) [incl. discography]
L.M. Peppercorn: The Villa-Lobos Letters (Kingston upon
Thames, 1994)
L.M. Peppercorn: The World of Villa-Lobos in Pictures and
Documents (Aldershot, 1996)
works
R. de Carvalho: A msica de Villa-Lobos, O Estado de So Paulo
(17 Feb 1922)
L.M. Peppercorn: Some Aspects of Villa-Lobos' Principles of
Composition, MR, iv (1943), 2834
J. de Souza Lima: Impresses sobre a msica pianstica de VillaLobos, Boletn latino-americano de msica, vi (1946), 14955
O. Downes: Villa-Lobos as a Nationalist Composer, Olin Downes
on Music, ed. I. Downes (New York, 1957/R), 27680
J. de Souza Lima: Comentrios sobre a obra pianstica de VillaLobos (Rio de Janeiro, 1969)
D.E. Vassberg: Villa-Lobos: Music as a Tool for Nationalism,
Luso-Brazilian Review, vi/2 (1969), 5565
A. Estrella: Os quartetos de cordas de Villa-Lobos (Rio de Janeiro,
1970)
A. Nbrega: As Bachianas brasileiras de Villa-Lobos (Rio de
Janeiro, 1971)
E. da Costa Palma and E.de Brito Chaves: As Bachianas
brasileiras de Villa-Lobos (Rio de Janeiro, 1971)
Villa-Lobos: sua obra (Rio de Janeiro, 2/1972, 3/1989) [pubn of
Museo Villa-Lobos]

A. Nbrega: Os choros de Villa-Lobos (Rio de Janeiro, 1975)

T. Santos: Villa-Lobos e o violo (Rio de Janeiro, 1975; Eng.
trans., 1985)
E.N. Frana: A evoluo de Villa-Lobos na msica de cmera (Rio
de Janeiro, 1976)
J.M. Neves: Villa-Lobos: o choro e os choros (So Paulo, 1977)
W.R. Riedel: Trois grades ad Parnassum: les derniers quatuors
cordes de Heitor Villa-Lobos (The Hague, 1977)
S. Wright: Villa-Lobos: the Formation of his Style, Soundings
[Cardiff], vii (197980), 5570
C. Kater: Villa-Lobos e a melodia das montanhas, Latin
American Music Review, v (1984), 1025
J. Oliveira: Black Key versus White Key: a Villa-Lobos Device,
Latin American Music Review, v (1984), 3347
M. Pereira: Heitor Villa-Lobos: sua obra para violo (Brasilia,
1984)
R. Duarte: Reviso das obras orquestrais de Villa-Lobos (Niteri,
198994)
L.M. Peppercorn: Villa-Lobos, the Music: an Analysis of his Style
(London, 1991)