VILLA-LOBOS, HEITOR

born March 5, 1887, Rio de Janeiro died Nov. 17, 1959, Rio de Janeiro Brazilian musician and one of the foremost Latin-American composers of the 20th century, whose music combines indigenous melodic and rhythmic elements with Western classical music from Bach to Puccini. A cellist in his youth, he began to investigate Brazilian folk and popular music in 1905. Leaving home because his widowed mother opposed a musical career, he became a musical vagabond at the age of 18. He played popular music engagements on the cello and guitar, all the while absorbing Brazilian folk music and incorporating it into his own compositions. On his return to Rio he enrolled at the Instituto Nacional de Msica but soon was off on another journey, this time to North Brazil (Bahia), where he remained for three years, travelling on musical pilgrimages in the region. Back in Rio with a large group of manuscripts and an intimate knowledge of Afro-Brazilian music of the districts, he studied Bach, Wagner, Puccini, and other composers whose influence his music was to absorb. A vital boost to his career occurred in 1915, when his music began to be published by the firm of Artur Napoleo. Music poured out of him ceaselessly (about 2,000 works are credited to him in all), and by the time of his first trip to Europe in 1923, he had compiled a long list of compositions in every form. In 1919, when he was 32, he met the pianist Artur Rubinstein, whose playing of his music throughout the world brought Villa-Lobos increasing recognition. Villa-Lobos was appointed director of musical education at So Paulo in 1930 and in 1932 took charge of musical education throughout Brazil. He established a conservatory for popular singing (1942) and founded the Brazilian Academy of Music (1945). Between 1944 and 1949 he travelled widely in the U.S. and Europe, where he received many honours and was much in demand as a conductor. Villa-Lobos wrote operas, ballets, symphonies, concerti, symphonic suites, and solo pieces, in a style that was influenced by Bach, French composers, and Wagner. His style was also suffused with an original use of Brazilian percussion instruments and Brazilian rhythms. One of his most characteristic works is Bachianas brasileiras (193044), a set of nine pieces for various instrumental and vocal groups, in which a contrapuntal technique in the manner of Bach is applied to themes of Brazilian origin. A similar series of 14 works, composed between 1920 and 1929, bears the generic title Chros (a Brazilian country dance). His 12 symphonies (192058) are mostly associated with historic events or places. Other works include the symphonic poems Uirapur (1917), Amazonas (1929), and Dawn in a Tropical Forest (1954); two cello concerti (1915, 1955); Momoprecoce for piano and orchestra, a harp concerto, a concerto for harmonica and orchestra, a concerto for guitar and orchestra (1952); 16 string quartets (191555); and Rudepoema for piano solo (1926; orchestrated 1942).