Composer Series: Heitor Villa-Lobos—Finding the Brazilian Heartbeat
In 1940, Brazilian composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos, completed his final work for the solo guitar: Cinq preludes (Five Preludes). Although he was not a prolific composer for the guitar, the pieces he did write have become solidly ingrained in the repertoire of the classical guitar. The Five Preludes are his most mature, developed and, arguably, his most enjoyable.
By the time Villa-Lobos was 20 years old, he had already traveled extensively through Brazil to “search for his own music identity as a Brazilian.” He studied the music of the cantadores (troubadours who performed traditional vocal improvisations and poetry), the autos (folk plays), the aboios (cattle-herding songs of cowboys), as well as dramatic dances and dueling songs. Villa-Lobos has said of his travels as a young composer that his “first book was the map of Brazil, the Brazil that I trudged, city by city, state by state, forest by forest, searching the soul of a land.”
Suite popular brasileira (1912) in it’s entirety.
It’s clear that Villa-Lobos loved his people, culture and country, but he also wanted to make a name for himself in the world of “classical music,” which, at the time, was still dominated by European trends and the whims of its elite. His earliest collection for solo guitar, Suíte popular brasileira (Brazilian Popular Suite), completed in 1912, was too pedestrian for classical music, too old-fashioned for Modernism, and not Brazilian enough for his countrymen.
His first symphony, which premiered in 1916, was also a flop. Even though Villa-Lobos claimed to use Brazil as the center of his inspiration, he nevertheless composed in the French style but sounded neither Brazilian nor French. These early works were denounced as being “preoccupied with crazy enharmonic negotiations, in which one searches for an idea without ever finding it, revealing the immoderate desire of musical scandal.”
Villa-Lobos’ early attempts at appropriating European tradition was met with derision from the sensible people of Brazil who had no stomach for imitations of ugly music, but Villa-Lobos doubled down on his attempts at being accepted by the European elite. He ran away to Paris in 1923 to study with the masterful dictators of taste and style. There, he met the leading musical figures of the day: Maurice Ravel, Manuel de Falla, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, and Andres Segovia.
Andres Segovia was a famous classical guitarist searching for new compositions to expand the relatively young repertoire of the instrument. After his studies in Paris in 1923 and again in 1929, Villa-Lobos was urged by Segovia to write something unique for the guitar. He immediately began work on Douze études (Twelve Studies). Although these studies represent an artful synthesis of Brazilian elements and the Impressionist techniques he learned in Paris, they are simply not as pleasing to the ear as his less intellectual earlier works. He needed another attempt, but it would be another decade before he again composed for the guitar.
Villa-Lobos’ most famous—and “prettiest”—etude, no. 1, performed by the man who inspired it, Andres Segovia.
His second trip to Paris was so successful that he became the famous composer he wanted to be almost overnight. He finally found a way to express his Brazilian heart within the intellectual context and language of Europe and, in so doing, secured Brazil’s place in the history of classical music. He was such a sensation that he simply became too busy to write for the lowly guitar chasing, instead, much higher paying and more prestigious assignments—for which he wrote prolifically.
In the next blog, I’ll talk more about the Five Preludes. In the meantime, please enjoy this performance of one of Villa-Lobos’ most beautiful compositions, the aria from Bachianas Brasileiras no. 5, which is his interpretation of a “Brazilian Bach.”
Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 for soprano and 8 cellos (1938), composed shortly before his Five Preludes and when learned to write music that was both beautiful and intellectual.