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![Watch Villa-Lobos: Bachianas brasileiras No. 5, W. 389, 1. Aria (Cantilena) [Live at Borchardt, Berlin / 2018] music video by Nadine Sierra & Julia Lange](/mkimage/image/thumb/Video118/v4/bb/62/72/bb627267-aa91-f87f-e752-89cee6c0867e/00044007355473_00001.crop.jpg/575x575mv.webp "Watch Villa-Lobos: Bachianas brasileiras No. 5, W. 389, 1. Aria (Cantilena) [Live at Borchardt, Berlin / 2018] music video by Nadine Sierra & Julia Lange")
About Heitor Villa-Lobos
Hometown
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Born
1887
Genre
Classical
Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote music infused with the sounds of his native Brazil—tribal songs, folk dances, street music, and carnival. He was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1887. From 1905 to 1913, he toured the Brazilian interior, absorbing Indigenous music and culture. This resulted in a decisive shift away from European influences toward a distinctly Brazilian sound. In 1918, he met the pianist Arthur Rubinstein, for whom he wrote many virtuoso piano works, including Rudepoêma (1921-26). Villa-Lobos traveled to Europe in 1923, and lived for several years in Paris. A meeting with Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia resulted in his 12 Guitar Études (1928-29), based on the improvisatory chorões style of Brazilian street musicians. These also inspired his 14 Chôros (1920-29), each for a different ensemble, as are his nine Bachianas Brasileiras (1930-45), which combine folk influences with Baroque structures from the music of Bach. Villa-Lobos became a prominent figure in Brazilian public life during the presidency of Getúlio Vargas from 1930, writing nationalist songs and chairing a committee to establish the country’s national anthem. After Vargas was deposed in 1945, Villa-Lobos returned to intensive composing and touring internationally as a conductor. He was particularly prolific in his final years, and had completed more than 2,000 works by the time of his death in 1959.
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