This suite of eight pieces portrays the ethnic or folk character of a child's dolls, drawing freely on national folk tunes. The set is edited by the Villa-Lobos scholar David P. Appleby, who was honored by the Brazilian government with the Villa-Lobos Centennial Medal for his outstanding research into the life and music of the composer. Each piece has its own unique, sharply drawn character and is sure to appeal with an abundant degree of rhythmic sophistication.
"Noted Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos holds a distinctive position as an international artist, and in Gerard Béhague's comprehensive study a truly critical assessment of his creative output is available for the first time. Villa-Lobos was a representative of the most natural and direct expressions of Brazil's popular culture, constantly 'in search of the Brazilian soul.' Indeed 'Alma Brasileira' was the subtitle he gave to the piano piece Choros No. 5, and the musical manifestations of that soul preoccupied him throughout his life. Expanded from a prize-winning essay, the present study provides a critical appraisal of the significant aspects of his life as well as an in-depth analysis of his musical language. With over fifty musical examples, a bibliography, and a discography, this book presents a thorough analysis of Villa-Lobos's composition, craftsmanship, and ideology that should appeal to musicologists, students, and all who have an interest in Latin American cultural and historical studies. Villa-Lobos once stated, 'I consider my works as letters that I wrote to Posterity, without expecting any answer.' This book provides readings of a selected number of such 'letters' and in the process attempts to give some answers regarding the uniqueness of the music of one of the most creative composers of the twentieth century." --Back cover.
Photographs and descriptions recall both the old theatres, long since demolished, where Villa-Lobos's music was originally performed, and the numerous national institutions that played such an important part in the composer's life.
The music of the prolific Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) typifies Brazil, in its diversity, spirit of racial amalgam, and awesome beauty. Through the sheer quantity of his output, his original use of folkloric material, and the striking accessibility of his scores, Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer of all time.This book provides an introduction to his music, and by focusing attention on important or unusual works from his large oeuvre, charts Villa-Lobos's own often anguished musical journey through the Brazilian landscape. Jungle, grasslands, river, city, and ocean all find a legitimate place in his aural mosaic of Brazil, but as he approached death his music assumed a deep spiritual quality of peace and resignation. His personal journey of discovery and fulfilment is clearly explained, set against the pervasive backdrop of social and political upheaval which characterized Brazil during Villa-Lobos's lifetime.Simon Wright has lectured, broadcast, and written on all aspects of Latin American music, and was awarded the Rocha Miranda Award of the Anglo-Brazilian Society for research in Brazil.Readership: Those interested in the music of Brazil and Latin America.
"A brief and majestic debut." —Matías Néspolo, El Mundo Tochtli lives in a palace. He loves hats, samurai, guillotines, and dictionaries, and what he wants more than anything right now is a new pet for his private zoo: a pygmy hippopotamus from Liberia. But Tochtli is a child whose father is a drug baron on the verge of taking over a powerful cartel, and Tochtli is growing up in a luxury hideout that he shares with hit men, prostitutes, dealers, servants, and the odd corrupt politician or two. Long-listed for The Guardian First Book Award, Down the Rabbit Hole, a masterful and darkly comic first novel, is the chronicle of a delirious journey to grant a child's wish.
Appleby is a scholar and musician specializing in the music of his native Brazil, and in particular the work of Villa-Lobos. He augments the many biographies and musical analyses of the country's best known composer with insights from his own five decades of performing his music and interviews with his family and friends. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
"Tristorosa", a title derived by combining the Portuguese words for "sad" and "rose", was written by Heitor Villa-Lobos in 1910 when he was 23 years of age under the name of Epaminondas Villaba Filho. This pseudonym had also been previously used by his father, Raúl, a writer and amateur cellist. It is one of Heitor's earliest compositions and the style of the waltz is typical of those of the period.
Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras demonstrates how the composer achieved his own Brazilian neoclassical style in a group of works, nine suites in total, that is arguably one of the best examples of homage to J.S. Bach’s music in the twentieth century. In this book, the corpus of Bachianas Brasileiras is contextualized and critically examined according to its structure and intertextual aspects, as well as its relationship to Bach’s music, Brazilian popular music, and other works by contemporaries of Villa Lobos. A range of musical examples illustrate instances of the selected topics in the works, encompassing urban Brazilian popular music such as the choro, Brazilian northeast and afro rhythms, and citation of folkloric melodies. Dudeque’s comprehensive examination of the Bachianas Brasileiras will be invaluable for scholars and researchers of music theory and analysis.
