Youth and exploration Villa-Lobos was born in
Rio de Janeiro. His father, Raúl, was a civil servant, an educated man of Spanish extraction, a librarian, and an amateur
astronomer and musician. In Villa-Lobos's early childhood, Brazil underwent a period of social revolution and modernisation, abolishing
slavery in 1888 and overthrowing the
Empire of Brazil in 1889. The changes in Brazil were reflected in its musical life: previously European music had been the dominant influence, and the courses at the
Conservatório de Música were grounded in traditional
counterpoint and
harmony. Villa-Lobos underwent very little of this formal training. After a few abortive harmony lessons, he learnt music by illicit observation from the top of the stairs of the regular musical evenings at his house arranged by his father. He learned to play cello, clarinet, and classical guitar. When his father died suddenly in 1899 he earned a living for his family by playing in cinema and theatre orchestras in Rio. Around 1905 Villa-Lobos started explorations of Brazil's "dark interior", absorbing the native Brazilian musical culture. Serious doubt has been cast on some of Villa-Lobos's tales of the decade or so he spent on these expeditions, and about his capture and near escape from cannibals, with some believing them to be fabrications or wildly embellished romanticism. After this period, he gave up any idea of conventional training and instead absorbed the musical influences of Brazil's indigenous cultures, themselves based on Portuguese and African, as well as
American Indian elements. His earliest compositions were the result of
improvisations on the classical guitar from this period. Villa-Lobos played with many local Brazilian street-music bands; he was also influenced by the cinema and
Ernesto Nazareth's improvised
tangos and
polkas. For a time Villa-Lobos became a cellist in a Rio opera company, and his early compositions include attempts at Grand Opera. Encouraged by
Arthur Napoleão, a pianist and music publisher, he decided to compose seriously.
Brazilian influences On November 12, 1913, Villa-Lobos married the pianist Lucília Guimarães, ended his travels, and began his career as a serious musician. Up until his marriage, he had not learned to play the piano, so his wife taught him the rudiments of the instrument. His music began to be published in 1913. He introduced some of his compositions in a series of occasional chamber concerts (later also orchestral concerts) from 19151921, mainly in Rio de Janeiro's
Salão Nobre do Jornal do Comércio. The music presented at these concerts shows his coming to terms with the conflicting elements in his experience, and overcoming a crisis of identity, as to whether European or Brazilian music would dominate his style. This was decided by 1916, the year in which he composed the symphonic poems
Amazonas and
Tédio de alvorada, the first version of what would become
Uirapurú (although
Amazonas was not performed until 1929, and
Uirapurú was only completed in 1934 and first performed in 1935). These works drew from native Brazilian legends and the use of "primitive" folk material. European influences did still inspire Villa-Lobos. In 1917
Sergei Diaghilev made an impact on tour in Brazil with his
Ballets Russes. That year Villa-Lobos also met the French composer
Darius Milhaud, who was in Rio as secretary to
Paul Claudel at the French Legation. Milhaud brought the music of
Claude Debussy,
Erik Satie, and possibly
Igor Stravinsky; in return Villa-Lobos introduced Milhaud to Brazilian street music. In 1918, he also met the pianist
Arthur Rubinstein, who became a lifelong friend and champion; this meeting prompted Villa-Lobos to write more piano music. In about 1918 Villa-Lobos abandoned the use of
opus numbers for his compositions as a constraint to his pioneering spirit. With the piano suite
Carnaval das crianças (Children's carnival) of 191920, Villa-Lobos liberated his style altogether from European Romanticism: the suite, in eight movements with the finale written for piano duet, depicts eight characters or scenes from Rio's Lenten Carnival. {{listen In February 1922, a festival of modern art took place in
São Paulo and Villa-Lobos contributed performances of his own works. The press were unsympathetic and the audience were not appreciative; their mockery was encouraged by Villa-Lobos's being forced by a foot infection to wear one carpet slipper. The festival ended with Villa-Lobos's
Quarteto simbólico, composed as an impression of Brazilian urban life. In July 1922, Rubinstein gave the first performance of the piano suite
A Prole do Bebê (The Baby's Family), composed in 1918. There had recently been an attempted military
coup on
Copacabana Beach, and places of entertainment had been closed for days; the public possibly wanted something less intellectually demanding, and the piece was booed. Villa-Lobos was philosophical about it, and Rubinstein later reminisced that the composer said, "I am still too good for them." The piece has been called "the first enduring work of Brazilian modernism". Rubinstein suggested that Villa-Lobos tour abroad, and in 1923 he set out for Paris. His avowed aim was to exhibit his exotic sound world rather than to study. Just before he left he completed his
Nonet (for ten players and chorus) which was first performed after his arrival in the French capital. He stayed in Paris in 192324 and 192730, and there he met influential residents including
Edgard Varèse,
Pablo Picasso,
Leopold Stokowski and
Aaron Copland. Parisian concerts of his music made a strong impression. In the 1920s, Villa-Lobos would cross paths with one of the most well-known and influential classical guitar performers in history,
Andrés Segovia, to work on a commissioned guitar composition. Villa-Lobos responded by writing a set of twelve such pieces, each based on a tiny detail or figure played by Brazilian itinerant street musicians (
chorões), transformed into an
étude that is not merely
didactic. Over time, this collection of etudes has gone on to become one of the integral sets in the modern classical guitar repertoire, seen as higher level studies guitarists will have to play at some point or another during their careers. The music of chorões also provided the initial inspiration for his
Chôros, a series of compositions written between 1920 and 1929. The first European performance of
Chôros No. 10, in Paris, caused a storm: L.Chevaillier wrote of it in
Le Monde musical, "[it is] an art ... to which we must now give a new name." Though he not as well known for his guitar compositions, everything he wrote for the instrument is considered standard repertoire and is regarded as of utmost importance.
Vargas era In 1930, Villa-Lobos, who was in Brazil to conduct, planned to return to Paris. One of the consequences of
the revolution of that year was that money could no longer be taken out of the country, and so he had no means of paying any rents abroad. Thus forced to stay in Brazil, he arranged concerts instead around São Paulo, and composed patriotic and educational music. In 1932, he became director of the
Superintendência de Educação Musical e Artística (SEMA), and his duties included arranging concerts including the Brazilian premieres of
Ludwig van Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and
Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in B minor as well as Brazilian compositions. His position at SEMA led him to compose mainly patriotic and propagandist works. His series of
Bachianas Brasileiras were a notable exception. In 1936, at the age of forty-nine, Villa-Lobos left his wife, and became romantically involved with Arminda Neves d'Almeida, who remained his companion until death. Arminda eventually took on the name Villa-Lobos, though Villa-Lobos never divorced his first wife. After Villa-Lobos' death, Arminda became the Director of the
Museu Villa-Lobos in 1960, until her death in 1985. Arminda was herself a musician and a significant influence on Villa-Lobos. He also dedicated a good number of works to her, including the
Ciclo brasileiro and many of the
Chôros. Villa-Lobos's writings during the presidency of
Getúlio Vargas (1930–1945) include propaganda for Brazilian nationhood (
brasilidade), and teaching and theoretical works. His
Guia Prático ran to 11volumes,
Solfejos (two volumes, 1942 and 1946) contained vocal exercises, and
Canto Orfeônico (1940 and 1950) contained patriotic songs for schools and for civic occasions. His music for the film
O Descobrimento do Brasil (The Discovery of Brazil) of 1936, which included versions of earlier compositions, was arranged into orchestral
suites, and includes a depiction of the first
mass in Brazil in a setting for double choir. Villa-Lobos published
A Música Nacionalista no Govêrno Getúlio Vargas 1941, in which he characterised the nation as a sacred entity whose symbols (including its flag, motto and national anthem) were inviolable. Villa-Lobos was the chair of a committee whose task was to define a definitive version of the
Brazilian national anthem. After 1937, during the
Estado Novo period when Vargas seized power by decree, Villa-Lobos continued producing patriotic works directly accessible to mass audiences. Independence Day on September 7, 1939, involved 30,000 children singing the national anthem and items arranged by Villa-Lobos. For the 1943 celebrations he also composed the ballet
Dança da terra, which the authorities deemed unsuitable until it was revised. The 1943 celebrations did include Villa-Lobos's hymn
Invocação em defesa da pátria shortly after Brazil's declaring war on Germany and its allies. Villa-Lobos's status damaged his reputation among certain schools of musicians, among them disciples of new European trends such as
serialismwhich was effectively off limits in Brazil until the 1960s. This crisis was, in part, due to some Brazilian composers finding it necessary to reconcile Villa-Lobos's own liberation of Brazilian music from European models in the 1920s with a style of music they felt to be more universal.
Composer in demand Vargas fell from power in 1945. Villa-Lobos was able, after the end of the war, to travel abroad again; he returned to Paris, and also made regular visits to the United States as well as travelling to Great Britain, and Israel. He received a huge number of commissions, and fulfilled many of them despite failing health. He composed
concertos for piano, cello (the second one in 1953), classical guitar (in 1951 for Segovia, who refused to play it until the composer provided a
cadenza in 1956),
harp (for
Nicanor Zabaleta in 1953) and harmonica (for
John Sebastian, Sr. in 1955–56). Other commissions included his Symphony No. 11 (for the
Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1955), and the opera
Yerma (1955–56) based on the play by
Federico García Lorca. His prolific output of this period prompted criticisms of note-spinning and banality: critical reactions to his
Piano Concerto No. 5 included the comments "bankrupt" and "piano tuners' orgy", "raked the very depths of banality", "nothing ... but soupy textures or a bedraggled romantic idea", and "truly the kind of music that should never get written, still less performed". His music for the film
Green Mansions starring
Audrey Hepburn and
Anthony Perkins, commissioned by
MGM in 1958, earned Villa-Lobos , and he conducted the soundtrack recording himself. The film was in production for many years. Originally to be directed by
Vincente Minnelli, it was taken over by Hepburn's husband
Mel Ferrer. MGM decided to use only part of Villa-Lobos's music in the actual film, turning instead to
Bronisław Kaper for the rest of the music. From the score, Villa-Lobos compiled a work for soprano soloist, male chorus, and orchestra, which he titled
Forest of the Amazon and recorded in 1959 in stereo with Brazilian soprano
Bidu Sayão, an unidentified male chorus, and the
Symphony of the Air for
United Artists Records. The recording was issued both on LP and reel-to-reel tape (United Artist UAC 8007, stereo 7 1/2 IPS). In June 1959, Villa-Lobos alienated many of his fellow musicians by expressing disillusionment, saying in an interview that Brazil was "dominated by mediocrity". In November he died in Rio; his state funeral was the final major civic event in that city before the capital transferred to
Brasília. He is buried in the
Cemitério São João Batista in Rio de Janeiro. ==Music==