Word: heitor
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Most composers spend the early part of their lives in conservatories of music, where they learn to write potted fugues and hothouse symphonies. But no conservatory ever held Brazil's bouncing, fiery Heitor Villa-Lobos. When he was six years old his lawyer father, an amateur musician, taught him how to play a lick or two on the cello. He taught himself how to play the piano. By the time he was 19 he was roving from one Brazilian settlement to another, playing in half-caste cabarets and straw-thatched cinema palaces. And he listened long and often...
...sort of musical William Saroyan. His Paris apartment became a rendezvous for admiring Left-Bankers. Villa-Lobos, who couldn't afford to keep open house, threw them out, told them not to come back unless they brought their own food. Even on those terms, they came back. When Heitor Villa-Lobos returned to his native Brazil a few years later, he found that his European reputation had preceded him. He was Brazil's No. 1 composer...