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On a bleak winters night in January 2003 I sat in my bedroom in the hotel Manhattan with the Brazillian guitarist Victor Biglione and my friend the classical guitarist BenVerdery. In the middle of a happy situation where we worked our way through a bottle of Dom Perignon and a couple of songs that we would play the subsequent night at Joes Pub, Ben started to play some of the Villa Lobos studies . Half way through study number eight Ben looked up and said ‘ of course you know about the edits “ and then proceeded to tell me about the original Villa Lobos manuscripts and that it now appears that Segovia had edited some of the original writing. I poured another glass of Dom, while Ben played a beautiful chordal sequence from the 1928 version of study number ten, but missing in the1929 MS.
This was news.Like many guitarists I have lived with this music through most of my playing life .Lived with these seminal works by Villa Lobos that sit in your head like a monolithic presence . Like a place you know and love , it is music that you invariably return to once again to take in its exotic aroma.
Having known this music only in the Segovia/Esching version I felt a mixture of intrigue and dismay at this information and determined to get a copy of the original manuscript and look at it for myself . A few weeks later with a copy of the original manuscript and articles by both Stanley Yates and Eduardo Fernandez , I found out the following .The earliest manuscript of the studies is dated as 1928 .This version-with no dedivation to Segovia is replete with fingerings and expression markings written in meticulous detail even down to different size note heads to differentiate between thematic and structural lines .
Without going into elaborate detail here it may be sufficient to say that in the original Etude 10 there are 19 measures of new material and in Etude 11 a new passage of thirteen measure. The Segovia/ Eschig edition ,dated 1929 , is without these passages. It is hard not to indulge in conjecture about Segovias interraction with this marvellous and original guitar music where it seems - unless with the approval of Villa Lobos ,passages were cut out ,fingerings re-written etc etc. And yet when they were finally published in1953 , Segovia in his preface to the studies remarks how he had no need to alter the fingerings of Villa Lobos who knew the guitar so well.
In February of this year after spending a wild week at the Carnaval in Rio and experiencing Brazil in all of its finest throbbing intensity I paid a visit to the Villa Lobos museum. to meet and talk with it’s genial curator,the guitarist, Turibio Santos.
The museum is a charming old house that lies in the back streets of Botafogo . After meeting with Turibio in the sun dappled courtyard that contains a bust of Villa Lobos we wandered in to the darkened rooms . On display are a cello ,piano , various items that belonged Villa Lobos ,several oil paintings and video ,film and sound archives .Along with this is a vast collection of original manuscripts that are stored in a room upstairs under controlled conditions . But of course what caught my eye was the guitar behind glass in the corner of the room , apparently the instrument on which Heitor composed all of his guitar music . I began the conversation by asking Turibo who the maker was and how Villa Lobos came by it.
TS “ It was given to Villa Lobos in 1923 in Paris by Tomas Teran . He was a pianist that after wards came to Brazil and stayed here for the rest of his life.
AS - He gave him this guitar?
TS - Yes and he composed the twelve studies on this guitar...
AS - He wrote them on that actual guitar? Who is the maker ?
TS - Josef Bellido .a french guitar maker. Its a bit fat , but...
AS - yes almost like a Martin Dreadnought ,unusual for a classical guitar , but he wrote the twelve studies on this instrument – did he write the preludes on another guitar .
TS - Probably this one, he had this guitar all his life
AS - Yes- “this” was his guitar( laughs)
TS - yes it is a nice guitar – a small sound but very good quality
As - you have played it of course
TS - yes I have played it
AS - That must have been a religous moment when you played his guitar!
TS - ( laughs )no I am not impressed like that
AS - well fantastic.
T S - The fifth of March is the day on which Villla lobos was born was born and now is classified by Brazillians as the day of classical music in Brazil. This weekend on Sunday the fifth of March we will have a concert here in the museum that will last for four or five hours.
AS - And the music will all be the music of Villa Lobos . He is recognised as the founding father of modern classical music in Brazil.
TS - Would you like to see the library? We have all the originals
We move upstairs to the library which is actually a teperature and humidy controlled room where they keep the original manuscrits . Naturally I was hoping they would pull out all of the guita music for me so I could actually touch it. No such luck, but a young women wearing white gloves did actually and rather gingerly remove the original Bachianas Brasileras no 5 from its dark case to lay it like a butterfly on the table .We stared at it admiringly and I turned to Turibio and said “ Iwant to ask you about the studies and the story about the edits” to whichTuribio replied...
TS - this where people look for music. Here you can search for anything.
They never touch the originals . but for instance if they ask they can see the original of Prelude number 1 .You can find everything here.
We looked at a few more pieces of music together and then moved upstairs to Turibios office...
AS - I understand that in few days it will be the birthday of Villa Lobos – do you commemorate that in any way.
T S - The fifth of March is the day on which Villla Lobos was born was born and now is classified by Brazillians as the day of classical music in Brazil. This weekend on Sunday the fifth of March we will have a concert here in the museum that will last for four or five hours.
AS - And the music will all be the music of Villa Lobos . He is recognised as the founding father of modern classical music in Brazil . How long have you been the curator of the museum
TS - Twenty years – I started running the museum in 1986
AS - did the museum exist before that
TS - Yes my relationship with the museum comes from the beginning of the museum. In fact I met Villa Lobos himself personally in 1928
AS - 1928 ? you must be what ? about 110 years old
TS - sorry (laughs ) 1958! when he was doing some lectures about his own music. The main lecture that I attended was about his guitar music and this was absolutely fabulous because a friend of mine who was a musicologist was supposed to come to make notes but then he became ill so he asked me to note every word that Villa Lobos was saying.
AS - that’s fantastic – is there a print out of those notes
TS - Yes there is a book - a Turibios Santos book -with the lecture inside. He talked about the compositions . The preludes for example. They were written as an hommage . for example the first one is an hommage to the the men of the interior of Brazil. Indians The second one was to the capadochio Carioca –malondro. The third one was an hommage to the music of Bach ,the fourth to the Indians of Brazil and the fifth is an hommage to the social life of Rio . The kids all dressed up in fancy clothes as they go to concerts, this sort of thing.
In the lecture he told the story of how he met Segovia for the first time in 1923 . It was at a house in Paris , Segovia was playing in someones house to a small group and Tomas Teran his friend the pianist brought Villa Lobos to present to Segovia and said “have you met Villla Lobos the composer from Brazil “? Segovia replied “yes Miguel Llobet showed me one valse that he did. He doesn’t understand the guitar very well because he aske you to ma ke a very big stretch with the fingers of the left handand he asks you to put the small finger to make chords with five notes “
Villa Lobos hearing these comments took the guitar of Segovia and started to play, and Segovia was suprised with the new ideas and the flow of music. And they became friends. By chance I heard this story from both of them .From Villa Lobos in 1958 and from Segovia in 1965 in Santiago de Compostela. The only difference and note that is important was the way Villa Lobos took the guitar .Segovia said that Villa Lobos said with some vehemenece “ I want this guitar”. Villa Lobos said “ I want this guitar” and took it by force. But they were very close friends and at this point Villa Lobos started to work on the studies . He started in 1923 and he finished in 1928
AS - Okay so it took him five years to write the studies.
TS - Yes and in 1962 I made the first performance of the twelve studies .
AS - I have the record
TS - yes I was invited by Arminda Villa Lobos.I don’t know if you have the original’ On the original the cover had a picture of Villa Lobos smoking a cigar it was also my first record but in 1968 I made it again , this time for Erato in France .
AS - Yes, that is the one I have. Is that first one still available or not
TS - you can find it here in the museum , but it is not for sale , but you can make copies. We have almost all of the original music here available for copy.
AS - well I have a few questions There are stories about conflict between Villa Lobos and Segovia . For instance there is a story about Villa Lobos picking up the guitar and Segovia hating the sound that Villa Lobos made .
TS - yes I have heard that. But Philip Marettii – one of the two brothers who were the owners of Max Eschig told me that many times he heard discussion, arguments between Villa Lobos and Segovia, mostly about the twelve studies Segovia saying “ Villa Lobos this is not reasonable – we can’t do that “ And V illa Lobos would take the guitar and show Segovia how to do it
AS - In fact Villa Lobos was a good guitarist.
TS - Yes he was . There is a recording – a very old recording of him playing the Choros number 1. Well there are a few little mistakes, but you see that he is very fluent, it is beautiful. There are parts of the first prelude , you notice also that he was a very good guitarist, and he was a very good interpreter of his own music , not only the guitar but as an orchestral conductor.
AS - But Segovia never recorded the studies except for Number 1
TS - It is very important for people to understand that Segovia was the first explosion of the guitar all over the world . a wonderful guitarist. Unforgetable ,like Paganani with the guitar, And very concerned with sound and quality of sound and the public . If you make a follow up of all the programmes of Segovia. In the beginning the programmes are very simple. A minuet , a Gavotte by Bach it was normal to play small pieces like that. You can imagine somebody that built programme and thinks well I’ll puy the Canzonetta by Mendelson here and Prelude by Bach and maybe two pieces by Torroba and then twelve studies by Villa Lobos. – thats impossible (laughs) He chose the studies that were more comfortable with this kind of programme for instance study number 1, study number 8 ,and study number 7 he used to play these three studies. He was not to worried about playing them together as a set piece of a programme , and I am very happy about that because I could do this myself when I was eighteen years old.
AS - but Segovia did perfom them in public?
TS - yes quite early – we have the programmes here and he played the preludes too. Prelude Three and Prelude Four.
AS - But I thought he had some problems with Prelude Three . That he didn’t like it , he though it was imitation Bach.
TS - No - he played it beautifully.
AS - So the big question I have -and this was originaly told to me by Ben Verdery in New York- is about the editing of the studies. That everybody has recorded the versions as edited by Segovia but now it has come to light that there were sections of the music that Segovia took out.
TS - let me tell you the whole story...
When I began as the director of this museum Arminda Villa Llobos had just died. Actually one year before. She was his second wife. Tthere was a big dispute between the first wife and the second wife. Villa Lobos lived for twenty two years with Lucilia Guimares Villa Lobos and twenty three years with Arminda Villa Lobos. They hated each other and there was a big conflict betwen the families. When Arminda died in 1985, which is when I became the director of the museum, I spent that year giving assistance to a niece of Arminda , a very good pianist Sonya Maris Estrut? One year after the director of museums asked me to take full direction of the museum because 1986 was coming and in 1987 was the centenial of Villa Lobos and they wanted to have my name as the director because I was quite well known outside of Brazil.
Then I sent signals –smoke signals to the family through the press saying that ‘ well now that I am director of the museum I don’t see any reason to fight or have dispute between the families.So what happened is that the family of Lucilia called me ,and they were very kind and they started giving lots of things that had belonged to Villa Lobos , things that were very important to the museum. The cello I showed you and music.
One day one of the brothers of Lucilia came here. We opened the trunk of an old volkswaggon which contained a huge pile of original Villa L obos music. Ialmost died.I started looking and there were lots of the original guitar music.This was a shock! I communicated this to the publisher Max Eschig and I proposed that they should immediately print and publish a set of these originals. This is a treasure. I waited four years .. hoping they would have the initiative to do that. But nothing happened .
After four years I decided finally to liberate the originals and gave the photocopies to everybody.
AS - when was this ? during the eighties – nineties?
TS - I don’t want to say anything, I prefer to look to see the exact dates. But since then many guitarists have taken he photo copies and have started to play the original version.In fact I think that the good version is still Max Eschig. It is the one of which Villa Lobos said “ this is my version”. And he didn’t destroy anything but kept everything as an archive. But in fact the best version of the studies - the one that I recorded three times in my life -is the Eschig version because this was the desire of Villa Lobos.
AS - yes – maybe because he was happy to let Segovia work on them. But it is so interesting because the studies display the imaginationof an original mind and hold a seminal place in the literature of the guitar . Every guitarist has to confront them at some point along the way.
TS - absolutely , and you know they contain some of the ideas that became the preludes. You can find some of the ideas already in the studies
AS - yes he covered a huge amount of ground with the studies and the preludes would seem to flow naturally from them.
TS - The idea for Prelude number 1 for instance is already there in study number 11
AS - There was a break in between the studies and the preludes wan’t there?
TS - Yes the preludes were written in 1940 . Between the studies and the preludes you have a panorama of the guitar and Villa Lobos told me in 1958 that he had completed his tour of the guitar – “ I did everything I could do with the guitar” he said . He also said that the guitar was the instrument of his heart. He loved the cello .but the guitar was in his heart.
AS - Yes you can hear that in the music. I have another question about the preludes. Legend has it that there was a sixth prelude .
TS Yes and Villa Lobos told me that it was the most beautiful one but he couldn’t remember what happened to it. It was probably 1940 and the civil war in Spain and Segovias originals he couldn’t remember if it was sent to Montevideo but it was lost
AS - Is it possible that Segovia had the sixth prelude and then he moved to Montevideo and somewhere in the travel it got lost? That is very sad . You can only imagine what it might have been .A tantalising thought.
Well - generally in Brazil today how do the younger players regard Villa Lobos? what direction is the guitar taking here?
TS - The recording that I am doing at the moment with the orchestra of the Municipal Theatre of Rio de Janeiro has five pieces . One is the introduction to the choros by Villa Lobos- that is the dialogue between the guitar and the orchestra . The second is the concerto for guitar and orchestra –that I but the three others are new concertos am recording for the third time. But the three others are new concertos.
AS - What? they are ones that you found when you received the originals?
TS - No , They are concertos that were published by Max Eschig . But the introduction had hardly been recorded. When Villa Lobos finished the whole series of Choros he felt that it was missing something, missing an introduction. So he composed this fabulous introduction that in fact is a dialogue beteen the guitar and a big orchestra. The guitar comes in the middle of the piece and has a very important cadenza followed by the orchestra , the guitar plays again and comes to the choros. It is very beautiful . There are three other concertos on this record . One is by Eugenio Krieger” one of our best composers-the dean of brazilian composers a wonderful concerto – very Brazilian , and two others by Sergio Barbosa a very talented composer – he ‘s downstairs now waiting for me we’re going to the studio . he has a concerto called “Retratos do Brazil”and another that is an hommage to a famous poet here Carlos Ramon and is based on themes of Minias Gerais ‘
AS - and these concertos will all be on the same recording ? you have a lot of work to do...!
TS - ( laughs) I keep alive But I cannot drink these days and this is bothering me quite alot – but I will be very happy at the end
AS - I hear you ... so all of this shows the powerful influence of Villa Lobos even today
TS - Yes everywhere .It is still so strong
AS - Yes I feel as if I have lived through that music all of my life . Since I was a teenager. Its always had a place in my head . Could Villa Lobos play the studies himself?
TS - Yes he could play them, but you know he didn’t care to be a guitarist
AS - No, he wasn’t a concert performer
TS - No he wasn’t. but he could do all the things he wanted with the guitar. The witness was Philip Marietti of Max Esching who saw him demonstrate the music to Segovia when they were in discussion.
At this point Turibio had to leave us to meet with Sergio Barbosa I thanked him and then headedto the beach of Barra de Tijuca just south of Rio. As I got pounded back and forth by the mighty atlantic waves ,a number of thoughts came to me. Would Villa Lobos have written this music if he had not met Segovia ? Clearly the playing of Segovia was a channel and an inspiration to Villa Lobos to write music for an instrument close to his heart. The meeting of these two men and the friction between them is what produced the music. Had their been a relationship of more obvious accord maybe the music would have turned out differently and possibly the music would be the lesser for it.
I thought about the arrival of the original manuscripts into Turibios hands and what a gravid situation that must have been .Turibio had met and talked with both Segovia and Villa Lobos and was cognizant of the speculation and rumour about their relationship. But with one swift stroke – the revealing of the original manuscripts – he had severed the knot ,and now the world could be the judge and the music would speak for itself.
Copies of the original manuscripts maybe obtained by writing to
Museu Villa Lobos
Rua Sorocaba , 200-Botafogo
Rio De Janeiro RJ – Brasil
22271-110
email mvilllobos2ax.ibase.org.br
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