NUM 1010

Title:  HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS | FRANCISCO MIGNONE

Artist: Joel Bello Soares – piano

Composers: Heitor Villa-Lobos, Francisco Mignone

Heitor Villa-Lobos (March 5, 1887 – November 17, 1959) was a Brazilian composer, described as “the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music”.[1] Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date.[2] He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works. His music was influenced by both Brazilian folk music and by stylistic elements from the European classical tradition, as exemplified by his Bachianas Brasileiras (“Brazilian Bach-pieces”).

Francisco Paulo Mignone (September 3, 1897–February 19, 1986) is one of the most significant figures in Brazilian classical music, and one of the most significant Brazilian composers after Heitor Villa-Lobos. In 1968 he was chosen as Brazilian composer of the year.

A graduate of the São Paulo Conservatory and then of the Milan Conservatory, Mignone returned to São Paulo in 1929 to teach harmony, and in 1933 took a post in Rio de Janeiro at the Escola Nacional de Música. Mignone was a versatile composer, dividing his output nearly evenly between solo songs, piano pieces, chamber instrumental works, orchestral works, and choral works. In addition, he wrote five operas and eight ballets.

Son of the Italian immigrant flutist Alferio Mignone, Francisco was already making his mark upon the musical world of Brazil by the time he was 10 years old, gaining notoriety around his district playing in the choro style. A pianist and orchestra leader at 13, he had gained some fame composing and playing under the pseudonym of Chico Bororó, keeping these activities separate from his formal music training. His works may be divided into three compositional periods. His early works show the Italian influences and Romantic sensibilities of his training in Milan. An orchestral piece from his first opera of this early period was premiered in Rio de Janeiro by Richard Strauss conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, in 1923.

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