Monday, March 26, 2012

Tiradentes

A couple of years ago I wrote about the Brazilian Congress's Livro dos Heróis da Pátria - the Book of Heroes of the Fatherland. Besides Villa-Lobos himself, one of the Heroes is Tiradentes, about whom I wrote:
Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, known as Tiradentes, was a revolutionary from the same generation as the American Founding Fathers and the French Revolutionaries. From what I've read in the Wikipedia article, he seems somewhat like the Canadian Louis Riel; both were hanged by their governments, and the names of both have lived on as heroes.
In 1938 Villa-Lobos wrote a Canto patriotico called Tiradentes, which is included in his collection Canto Orfeônico. The text is by Viriato Correa, and the music credit goes to E. Villalba Filho (a commonly used pen-name of Villa-Lobos).


I haven't come across a recording (or a performance) of this work. The two volumes of Canto Orfeônico are full of interesting choral pieces. Unfortunately, it's not easy tracking down these scores, published by Irmaos Vitale in 1940. I got v. 1 through the excellent Interlibrary Loan service of my library.

No comments:

Post a Comment