New Masterclass, "Choro #1", Heitor Villa-Lobos

Heitor Villa-Lobos is without a  doubt my favorite South American Composer even more than Barrios Mangore. The main reason is that he has the ability to surprise me and introduce very poignant yet always very controlled harmony that I simply cannot resist. He worked with very simple elements and through his friendship with my teachers Segovia and Carlevaro he developed some of the best classical guitar music ever. The classical guitar needed fresh and first class original material to get established as a "serious" classical instrument. Although this effort was well intentioned, it really never served the guitar justly and actually brought about the birth of many mediocre not to say ugly pieces that simply for having been "originally written for the classical guitar" earned a place in the rankings and simply did not make the guitar shine. But the Villa-Lobos body of work, small, yet priceless is definitely not the case. Carlevaro worked very closely with Villa-Loboswith whom he studied Composition. Carlevaro added many beautiful guitar ideas toVilla-Lobos compositions because he knew the classical guitar thoroughly whilst the Brazilian Composer only knew the guitar superficially. Abel Carlevaro gave me many useful insights when learning the piece and i share them with you here. I also post Alvaro Pierri's rendition of the work for 2 reasons: 1) He is Carlevaro's most renowned student and he embodies the Carlevaro technique I teach on mangore.com fully (try to spot one string string squeak in his playing if you can) and 2) His interpretation is Fabulous ! Visit the Masterclass