Heitor’s first works, both for voice and piano, "Os sedutores" and "Dime Perche" appeared around 1900. Nineteen years later Heitor’s electrician brother, Othon, died at the age of twenty one. Sadly, he died young contracting malaria in 1899. He had to give up medical study owing to a lack of money and became a librarian. Later that year Brazil was declared a republic. On 17th January 1889 Carmen and Heitor were baptised at Sao Jose Church in Rio de Janeiro. Carmen, nicknamed Bilita, was born in 1888. Heitor was born on the 5th March 1887 the year before slavery was abolished in Brazil. Their first child, Bertha, known as Lulucha, was born in 1885. His mother, Noemia Umbelina was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1859 whereas his father, Raul, was born in 1862. He also had domestic skills and one of the few composers who had a winning personality that both made and kept friends. He pottered around his house with his hair all over the place, wearing curious slippers and often with an overweight cigar in his mouth. He was not an arrogant man but a very hard-working musician. It may be true to say that he was quaint or homely. Villa-Lobos would say that composition was not necessarily inspiration but a therapeutic necessity. I have often heard it said that Villa-Lobos wrote too much music and the implication is that he never made time to construct a masterpiece! But prolific outputs are known throughout the history of music and it could be said that people such as Haydn and Mozart produced so much so that not all of it is of the highest standard or appeal.
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