Tropical Thunderstorm

At 18, a Brazilian musician named Heitor Villa-Lobos sold some rare books left him by his father and, jingling his spending money, took off for the jungle. For the next few years he inhaled a lot of folk music, warmed it in his own prodigally creative imagination and exhaled luxuriant clouds of concert music. Some of his work was jungly, some languid as a slow samba. Villa-Lobos became famed as one of the century's most brilliant composers. Last week, a half century after his first jungle excursion but still a restless wanderer, Composer Villa-Lobos turned up as guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, introduced to Manhattan two recent compositions: Symphony No. 8 (1950) and Concerto for Harp and Orchestra (1953).

Short (5 ft. 3 in.) and blunt, he strode to the podium, grey hair tucked behind his ears, coattails dangling rakishly below his calves. His first piece: a movement from Bachianas Brasileiras No. 8 that had the Philadelphia cellos singing with a tone of thick-piled velvet. Then came the symphony, as prodigal with melodies as a bargain basement with wares, innocently loaded with hints of other compositions, but still characteristic and convincing. The concerto, expertly played by Harpist Nicanor Zabaleta, was paler, but it did have 'some gripping episodes, notably the haunting harp harmonics accompanying a string song in the slow movement. Both works were put in the shade by the concluding piece, Choros No. 6 (written in 1926), a fine tropical thunderstorm accompanied by pagan drums.

Composer Villa-Lobos cares not the flick of a grace note if some of his music sounds flimsy. "Better that people should hear bad Villa-Lobos than good somebody else," is his motto. When told that a theme of his sounds like something else, it is news (but not bad news) to him.

"I write as I feel, guided by impulse and thinking of humanity," he says. "I don't think of history, posterity, fashion or politics." Villa-Lobos is breathing much urban, northern-hemisphere air these days (after his U.S. concerts he is off for a Continental tour next month), but he is still breathing deeply. At week's end he was composing furiously between concerts, is half way through his Eleventh Symphony. His total output to date: a dazzling 2,000-plus compositions.

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