In many cases this all amounted to the same thing.ĭespite his activity in São Paulo state it was an offer from the administration of the Federal District in February 1932 to become head of a specially created department, the Superintendencia de Educação Musical e Artistica, which meant that Villa-Lobos was able to return finally to his home, Rio de Janeiro, to work. Most of his compositions were, directly or indirectly, aimed at public artistic education and tacitly requesting instant approval, or were plainly and unashamedly patriotic, carrying clear political messages. These two projects were the stunning prototypes of much similar activity by Villa-Lobos during the following fifteen years.
This nine-month tour was only interrupted by the organization in May 1931 of a large choral rally, the ‘Exhortação Civica Villa-Lobos’, in which 10,400 paulistas sang patriotic songs and hymns (mainly in arrangements by Villa-Lobos) in the open air. Even before the revolution Villa-Lobos was initiating musical activity in São Paulo city, and soon after the coup he was planning an extensive tour of the state with several colleagues, the ‘Excursão Musical Villa-Lobos’, with the avowed aim of elevating the musical consciousness of the people by bringing to them recitals of erudite compositions. Perhaps he already had an inkling that his heady Parisian days were over. Villa-Lobos was unable to pay the rent on his Paris apartment and he was evicted in absentia together with various belongings, including the now lost autograph scores of Chôros Nos 13 and 14. The October 1930 revolution which brought wily gaúcho Getúlio Vargas to power, overthrowing the crumbling and self-satisfied Old Republic and initiating fifteen years of autocratic though benign dictatorial constitutions for Brazil, meant that it was temporarily impossible to export currency from the country. Political circumstance, however, forced a change of plan.
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When Villa-Lobos alighted at the north Brazilian port of Recife in June 1930 from France his intention was to leave Brazil and return to Paris as soon as he had fulfilled a series of conducting engagements.