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...
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