Customer Reviews

Villa-Lobos Solo Guitar: Heitor Villa-Lobos Collected Works for Solo Guitar

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I was so excited when this book came out about 8 years ago. The exact works as put to paper by Heitor Villa-Lobos. And the price is right! It used to be you would need to spend over 100 bucks for all the guitar works. Etudes, preludes and the Brazilian suites along with the Choros no. 1.
Easy to follow harmonic explinations in the back of the book. This is a must have for all classical guitarists. The best music investment I made in a long time.

Probably the pinnacle of achievement in 20th century classical guitar works, certainly among Brazilian composers.

Rating something like this is like rating Shakespeare. The work itself innately valuable, it's just a matter of the accuracy of translation. To that effect this collection succeeds beautifully. You get all his guitar works, plus there is a much needed section at the end which clarifies harmonics and fingering patterns penned by Villa-Lobos himself.

This collection contains all the composer's solo guitar compositions. Here is a list of the contents:

- Choros No. 1 (Typico)
- Suite Populaire Bresilienne
- 12 Etudes
- 5 Preludes

These works are among the most important and innovative in the classical guitar repertiore. Essential.

The works are left as villa lobos intended with all of his reccomended fingerings and notation left intact despite the sometimes unclear intentions and incredibly difficult fingerings. The harmonics are also confusing but a section is reserved in the back that translates them into tarrega's notation.

The music is great, but I wonder if there are other editions out there. I think most people are reviewing the compositions and not this collection specifically. There are very few fingerings, very few other subtleties marked, mostly just the notes. If you go through the work of deciphering the concepts behind the notes, the pieces are great. This is definitely advanced guitar music, not for beginning or intermediate students. However, much of it is easy to comprehend when chords are analyzed and everything is worked out. A lot of the music is simple chord shapes embellished with extra 6ths and 9ths and suspensions and such. It is very idiomatic to the guitar and certainly is concert-worthy music quality. I believe that an edition could be done that added notes about chord names or positions or more fingerings in such a way that it would make it much easier to sight-read and clue-in the reader more immediately to the concepts.

I appreciate for your early response and sending book, and it help me to start my practice for playing Villa-Lobos. Thank you so much!

This copy of the collected works for solo guitar of Heitor Villa-Lobos is excellent. Should be in every classical guitarist's repetoire. More than reasonably priced for the contents. Though some reviewers complain about the lack of fingering, I find it a wonderful challenge. Figuring out your own fingering (preferably in consultation with a good guitar teacher) is a great way to learn the fretboard better. I highly recommend getting this edition.

This book when it came was missing pages 65 to 80. It doesn't appear that any pages were ripped out so perhaps it is a publishing defect.