A Performance Guide for Heitor Villa-Lobos's Quatro Canções Da Floresta Do Amazonas

This paper is a performance guide for Quatro Canções da Floresta do Amazonas [Four Songs of The Amazon Forest] by Brazil's most prolific composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos. The primary purpose of the paper is to serve as a source for the correct pronunciation of the Brazilian Portuguese language of the songs. It will begin with an overview of Heitor Villa-Lobos's life and career, showing how his compositions catalyzed the Nationalistic movement in Brazilian classical music. His inclusion of native and folk elements into classical compositions was a significant innovation, which places Villa-Lobos as one of the most important Brazilian classical composers. Furthermore, this paper will explore the issue of Brazilian Portuguese diction in depth, using the Quatro Canções da Floresta do Amazonas to aid non-native Brazilian speakers. This includes an International Phonetic Alphabet transcription of the songs, as well as a recording of the songs being read and sung by the author, a link to which can be found in the appendix.