In 1958 Villa-Lobos was asked to write the score for a Hollywood screen adaptation of W H Hudson’s South American novel
Green Mansions. The MGM film was not successful, but Villa-Lobos’s music (only his second film score, written purely because the story was of his beloved forests and jungles) lived on in the form of a suite which includes a love-song,
Canção do Amor, available in versions for voice and guitar or voice and orchestra. The first performance of this song in concert form was given at the Empire State Music Festival on 12 July 1959, the last concert that Villa-Lobos conducted before his death four months later. It is written in the manner of the old Brazilian serenade, seresta, and is recorded here in a transcription for flute and guitar.
from notes by Simon Wright © 1989
