Brazil's leading composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos, wrote nine compositions under the title Bachianas Brasileiras, including some of his most famous works. They all appeared between the years 1930 and 1945, which coincide with the nationalist and autocratic regimes of Getulio Vargas. The commentator Anna Stella-Schic has noted that in the earlier set of works called Chôros Villa-Lobos had used Brazilian popular and folk materials to create scholarly music, whereas in the Bachianas he used the scholarly base of Bach to write music of a simpler and more popular nature. The populism of this approach was in keeping with the ideological preferences of the Vargas regime, as was Villa-Lobos' assertion that Brazilian folk music had elements in common with the melodies of Bach. Beginning with the composition of the Bachianas Villa-Lobos became identified with the regime, and from 1932 onward served as the Superintendent of Musical and Artistic Education for the city of Rio de Janeiro, which was then the nation's capital.

This Bachiana was dedicated to Villa-Lobos' superior, Minister of Education Gustavo Capanema. It is the one that comes closest to the exuberant contrapuntal density of the Choros series. At over 25 minutes, it is the longest Bachiana, and is often ranked as the best work of the series, though in popularity it probably is third, after the lovely Bachiana Brasileira No. 5 and Bachiana Brasileira No. 2, with its popular "Little Train of the Caipira" movement.

Each of the four movements has two titles in Portuguese, one drawn from musical forms used by Bach, and the other making a Brazilian reference.

It opens with "Prelúdio; Ponteio," the latter being a Brazilian song form. It is a flowing aria with one of the best melodies in this tuneful series, beginning in a flowing Adagio tempo which then speeds up a bit, but slows for the conclusion, in this case to Largo.

The second movement is called "Giga; Quadrilha Caipira." The tempo marking is Allegretto scherzando. Here Villa-Lobos happily mixes together several diverse musical influences, and piles them up into his trademark dense and exciting layers. His musical return to the "caipira" is every bit as rhythmically exciting as the train ride in Bachiana No. 2. ("Caipira," has been translated as "hillbilly," but "boondocks" seems an apt term.) In this movement Bach's gigue, which itself derives from the Celtic jig, meets a "boondocks quadrille" or square dance with Brazilian Indian and Afro-Brazilian elements also prominent.

The third movement, "Toccata; Desafío," has a strong flavor of festival days in the dry northeastern part of Brazil, in a rapid tempo.

The work ends in a magnificent "Fuga; Conversa." Villa-Lobos had in mind the "conversations" that chôros players have with each other while improvising, yet the fugue in this concluding section is formally correct and takes on the sound of Bach's organ fugues.

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