As a young man in Rio de Janeiro, Heitor Villa-Lobos frequently played with street musicians, improvising on popular songs and dances of the day. One of the musical forms with which he was well familiar was the chôro, the origin of which is rather obscure. Villa-Lobos himself saw the chôro as a popular dance in which, in his words, "are synthesized the different modalities of Brazilian, Indian, and popular music." Starting in 1920, Villa-Lobos began composing his own chôros (he designated each of those works with the plural form of the word), eventually producing 14 such works. They range in size from solo miniatures (No. 1 for guitar, No. 5 for piano) to sizable works for large forces (No. 10 for orchestra and chorus). The Chôros No. 1 for guitar, dedicated to Ernesto Nazareth, is an insouciant five-minute piece in rondo form featuring a sequence of memorable melodies, spiced by a few expressive dissonances and a hint of the swinging rhythm of the tango.

© Chris Morrison, All Music Guide