Music: Formidable!

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Though royalties piled up, Villa-Lobos never moved from his cramped little apartment in downtown Rio, chaotically cluttered with papers, overflowing ashtrays, strange native instruments and dozens of hats (he collects them). There he has lived, ranting in a mixture of Portuguese and his fluent French, or composing quietly in a corner with a phonograph blaring in his ear. When visitors come, he can be rude ("I hate singers," he once bellowed at one he had just met), or he may entertain them for hours, playing records or showing them how he can sound three different rhythms all at once—with hands, feet and mouth.

"You don't need to understand music," Villa-Lobos says. "You feel it." The music he feels is all the music of his own country. He grows angry when an unwary guest tells him that he sometimes sounds like a Brazilian Gershwin ("A child compared to me"), would be better pleased to be put on a par with Stravinsky ("Formidable!"). Actually, at his best, Villa-Lobos is like no one but himself. Says he: "I only ask that the maker of a piece of music be original. I do not care to walk in company with routine."