Heitor Villa-Lobos was a key figure in twentieth- century Brazilian music, an instinctive creator with a luxuriant imagination, at once provocative and conformist. He forged a personal style by founding his idiom on the melodic and rhythmic traditions of his country and enriching it with all the innovations he found among his contemporaries. His protean music captivates the listener with the diversity of its aesthetic orientations, which exalt his ardent patriotism and find expression in vast epic scores or, on the contrary, in delicious, piquant miniatures.