This other attachment of Villa-Lobos distanced him from popular music during his first years as a composer. Indeed, popular music was highly disparaged in Rio de Janeiro until 1920; after this date, some scholars and folklorists began to valorize it, part of a movement that would turn it into a symbol of Brazilian nationality. But during the 1910s, when a ‘serious’ musician wished to insult a rival, the kinds of accusation used were expressions like ‘maxixe composer’ or ‘whistler.’ Villa-Lobos’s first compositions, presented from 1915 onwards in Rio de Janeiro, provide fundamental clues to understanding his attachments and attitudes: musical works such as the first two Symphonies,.
