The Little Train of the Caipira

Composition#

In the year of composition, 1930, Villa-Lobos transcribed this movement for cello and piano, titled simply O trenzinho do caipira. This arrangement, which lasts about two minutes in performance, was premiered in São Paulo–Pirajuí in 1930, with Villa-Lobos himself playing the cello and João de Souza Lima the piano. The original, orchestral version was only first performed (in the context of the complete Bachianas No. 2) on 3 September 1934, at the Venice International Festival, with an orchestra conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos . An opposed point of view holds that the orchestral Bachianas No. 2 was put together from preexistent and unrelated pieces, three originally for cello and piano (O canto do capadócio, O canto da nossa terra, and O trenzinho do caipira), the other (Lembrança do sertão) for solo piano (; ). An unrelated a cappella chorus composition by Villa-Lobos, Trenzinho, setting a text by Catarina Santoro, was written in 1933, and premiered on 10 October 1939 by the choir of the Escola Argentina (Rio de Janeiro), conducted by the composer. Originally for three-part chorus, it was also adapted for four-part female chorus, in which form it was published in 1951 as number 31 in volume 2 of the composer’s collection, Canto orfeônico .