Heitor Villa-Lobos Website

The "Brazilian Cycle" is made up of four movements:

1. Plantio do caboclo (The Peasant's sowing)
2. Impressoes seresteiras (The Impressions of a serenade musician)
3. Festa no sertao (The Fete in the Desert)
4. Danca do Indio Branco (Dance of the White Indian)

You can listen to the third and fourth pieces played by Paulo Brasil, in these MP3s from his website.

The Dance of the White Indian is almost as fun to watch as it is to listen to.  Sonia Rubinsky's fingers fly in this video:

Prof. Tarasti quotes Villa's story of "how the composer met in a Brazilian forest a white Indian, who constantly danced and died."  He goes on to say: "This rather strange explanation might be replaced by another more rasonable one: The white Indian in the title simply means that the work moves mostly in the white keys." - Tarasti (1995), p. 258.

For Anna Stella Schic, a close friend of the composer, the White Indian was Villa-Lobos - she called her 1987 memoir/study Villa-Lobos: Souvenirs de L'Indien Blanc.

Thesis: Rust, Roberta. 1991. Piano works from Hietor Villa-Lobos' middle period a study of Choros no. 5, Bachianas Brasileiras no. 4, and Ciclo Brasileiro. Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of Miami, 1991.