Os Cinco Prelúdios para violão de Heitor Villa-Lobos e a transcrição para piano de José Vieira Brandão

The present article discusses the piano transcription of Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Five Preludes for guitar. The author of the transcriptions, José Vieira Brandão, pupil and collaborator of Villa-Lobos, had the composer’s approval for publishing the piano version. Upon presenting the preludes in the context of Villa-Lobos’s guitar works and establishing the historical background of the transcriptions, the discussion focuses on the problem of adapting for the piano the idiomatic guitar writing of the original score.