Heitor Villa-Lobos Website

From New York Public Library's Digital Gallery: the Araponga [left], a Brazilian bird with a distinctive call. Villa-Lobos quoted this in his Bachianas Brasileiras #4. Telling this to Nicholas Slonimsky during his visit to Rio in the early 40s, he sent his visitor off to a bird shop to verify the story. But there were no Arapongas to be found:

“I returned to the government office of music education in Rio de Janeiro, where Villa-Lobos served as director, and I reported to him my failure to find an araponga. He called in one of his assistants and asked him, ‘What is the high note that the araponga sings?’ ‘Si bemol!’ the other answered with assurance. ‘Vous voyez?’ Villa-Lobos said to me. The more evidence he produced, the less I believed it; I even harbored the sneaking suspicion that the whole scene had been carefully rehearsed for my benefit.”

Perfect Pitch: An Autobiography, p. 156 - Listen to the Araponga: