I was just fourteen years old when I heard soprano Bidu Sayao singing Bachianas Brasilieras #5 by Heitor Villa-Lobos.
I don't know why it made such a strong impression on me, possibly because I had been sent away from my home on Boston's north shore to a religious boarding school in New York. I was lonely; I missed my friends, and I especially missed the fresh sea air.
It was as I was preparing to go to bed one night in my dorm room that I turned on my bedside radio to hear whatever good music WQXR was offering that night to lull me to sleep. That is when I first heard the 1945 Bidu Sayo recording. Somehow it expressed what I was feeling, especially Sayao's rich intonation of the wordless final minutes of the Bachianas. The next week, when I had a few hours away from school, I went to Sam Goody's and bought the Sayao record. It became one of my most treasured possessions, played hundreds of times.
Many years later I began vacationing in Maine. Driving up along Route One past Camden, I noticed a sign identifying Casa Bidu in red letters. I inquired and was informed that it marked the estate of Bidu Sayao. From then on, every time I drove past Casa Bidu, I made five quick beeps on the car horn, my personal homage to Miss Sayao''s beautiful rendition of Bachianas Brasilieras #5.
Bidu Sayao passed away in 1999 and the Casa Bidu sign disappeared shortly after. But I still think of her magnificent performance every time that I drive up Route One past Camden. That historic 1945 recording is long gone, but every time that I hear the Bachianas on the radio, I am moved as I recall that lonely night in my dorm room.