String Quartet No. 3 (Villa-Lobos) String Quartet No. 3 (Villa-Lobos) String Quartet No. 3 ("Quarteto de pipocas"—"Popcorn" Quartet) is the third of seventeen works in the medium by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was written in 1916. A performance lasts approximately twenty-three minutes. Villa-Lobos composed his Third Quartet in Rio de Janeiro in March 1916. It was first performed on 2 November 1919 at the Theatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro, by a quartet consisting of Pery Machado and Mario Ronchini, violins, Orlando Frederico, viola, and Newton Pádua, cello. The first North American performance took place on 16 January 1933 in Hollywood, performed by Samuel
String Quartet No. 3 (Villa-Lobos) Albert and Doris Cheney, violins, Raymond Menhennick, viola, and Lysbeth LeFevre, cello . The UK premiere was given by the Stratton String Quartet (George Stratton and Carl Taylor, violins; Watson Forbes, viola; John Moore, cello) on 9 January 1934, at the Wigmore Hall, London . Because of the persistent percussive pizzicato patter in the second, scherzo movement, Villa-Lobos gave it the onomatopoeic, alliterative nickname "pipocas e potócas" (popcorn and tall tales), and this nickname is also applied to the entire quartet . The quartet, like all but the first of Villa-Lobos's works in the medium, consists of four movements: The