Music in Brazil has been desarrolado in two differentiated fronts, on the one hand, the written tradition, of European origin, also called “erudite� or of “concert�, and the tradition nonwritten, combination of European, indigenous and African musics, corresponding to the multiple forms of the pop music. Both present/display own personality, and at some moments they are interlaced. In Brazil those encounter between popular and the scholar have, nevertheless, a specific importance, since in them it is, without a doubt, the genuine mark of the Brazilian musical production, distinguish who it and differentiate from many others, with their own personality.

 

The transfer of the court of Don João I SAW Brazil, in 1808, motivated by the Napoleonic invasion, primarily gives to impulse to the musical life in Rio de Janeiro, mobilizing instrumentalist and choirs dedicated to religious music.

The creation of the Musical Conservatory, in 1842, foments the development of nonreligious an instrumental music, to which it contributed the figure of Francisco Manuel gives Whistles (1795-1865), author of the National anthem. The first author of international expression, nevertheless, will be Carlos Gomes (1836-1896), whose opera “Il Guarany�, released in the Scala of Milan, she draws attention by the combination of the typical characteristics of the Italian opera with the indigenous world of America. Still in century XIX, some romantic nationalists, like Alexandre Levy (1864-1892) and Alberto Nepomuceno (1864-1920), look for to acclimate the music of symphonic camera and to the local atmosphere, using certain rates and subjects of the pop music (that is to say, of the tradition nonwritten). Next to these, there are those, quite near the European music of end of century, like Henrique Oswald (1852-1931) and Glauco Velasquez (1884-1914).

Around 1920, the composition of concertística music characteristically Brazilian desire new force with Villa-Wolf (1887-1959) and the first generations of authors dedicated to the modernist nationalism, who persecute the synthesis between the modern European music and popular elements.

The affirmation and radicalization of the vanguard take place especially, in the decade of the 60, by the paulista group Nova Music.

In the last years of century XX, the production, is developed more properly scriptural than written, with the appearance of electronic and electroacústica music.

The origins of the pop music or written do not go back to a period of acculturation of Portuguese, indigenous and African elements, in the first centuries of the colonial period.

On the African presence, one is due to say that the enslaved contingents of African brought a rythmical infrastructure related to the dancing and vocal gestures that happened through centuries of sincretismo. This one, connected with the ambivalent strategies of adaptation and resistance of the slave, as well as with a certain cultural porosity of the Brazilian esclavismo, that extends until the end of century XIX, gives the tone to the formation of Brazilian music.

The Modinha, recognizable in century XVIII by its languid and sensual meneos in which the sincopados melodic reasons are mixed, and the Lundu, sort of native dancing music of the African rows, at the same time composes the lyrical and choreographic substrate of Brazilian music. Symptomatically modinha, originated in dances of cuts, abrasileñadas in the diction, the poetic climate and in the rythmical-melodic designs, it spreads between the popular layers, while lundu, intrinsically popular in its origin, is adopted as instrumental sort and happens through a movement of relative assimilation in the average cults where it practices like instrumental music.

In century XIX, the Polka, introduced like dance of hall in 1844, progressively will be adapted to forms to execute that they attest the diction. polka gives rise to the Maxixe and to the Choro, two fundamental sorts for the sprouting of the modern urban pop music.

In century XX, nevertheless, the introduction of gramófono, the disc and the radio, will give rise to the great expansion of that current of the urban pop music, the Samba, sort of song that makes emerge the rythmical bases from musics of black, often improvised from collective proverbs, now condensed and compacted with a view to its new category of industrialized merchandize. Recognized as of 1917 through success of “Hair telephones�, composition of Donga that adapted and made do-it-yourself work with anonymous subjects already known, samba it is especially become little by little, but at the end of the decade of years 30, in a true symbol of the modern Brazilian popular culture.

The tradition of samba is developed throughout years 20 (with Sinhô, João it gives Baiana, the own Donga, Pixinguinha), the 30 (with Ismael Silva, Wilson Batiste, Pink Noel, Assis Valente), the 40, (with Dorival Caymmi and Muddy Ari), the 50 (Geraldo Pereira), winning more than its citizenship the condition of emblem, between pícaro and apologetic, of Brazil. Its poetic movement has continuity in the work of contemporary authors, as Boy Buarque and Caetano Veloso, and defines the general profile of the trajectory of Paulinho gives Viola. Or it is forgotten or retaken by the consumption masses, returns sometimes in diversified form, as it is the case of “pagode�.

The development of the urban pop music takes place in close relation with the phenomenon of the Carnival of street, that gains force with the city-planning modernization of Rio de Janeiro, joining, in a species of social kaleidoscope the before separated celebration of the rich ones (in the parades and clubs), of the poor men (in the carnival groups) and of the remedied ones (in farms and blocos). A considerable part of the recordings of sambas and marchinhas, until years 50, was defined by the carnival spirit or they were destined directly to that use.

At the end of the decade of years 50, the Bossa Nova revolutionizes the Brazilian pop music when incorporating complex harmonies of impresionist or jazzista inspiration ligatures to melodies intimately clarified and modulantes, sung of colloquial and lyrical-ironic way and with a rate that the sincopado character of samba radicalized suspensionly. That synthesis is especially from the poetry of Vinicius de Moraes, from the imagination melodic-harmonica of Tom Jobim and from the rigorous interpretation of the minimum flections of the song and the rythmical solution found by João Gilberto.

The later decades mark the presence of continuators of the conquests of years 60, like Luiz Melody, João Bosco, Djavan, Alceu Valença, arisen in years 70, next to composers of mainly instrumental music like Hermeto Paschoal and Egberto Gismonti, singers like Tim Maia, radicalizadores of the tropicalistas experiences, like Arrigo Barnabé, that arises next to Itamar Assumpção and from the Rumo group in the well-known tendency like “paulista vanguard�, groups of Brazilian rock in the years 80, between which Titãs, Paralamas honor You do Sucesso, Urban Legião, and new creators of poetic, in years 90, like the paulista Arnaldo Antunes (that it belonged to the Titãs), the bahiano Carlinhos Brown and the Small pernambucano Science (leader of the movement Mangue Beat, precociously disappeared).

Bossa Nova: it means something as well as a new “way�, already used diffusely, acquires a new sense around 1958. One is a reinterpretación of samba, having a discussion with characteristics of the American song, the jazz, of the French impressionism, carried out by young people of middle-class of the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro. Among them they include the singer Nara Leão, Carlos Lira, Menescal Robert, Ronaldo Bôscoli, Oscar I castrate Neves, Silvia Teles, Alaíde Coast, Baden Powell, among others. As of 1962, after a Festival of Bossa Nova in the Carnegie Hall, in New York, it obtains great repercussion and it influences international.

Choro: sort of instrumental music, often virtuosístico, hairdo, since the end of century XIX, by simple workers in Rio de Janeiro, that improvisation sense of and ornamentation reinterpretan with an own a repertoire that can include polkas, mazurcas, valses, lundus and maxixes. The most traditional formation is made up of flute, cavaquinho and guitar. Between great “chorones� they are the flautista Joaquim Antonio gives Whistles Openwork (1848-1880), Anacleto de Medeiros (1866-1907), Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847-1935), Bilhar Satyr (1860-1927), Pixinguinha (1898-1973).

Lundu: syncretic dance based on the rows of the bantos slaves. By the corporal freedom that supposes, often was seen like licentious and indecent. The descriptions speak in gestures that seem to combine characteristic of Iberian fandangos (like the outbreak of the fingers) with the umbigada one (blow that the dancer soloist gives in the navel of that is going to him to replace in the group of people dances) characteristically African. Since the end of adapted century XVIII for saraos of the court, lundu is successful like hall dance. They are variations of lundu, the Tirana, the insolent one, the fado, miudinho and baiano. With the arrival of polka, with the tango and the Havanan, with which it is based, lundu comes to be the origin of maxixe, the first sort of the modern urban pop music, at the end of century XIX and principles of the XX.

Marchina: sort of graceful song, in binary compass, developed mainly between years 20 and 50, and destined to the carnival. Often humoristic and, in certain cases, clearly parodic, it corresponds certainly to a testimony of the middle-class. The pioneer of the sort is “Or abre-wings�, of Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847-1935), of 1899. Their more characteristic cultivators are Lamartine Babo (1904-1963) and João de Barro (1907), that worked in collaboration with Alberto Ribeiro (1902-1971).

Maxixe: urban dance arisen in the popular dances from Rio de Janeiro around 1875 and that extended by the carnival clubs and theaters of magazine. It is from an appropriation of polka European through síncopa afrolusitana, with I touch of Havanan and tango. First urban popular dance in Brazil that obtains some repercussion in Europe, in the decade of years 10.

Modinha: the word comes from the “Portuguese fashion�, type of song of hall based on possibly Italian melodic formulas. Abrasileñada, acquires a “soft sensuality�, sincopados movements, words of tropical and afro-Brazilian taste, besides a load of affective language, beginning by the diminutive applied to the own name of the sort, “modinha�.

MPB: abbreviation that was applied, in the decade of years 60, to the movement of song that follows bossa novates, with authors and public to a large extent related to student means, which made that well-known outside also like “university� pop music. Spectacles of politicized musical theater, like the show “Opinião� (that Maria Bethania sent to the singer, in 1965, replacing Nara Leão, next to the sambista of Rio de Janeiro Zé Kéti and of the nortista musician João do Vale) marked the time, followed of the student spectacles and the famous festivales of the song promoted by the television, between years 1965 and 1969. The MPB unfolds elements created by bossa novates, directed by a thematic one often related to the critic of the social injustice and the dictatorial repression.

Samba: according to one assumes, the word “samba� would come from quimbundo “semba�, talking about to the gesture of the umbigada one, and one becomes general in designative century XIX as of dance and dances generally popular. At the end of the decade of 1910, nevertheless, samba urban, that comes from the dance of popular group of people in Rio de Janeiro, enriched by the contribution of black contingents of bahiano origin, acquires a format adapted to the needs of means of emergent masses. The collective refrains, alternated with verses of individual improvisation, become author songs that rythmically synthesize all the process of sincopación that has come developing, of anonymous and secular way, of lundu to maxixe.

The instrumentation, besides the guitar and of cavaquinho, develops to a percusiva range that it will include progressively pandero, tamborim (species of small guitar), zambomba, deaf person and boxes. Samba was constituted, according to Jose Tinhorão Branches, as we entered the decade of years 20, in the rate that establishes the common denominator between the carnival of the poor men, the rich ones and the remedied ones, becoming means of popular and at the same time modern representation of Brazil. What one will institutionalize as a form of citizenship of the popular culture of African origin, journeying between malandragem, on the one hand, and the vindication of the carnival and festive gifts of Brazil, on the other.
The carnival parades, that acquire magnitude and grandiloquence, in first half of the decade of years 40, will fortify the “schools of samba�, communities of popular dedicated to samba and that they to the present time live his great moment in the competition on the carnival parades.

PHOTOGRAPHIC GALLERY    

Bossa_Nova	Carlinhos Brown in Madrid
Carnival	Music of Brazil
Samba_Brasil

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