Gnattali, Mignone, Villa-Lobos, Guarnieri: 20 th Century Brazilian Solo Piano Music

Description

There are people whose fate seems to be written in their names. At times this happens by utter chance, but in other cases there is a reason for this surprising coincidence. In fact, if parents are particularly fond of classical music, it is possible that they will Christen their children with names which, in one way or another, are reminiscent of music. When the children grow up, these music-loving parents will be alert to the possible signs of musical talent and predisposition and are likely to favour and foster them, providing their children with all possible opportunities for developing their gifts. Of course, a child whose first name is very “musical” may never become a musician, if he or she has no interest in it; still, it is easy to observe that there is a much greater incidence of the first name “Cecilia” among female musicians than in the general population. Ferruccio Busoni, although the son of a musician, was given several names which are connected with visual art rather than music (such as Michelangelo, after Buonarroti, and Benvenuto, after Cellini).
Two musicians represented in this Da Vinci Classics album dedicated to great Brazilian piano music have even more striking first names, and, besides that, their siblings were also Christened in a like fashion.
Radamés Gnattali was named after the male protagonist of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida, and, of course, his younger sister was called Aida; their third brother received the name of Ernani, after the protagonist of Verdi’s eponymous opera. Then, seemingly, either their parents lost interest in opera, or they thought that calling a child Traviata would have been out of place; therefore, their two remaining children were called, more traditionally, Alexandre and Teresinha. Clearly enough, this unusual choice of names does not only pay homage to opera, but, more significantly, to Italian opera; to what opera meant to Italians – an irreplaceable part of their identity. This was deeply felt by many Italians in the second half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century; but it took a disproportionate intensity and pathos for Italian emigrants.
The newly constituted Kingdom of Italy was one of the most splendid in the world in terms of culture, beauty, art, etc., but it was deeply wounded by a very inhomogeneous social structure, by extreme poverty in some of its zones, by lack of education and culture. Therefore, thousands and thousands of Italians left their country, and most of them reached the Americas: the United States, where Italian immigration left an indelible mark on the country’s culture and personality, but also many countries of Latin America, including Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etcetera.
If we may find slightly funny the idea of calling a child after an opera’s protagonist, we should therefore try and imagine what opera meant for these people, uprooted from their land and culture, and brought to the other side of the world, facing a completely different world from their own. This was the experience of Gnattali’s family, and we find it in almost the same terms in the case of Mozart Camargo Guarnieri. Mozart, to be sure, was not an Italian musician by birth, but it is undeniable that his Italian operas are fully part of the Italian operatic culture. And Guarnieri’s parents’ interest in Italian opera is further corroborated by their other children’s names: one was called Verdi (as his first name!), and another Rossini (misspelt as Rossine by the registrar’s employee!).
Indeed, nomen omen may be auspicious, but at times the connection can be slightly overwhelming. To be called Mozart and to be a musician is likely to set too high a demand on a composer… and in fact Guarnieri later took his mother’s family name, Camargo, as his first name, letting the Mozart drop.
Still, the fate inscribed so deeply in these musicians’ very names is a powerful reminder of the role played by music in the constitution and preservation of national identity for Italian emigrants.
A striking aspect, however, is that such an intense love for their roots did not prevent these families and their children from becoming at least equally attached to their new countries. As we will see, several of the musicians represented here did cross the Atlantic back in order to study music in the Old Continent; however, the ultimate result of their musical studies and vocation was to create a quintessentially Brazilian musical language. And this too needs to be qualified: just as the territory of Brazil is one of the largest pertaining to a single nation in the world, so “Brazilian” culture is the result of the encounter of a number of factors, all mutually hybridizing and creating a unique blend, a mix like no other. There are components deriving from the Pre-Colombian civilizations of the Brazilian natives; there are components whose Portuguese ascendency is clearly observed; still others which come, directly or indirectly, from the African heritage of many components of its population; and others still which are the fruit of more recent flows of people, such as the European emigrants mentioned earlier. This extraordinary cultural wealth is what makes Brazilian music so enthralling, but also the reason why it is particularly hard to define, to label, to delimit.
Radamés Gnattali’s parents were both of Italian origins; his father was a carpenter, but he was passionate about music, to the point that he became an accomplished bassoonist and even orchestra conductor. Radamés was a child prodigy, who played several instruments and could conduct an orchestra at ten. His studies in music led him also to become a proficient guitarist and to play the cavaquinho, a smaller-sized Brazilian guitar.
His debut as a concert pianist took place in Rio de Janeiro, where he played a Concerto by Čajkovskij to great acclaim. He was noted by Mario de Andrade, one of the greatest Brazilian musicians of the time, who mentored him. Gnattali also founded a string quartet, together with two of his brothers, and toured as a violist extensively. It was in the Thirties, however, that his love and interest for Brazilian music began to show themselves most clearly; similar to Béla Bartók, he carefully studied and notated many traditional tunes and musical pieces, with a scientist’s approach. However, what he had collected for study purposes, was later to become the foundation of his own, quintessentially Brazilian, musical language.
Gnattali was highly esteemed in his country, and he employed part of this influence to promote a true appreciation of the choro, the musical genre which best represents the Brazilian soul. As Gnattali himself put it, “I have always worked with popular music and I really like it. In fact, I owe it to this that I do something Brazilian today”. “My music is all Brazilian, based on folkloric and urban themes from Rio de Janeiro”. His Negaceando has an improvisational quality which intertwines with more structured sections based on Brazilian rhythms. The typically carioca dovetailing of irony and saudade is also perfectly embodied by this piece.
The parents of Francisco Paulo Mignone were also Italians, originally from Liguria. And his father, Alferio, was an accomplished flutist in turn. Francisco’s name probably paid homage to his uncle, who had been an Army Officer, killed in World War I. As powerful as the Mignones’ love for music could be, in this case there were extremely valid reasons for calling the child after somebody other than an operatic character.
Like Gnattali, also Mignone was a child prodigy; shrewdly, however, and realizing that times were not yet ripe for a full recognition of Brazilian folk music as an integral part of “Classical” music culture, as a boy, Mignone signed his pieces with a nom de plume, “Chico Bororó”. His life and his musical itinerary were in turn deeply marked by his encounter with Mario de Andrade. Mignone studied for some years at the Conservatory of Milan, where, ironically, his education was more deeply marked by his teacher’s love for French music, than by Italian music proper. When, back to Brazil, de Andrade criticized his opera for being “too Italian”, Mignone experienced a kind of musical “conversion” and decided to devote many of his energies to the rediscovery of the Brazilian heritage. His output can be divided into three main strains: the first is influenced by his Italian-French roots and education; the second concentrates on the African-Brazilian heritage; the third is that of the most refined musical language, which employs serialism and atonality. His First Piano Sonata, premiered in Rio de Janeiro by Arnaldo Estrella, was epoch-making. In Mignone’s wife’s words, “This Sonata became a kind of exemplar of the new Brazilian musical spirit”, even though there is much more to it than a mere evocation of Brazilian styles.
Heitor Villa Lobos is probably the best known among these musicians, and, in turn, was deeply influenced by European music, especially French. His contacts with the Groupe des Six were particularly important. In Brazil he had important roles also in the educational field, and managed to influence the approach to music of the following generations. His friendships with Arthur Rubinstein and Andrés Segovia earned him the active support of two of the protagonists of coeval music. Many extramusical suggestions are found in his oeuvre, including the beautiful “Suite Floral”, with its evocations of nature, and the seemingly simple pieces of Prôle do Bêbe. Particularly in its second volume, recorded here, it is possible to observe the dark, or at least darker, side of these childhood pieces.
The Canção Sertaneja by Guarnieri is another example of musical nationalism which becomes a powerful source of inspiration. This piece was presented by its composer to Mario de Andrade in 1928, and it so conquered the great musician that he decided to become Guarnieri’s teacher and mentor.
Together, these works exemplify the wide variety of what can count as “Brazilian” in piano music, but also the fecundity of the musical stimuli collected by these composers within their context of life.
Chiara Bertoglio © 2024