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Mário de Andrade al revés: la música popular y la "inconsciencia nacional"

2016; National Scientific and Technical Research Council; Volume: 4; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

2250-7116

Carvalho Zimbres, Paula de Queiroz,

Literature, Culture, and Criticism

In 1928, in his Ensaio sobre a Musica Brasileira , Mario de Andrade lays the grounds for the creation of a nationalist school of music composition, arguing for the incorporation and elaboration of Brazilian popular music –its folklore, or rural music, as opposed to urban popular music– in a classical setting, aiming at creating a distinctly artistic music. This enterprise would dominate the Brazilian music scene until the 1940s, but eventually lost ground within academic settings with the advent of experimental avant-garde trends after the 1950s, and is generally considered a failed attempt. Nevertheless, I argue in this article that the process that would eventually lead to national unconsciousness continued in another field –that of urban popular music itself. In it, composers such as Tom Jobim, Edu Lobo, Egberto Gismonti, Hermeto Pascoal, who had Brazilian popular music as their music, went through the path prescribed by Mario de Andrade, but in the opposite direction –by appropriating elements of Western art music to create a rich, sophisticated and unconsciously popular music. I use quotations from some of these musicians to demonstrate that it was precisely their spontaneous sense of belonging to Brazil and their vernacular mastery of musical traditions that allowed them to approach so-called highbrow procedures and values without the risk of losing their popular character. This, I argue, was what Mario de Andrade failed to see: that popular music might become artistic in its own terms.