The influence of the “Ensaio sobre a Música Brasileira” by Mario de Andrade on the cycle
“Poemas da Negra” by Camargo Guarnieri
Marina Machado Gonçalves and Sérgio Barrenechea
Affiliation: Universidade Federal de Goiás
Address:
Rua T 36 n. 2895 ap. 305-A
Setor Bueno
74223-050
Goiânia-Goiás-Brasil
T: 55 (62) 30938828
Email: [email protected]
Aims and Objectives
This article aims to show the influence that the musicologist Mario de Andrade (1893-1945)
had on the composer Mozart Camargo Guarnieri (1907-1993). We chose Guarnieri’s vocal work
Poemas da Negra (Black Woman Poems) for two reasons: firstly because there is no evidence
of previous study having been carried out on it and secondly because we had the advantage of
the cooperation of both poet and composer. For the realisation of this work, we use the
nationalistic ideals by Mario de Andrade as communicated through his work Ensaio sobre a
Música Brasileira (Essay on Brazilian Music). This work is known as the first to show the project
of composing Nationalistic Brazilian Music. Finally, we try to point out Andrade’s influence on
Guarnieri’s work.
Camargo Guarnieri is considered by many musicologists to be one of the most important
Brazilian musicians of the twentieth century. Contier (1978) emphasises this importance when
he affirms that “his singular dominium of the technique of composing puts him amongst the most
significant composers of contemporary music, such as Villa-Lobos, Manuel de Falla and Béla
Bartók”. Andrade’s influence on nationalistic composers (and especially on Guarnieri) has been
discussed in several works, such as Rabelo (1996), Silva (2001) and Verhaalen (2001).
The Essay on Brazilian Music (1928) was chosen as an example of the musical nationalism
of Andrade’s aesthetics, because it shows the project made by its author for Brazilian
composers who were working at the time it was edited. Within this work, Andrade describes the
characteristics that he believed to be significant in Brazilian popular music. He shows how to
deal with melody, harmony, shape and rhythm. As a nationalist he wanted to show the
composers how to write genuine nationalistic Brazilian music.
Many of Andrade’s works are well known, such as Paulicéia Desvairada and Macunaima
(they are related to Brazilian subjects, like São Paulo and an unprincipled hero). In his work, he
always had a preoccupation to point out the theoretical aspects to poets and musicians: e.g.,
works such as the Prefacio Interessantissimo (Very Interesting Preface – 1921), A Escrava que
não é Isaura (The slave who is not Isaura - 1925) and the preface of Modinhas Imperiais
(Imperial Popular Songs – 1930) are real treatises of literature and music.
Contier (1978) affirms that the nationalistic ideas launched by Andrade, mainly those in the
Essay on Brazilian Music, “configure themselves as a stimulating branch of production of music
in Brazil”. They exerted much influence over Brazilian artists, particularly during the first half of
the twentieth century. Neves (1978) corroborates Contier when he affirms that Mario de Andrade
was
the great leader of the Brazilian Modernism and the intellectual mentor of the composers who
followed the new intellectual nationalism, the tireless researcher of Brazilian things; he is a great
expert on music. […] He will assume a primordial important role in relation to the restructure of
the music teaching in Brazil.
Guarnieri met Andrade in 1928 and immediately became his pupil. They used to write letters
to each other, in which they analysed all manner of subjects (music, poetry, philosophy, etc). In
these letters they used to question each other and exchange confidences, also on occasion
offering each other jobs. A lot of writers affirm the confidence that Guarnieri had in Andrade, for
example Silva (2001):
Guarnieri, who did not tolerate any restriction attempted by Andrade and who, when he
looked back was to reaffirm the multifaced thought in which he declared “I am three hundred”,
[…] aiming to show the idyllic version of a fidelity in his relationship with Mario.
In some of his writings, Guarnieri confirms the great influence of Andrade on the work of the
nationalistic composers:
It was during the acquaintance with Mario de Andrade that I learned how to counteract with
the consecrated canones of the three music methods in esthetics orientation. Mario de Andrade
was the great theorist of Brazilian Music and his influence can be felt, I can assert it, not only
over me, who was his disciple during all his life, but over a generation of contemporary Brazilian
musicians.
Even after Andrade’s death, Guarnieri was a passionate defender of nationalism. In 1950, he
wrote the Open Letter to Brazilian musicians and critics as a response to Koellreuter, a German
composer living in Brazil, who was disseminating the dodecafonic technique. This attitude put
him “in the lead of the composers who continued to use traditional ways of composing”
(Verhaalen, 2001).
Camargo Guarnieri died in 1993. He left a great and valuable legacy of works. Unfortunately,
a large amount of his work remains unedited, which makes its further distribution difficult. As
Rabelo (2002) says, “of his voluminous output (more than six hundred pieces), more than half is
[still] only handwritten”. In particular, Guarnieri’s works for voice and piano, which are often
regarded as being amongst the finest examples of the genre, suffer from this dearth of research.
Guarnieri’s output of songs, amounting to some two hundred pieces, makes him one of the most
prolific Brazilian composers in the field. Fortunately there has recently been renewed interest in
the research of the subject, as shown by the studies of Felipe (1998), Almeida (1999) and
Rabelo (2002), in addition to more substantial works such as Verhaalen’s and Silva’s (2001).
For the purpose of this study, firstly bibliographical research was carried out using various
sources which mentioned Guarnieri’s work as well as Andrade’s literary work. One of the main
sources is the composer’s own collection, donated to the Brazilian Studies Institute of Sao Paulo
University by the composer’s widow after his death. The main reason for choosing Poemas da
Negra is that it is the largest cycle of Andrade’s poems that Guarnieri set to music. Another
important characteristic is that is was composed over an extended period of more than forty
years (1934-1975).
1
I don’t know why ancient spirit
Christmas 1934
2
I don’t know if I’m alive
8/27/1968
3
You are so tender...
12/12/1933
4
I’m scared
4/9/1974
5
Far away in South..
4/18/1974
6
When
1934
7
I don’t know why the teteus
1974
8
Deny in your primary being
1975
9
In the Savanah Zone
1975
10 There is the exalted still of the stars 1975
11 Ah, times of phisycal love
1975
12 Good remembrance...
7/1975
References
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1972.
Andrade, Manfio, Diléa Zanotto (ed. crit.). Poesias completas. Belo Horizonte: Villa Rica,
1993.
Contier, Arnaldo Daraya. Música e ideologia no Brasil. São Paulo: Editora Novas Metas,
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Felipe, Denise de Almeida. Cantata "Caso do Vestido": a questão do nacionalismo em
Camargo Guarnieri. Goiânia, 1998. Dissertação (Mestrado em Música) - Escola de Música,
Universidade Federal de Goiás.
Guarnieri, Mozart Camargo. Poemas da negra: 1 Não sei porque espírirto antigo (partitura)
canto e piano. São Paulo: manuscrito, 1934.
Guarnieri, Mozart Camargo. Poemas da negra: 2 Não sei se estou vivo (partitura) canto e
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