Abstract:
This document illustrates the use of choro, and the maxixe--genres of Brazilian music from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries--in the piano works of Maria de Lourdes Gondim (1901-1987). These genres became representative of music of the Brazilian National School. This is also a brief survey on the history of the discovery of Brazil, the formation of its population, the Portuguese domain, Brazil's independence in 1822, and the proclamation of the Republic of Brazil in 1889. The development of a national musical identity in Brazil was made through the blending of European and African cultural traditions. The Brazilian nationalist school is a result of the combination of European roots with African, and Native Brazilian influences. In an effort to create music with a national identity, Brazilian composers in the late 19th century started to incorporate elements of popular and folk music into their works. Maria de Lourdes Gondim was a pianist and composer, with an output of 63 pieces for piano. Her works show the combination of the European Romantic tradition with genres of the Brazilian popular music of her time. Eleven of her pieces for piano are discussed in this paper-four choros and seven tangos. Lourdes Gondim never used the term maxixe for her works, adopting the term tango instead, although it is possible to identify characteristics of the maxixe among her tangos. The choro and the controversial maxixe pervade the music of almost all Brazilian composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, among many others Ernesto Nazareth (1863-1934), Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), and Francisco Mignone (1897-1986).
