Monday, December 14, 2015

José Maurício Nunes Garcia (1767-1830) & Gilberto Mendes











Waltzing Saint, photograph by A/Z available with other photographs and drawings at Fine Art America;  
A Odisséia Musical de Gilberto Mendes (Brazil, 2005):
"39... that's how many albums and CD's have been released by my grandfather in Brazil and the rest of the world. When I asked my father why it was so difficult to find one of them in Brazil, he replied: 'Brazil isn't a country, Brazil is a mission'", Gilberto Mendes' granddaughter.
"Gilberto Mendes simply hung in there, created the New Music Festival, kept composing music while everyone, literally everyone else [doing high repertory music in Brazil] just gave up", Décio Pignatari.
Gilberto Mendes, Son et Lumière (1968);
Gilberto Mendes, Estudo Magno (1993);
Gilberto Mendes, Blirium C9 (1965);
Gilberto Mendes, Eisler e Webern caminham nos mares do sul (1989); 
Estudo, ex-tudo, eis tudo pois (1998);
José Maurício Nunes Garcia, Requiem (1816);
José Maurício Nunes Garcia, Zemira (Ouverture);

"Del viejo palacete que perteneció a Su Majestad Juan VI, y que más tarde abrigase al primer conservatorio nacional de música, quedan sólo ruinas... parte del suelo de segundo piso—todo en pino de Riga—ya se ha desplomado y todavía continúan cayendo tejas, así como astillas de vidrio de las ventanas..."
Manuel Puig (Cae la noche tropical)
"E nos amarga então a incúria com que... os nossos governos vivem nos seus brinquedos perigosos de política, sem beneficiar aos que nos devem ser caros pelo que de Brasil e por nós fizeram..."
Mario de Andrade (Padre José Maurício/Música Doce Música)

"... the names of his grandmothers are unknown—an important point which opens the perspective concerning the referred mixing [of races]..." (p. 9).
"... while far away from Brazil, the painter Nicolau Taunay will inquire [José Maurício's] brothers after the 'grand mulâtre'. Called to mold his mortuary mask, Manoel de Araujo Porto Alegre says: 'more than average build... the size of his bones shows that he had been a strong man'" (p. 11).
"His depressive state becomes manifest when he complains that 'the yelping of dogs... the chirping of crickets annoy me...'" (p. 11).
"... José Maurício resigned from the Order of Christ to the benefit of his son..." (p. 15).
"Besides studying music with his father, the physician Nunes Garcia studied painting with Debret, and left an oil portrait of José Maurício..." (p. 16).
"Among the four descendants that would live with his father at the time of his father's demise, Nunes Garcia refers to two younger sisters 'in a state of insanity since a long time...'" (p. 16).
"It is surprising that José Maurício, whose religious calling is at least controversial, accepted the priesthood at the age of 25... The grounds for the choice seem to be connected rather with a musical drive... it would better enable him to the position of master chaplain" (p. 19).
"José Maurício is referred to as a brilliant fellow, whose exceptional intelligence was improved by his priestly education: Philosophy, History, Geography, Latin, French, Italian as well as English and Greek" (p. 20).
"In the last years of the 18th century, already with a significant background as a composer, José Maurício became director of a music school... teaching was done for free..." (p. 23).
"José Maurício was acclaimed as an excellent organist... Sigismund Neukomm referred to his playing as that of 'the world greatest improviser'" (p. 31-32).
"D. João VI's curiosity for the mulatto musician aroused almost immediately" (p. 33).
"José Maurício had to perform many duties as composer, conductor, organist, archivist, besides having to carry out other bureaucratic tasks..." (p. 34).
"Timid, not used to curry favor, in a court plenty of arse-likers... it was only natural that the king did not give him what he didn't explicitly asked for" (p. 35).
"[In 1811] his position crumbled away, his production decays" (p. 36). 
"In december 1819, João Maurício [conducted] the first audition of Mozart's Requiem in Brazil..." (p. 37)
*****Cleofe Person de Mattos, Catálogo Temático José Maurício Nunes Garcia (Rio de Janeiro: MEC, 1970). 

***The music produced in Minas Gerais in the 18th century — by composers such as Lobo de Mesquita (1746-1805), before José Maurício — is also important (worldy speaking), and has been rescued from oblivion by the German-Uruguayan musicologist Dr. Francisco Curt Lange. See Julio Medaglia, "O Milagre Musical do Barroco Mulato," Musica Impopular (São Paulo: Global, 2009), p. 151-69.
The Brazilian concretist poet Décio Pignatari writes the following in his preface to this book: "Júlio Medaglia always knew that third-worldness is a reality, but he also knew that one should snatch it from the partisan claws of the jingoists [nacionaloides], who have always prescribed subculture to underdevelopment (some of these yesterday preachers are nowadays wealthy advisers of the powers that be). And Julio Medaglia always knew that the struggle in these countries has to go hand in hand with learning — not the learning of supposed national authenticities ('our values') but of international repertory and patterns," p. 9.   

See also: 
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