Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]


Nephelius, David. See Wolkenstein, David. Nepomuceno, Alberto



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Nephelius, David.


See Wolkenstein, David.

Nepomuceno, Alberto


(b Fortaleza, 6 July 1864; d Rio de Janeiro, 16 Oct 1920). Brazilian composer and conductor. His father was his first teacher. His formal education took place in Recife, where at 18 he was already conducting the concerts of the local Carlos Gomes Club. He moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1884 and continued his studies while teaching the piano at the Beethoven Club. A trip to Europe, begun in 1888, took him to the most celebrated music schools: the Accademia di S Cecilia in Rome, the Akademische Meisterschule, the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, and the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied the organ with Guilmant. He returned to Rio de Janeiro in 1895 to teach the organ at the conservatory. In 1896 he took on the directorship of the Sociedade de Concertos Populares, and in 1902 that of the conservatory, but only for a few months. He became director of the institute again in 1906, and began to promote the recognition of Brazilian music and composers, by establishing a campaign against the germanophile music critic Oscar Guanabarino, by including Brazilian works in the programmes of his concert association, and by supporting the performance of the music of popular composers, such as Catulo da Paixão Cearense. Having succeeded in transferring the institute to its modern quarters he resigned as its director in 1916. In 1910 Nepomuceno travelled to Europe to conduct at the Brussels Exposition Universelle, and to present works of his own and other Brazilian composers at Paris and Geneva.

As a composer Nepomuceno played a major role in the emergence of musical nationalism in Brazil. His extensive production reveals his eclecticism. He wrote in most of the traditional musical forms or genres: art songs, with Portuguese, French, Italian, Swedish and German texts; sacred music, including a Mass and a Tantum ergo; secular choral music, including As Uyaras, based on an Amazonian legend; many piano and organ pieces; four string quartets and a trio; operas and lyrical comedies; a symphony, several tone poems, and three suites for orchestra. Of these the Série brasileira and the prelude O Garatuja, both for orchestra, the String Quartet no.3, the piano pieces Dança de negros, Galhofeira and Brasileira, and numerous art songs present folk or popular material or simply draw directly upon popular music.

The Quartet no.3, written in Berlin in 1891, carries the title Brasileiro and is one of the earliest works showing a nationalist tendency. Rhythmic figures very common in urban popular music of the time (in the first and third movements) and folklike thematic material are the only local elements, indicating a rather slight national characterization. However, the piano piece Galhofeira, which is the last of Quatro peças lyricas, reveals the composer’s knowledge of urban popular forms. The first three pieces of this group are conventionally written within a strictly Romantic style, but Galhofeira, using the maxixe and the chôro as its essential elements, is based on a syncopated accompaniment pattern found in most urban popular forms and the improvisatory aspect of the chôro.

In 1897 Nepomuceno presented in a concert at the Rio de Janeiro Conservatory his most recent symphonic works, including the Série brasileira. This work was his first symphonic attempt to depict some typical aspects of Brazilian life. The last movement, ‘Batuque’, which exploits the rhythmic elements of the Afro-Brazilian dance batuque, became the composer’s most popular piece. The last section (‘doppio movimento’) of the movement makes the most of the batuque’s frenzied lack of melodic characterization. The piece is indeed symptomatic of the discovery of the rhythmic primacy of popular music.

Nepomuceno’s vocal works include some 50 songs with Portuguese texts; the national character of these songs however is rather limited. Xácara (op.20 no.1), for example, recalls the modinha sentimental song genre of the 19th century, while A jangada is perhaps the most nationalist of all, because of its rhythmic and harmonic elements: the syncopation of the accompaniment and the harmonic progressions imitating the guitar in conjunct descending motion.

Nepomuceno’s four theatrical works, including the one-act opera Artemis (1898) and the three-act opera Abul, first performed in Buenos Aires in 1913, made no attempt to create a national opera. Nevertheless he has been proclaimed the ‘father’ of Brazilian music because he was one of the first art music composers in Brazil to draw on native elements.


WORKS


(selective list)

printed works published in Rio de Janeiro unless otherwise stated



Stage: Electra (incid music, C. Chabault, after Sophocles), 1894; Artemis (op, 1), Rio de Janeiro, 1898; Abul (op, 3), 1899–1905, Buenos Aires, 1913, vs (Milan, c1906); A cigarra (comedy, 3), 1911

Orch: Prière, 1887, str; Rapsodie brésilienne, 1887; Série brasileira, 1892, pf score (c1930); Scherzo vivace, 1893; Sinfonia, g, 1894 (1938); 6 valsas humoristicas, pf, orch, 1903; O Garatuja, prelude, 1904; Romance e tarantella, vc, orch, 1908 (c1908)

Chbr and inst: Str Qt, g, op.6, 1889; Str Qt no.1, b, 1890; Str Qt no.2, E, 1890; Str Qt no.3 ‘Brasileiro’, d, 1891; [6] Fôlha d’album, pf, 1891; 4 peças lyricas, op.13, pf, 1894: Anhelo, Diálogo, Valsa, Galhofeira; Tema e variações, A, pf, 1902 (c1910); Variações sôbre um tema original, pf, 1902 (c1910); Ofertorio, org, 1912 (Paris, c1912); Pf Trio, f, 1916 (c1916); Devaneio, vn, pf, 1919

Vocal: Ave Maria, female vv, 1887; Canto fúnebre, chorus, 1896; Hino ao trabalho (O. Bilac), 1896; As Uyaras (M. Morais Filho), S, female vv, orch, 1896; Panis angelicus, 2vv, org, 1909; Ecce panis, 2vv, org, 1911; O salutaris hostia, 4vv, org, 1911; Tantum ergo, chorus, org, 1911; Oração à pátria (Bilac), 1914; Missa, chorus, org, 1915; Ode a Oswaldo Cruz (O. Duque Estrada), 4vv, 1917, ed. H. Villa-Lobos as Invocação a Cruz (c1930)

over 80 songs incl.: Canção da ausência (H. Fontes), 1915; Canção do amor (Amadei), 1902; Cantilena (Coelho Neto), 1902; Cativeiro, lira cearense (J. Galeno), 1896; Coração indeciso (F. Pessoa), 1903; Coração triste (M. de Assis), 1903; A jangada (Galeno), 1920; Medroso de amor, moreninha (Galeno), 1894; Numa concha (O. Bilac), 1914; Olha-me (Bilac), 1914; Philomela (R. Correia), 1903; Saudade (G. Dias), 1906; Trovas tristes (Duque Estrada), 1905; Xácara (O. Teixeira), 1902

BIBLIOGRAPHY


R. Almeida: História da música brasileira (Rio de Janeiro, 1926, 2/1942)

L.H.C. de Azevedo: Relação das óperas de autores brasileiros (Rio de Janeiro, 1938)

J.R. Barbosa: ‘Alberto Nepomuceno’, Revista brasileira de música, vii (1940), 19

V. Mariz: A canção brasileira (Oporto, 1948, 5/1985)

L.H.C. de Azevedo: 150 anos de música no Brasil (1800–1950) (Rio de Janeiro, 1956)

C.A. Corrêa: ‘Catálogo general das obras de Alberto Nepomuceno’, Revista do livro, no.26 (1964), 183–96

D. Martins Lama: ‘Nepomuceno: sua posição nacionalista na música brasileira’, Revista brasileira de folclore, nos.8–10 (1964), 13–27

G. Béhague: The Beginnings of Musical Nationalism in Brazil (Detroit, 1971)

B. Kiefer: História da música no Brasil (Porto Alegre, 1976, 2/1977), 110–18

G. Béhague: Music in Latin America: an Introduction (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1979)

V. Mariz: História da música no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1981, 4/1994)

GERARD BÉHAGUE



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