(b Rio de Janeiro, 20 March 1863; d Rio de Janeiro, 4 Feb 1934). Brazilian composer and pianist. He studied the piano with his mother, with Eduardo Madeira and with Lucien Lambert, who gave him an intimate knowledge of Chopin’s music, which became influential on his own work. By 1877, when the polka Você bem sabe was published by Artur Napoleão, he had begun to compose in the current popular dance genres, and as a pianist he worked exclusively in light music. From 1919 he was employed by the publishing house of Carlos Gomes (later Carlos Wehrs), performing scores for clients, and he played daily in the Odeon cinema (1920–24), where Villa-Lobos had worked a few years earlier as a cellist, and for which he wrote the famous tango Odeon. Nazareth won wide popularity in the 1920s and toured the states of São Paulo and Rio Grande in 1921 and 1932. The tangos established him as the most influential Brazilian popular composer of the 20th century; Villa-Lobos praised him as ‘the true incarnation of the Brazilian soul’. Nazareth was responsible for producing national types of such dances as the polka and the tango, and for creating a model for the maxixe. His waltzes and tangos were sources of inspiration for numerous composers, including Milhaud, Villa-Lobos, L. Fernandez, Mignone and Gnattali. His music enjoyed great success in the late 20th century, and by the 1970s had been recorded and published in Europe and the USA.
(selective list)
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c100 tangos brasileiros incl. Atrevido, Brejeiro, Carioca, Chave de ouro, Duvidoso, Espalhafatoso, Está chumbado, Favorito, Fon-fon, Garoto, Insuperável, Labirinto, Matuto, Nenê, Odeon, Ouro sobre azul, Perigoso, Pierrot, Podia ser pior, Ramirinho, Reboliço, Sagaz, Sarambeque, Sustenta a nota, Tenebroso, Travêsso |
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Tangos caracteristicos: Batuque, Digo, Mesquitinha, Turuna |
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Polkas: Alerta, Atrevidinha, Beija-flor, Cruz … perigo!, Não caio noutra, Não me fujas assim, Nazareth, Pipoca, Zizinha |
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Polcas-choros: Amenoresedá, Apanhei-tecavaquinho, Cavaquinho, por que choras?, Você bem sabe |
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Other dances and pieces, all for pf, to total of c220 |
B. Itiberê: ‘Ernesto Nazareth na música brasileira’, Boletín latino-americano de música, vi (1946), 309–21
M. de Andrade: Música, doce música (São Paulo, 1963)
J.C. Diniz: Nazareth: estudos analíticos (Recife,1963)
G. Béhague: Popular Musical Currents in the Art Music of the Early Nationalistic Period in Brazil, c1870–1920 (diss., Tulane U., 1966)
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