Brazilian city. It is the chief port and former capital of Brazil. After it became the capital in 1763 Rio de Janeiro developed as a major centre of musical activities. Brazilian musicians of the 19th and 20th centuries sought to further their careers there. It was the seat of the Portuguese royal family from 1808 to 1821, of the Brazilian Empire from 1822 to 1889, and the administrative centre of the federal government until 1960. Important names associated with it include José Maurício Nunes Garcia, Marcos Portugal, Sigismund Neukomm, Francisco Manuel da Silva, Antônio Carlos Gomes, Alberto Nepomuceno, Villa-Lobos, Francisco Mignone and Claudio Santoro; distinguished visitors at various times included Sigismund Thalberg, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Théodore Ritter, Enrico Tamberlick, Sarasate, Toscanini, Milhaud, Richard Strauss and Stravinsky. From the 1930s the city has been on the South American itinerary of the major orchestras, chamber ensembles, opera companies, virtuosos and new music groups of the Western world. The library resources (National Library, library of the Escola de Música da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio Cathedral Library) are considered some of the best on the continent. Since the late 1960s the city has become one of the main centres (together with São Paulo) of the national music industry, with headquarters of both national and multinational recording companies. In addition, since the 1920s Rio de Janeiro has been the main locus of a thriving urban popular music scene, not only with its famous Carnival samba schools’ parades and contests but with numerous festivals of popular music that have attracted well-known national and international figures.
Garcia was mestre de capela of the cathedral from 1798. With the arrival of the Portuguese royal court in 1808 the church of the Carmelites became the cathedral and royal chapel, to which Garcia was appointed mestre de capela. Marcos Portugal also held the post after his arrival (1811). Between 1810 and 1820 the chapel became one of the most remarkable centres of church music in South America, with a choir of about 50 singers, including some Italian castratos, and a large instrumental ensemble called ‘magnificent’ by European visitors. After Brazil became independent the chapel continued to exist as the imperial chapel. Francisco Manuel da Silva, one of its most dynamic members, was also secretary of the Real Irmandade de Santa Cecília, a celebrated association of professional musicians. In the 20th century establishments of sacred music lost their earlier importance, although composers continued to cultivate church music. The Franciscan friar Pedro Sinzig promoted the study of church music by editing the periodical Música sacra (Petrópolis) in the 1940s.
The earliest known lyric theatre, Ópera Velha (1767–70) was directed by a Father Ventura; some of the ballad operas of the local playwright Antonio José da Silva (1705–39), nicknamed ‘O Judeu’, were produced here. The next theatre, Ópera Nova, opened in about 1776 under the direction of Manuel Luiz Ferreira. The presence of the royal family greatly stimulated opera and theatre life. The Teatro Régio, founded by Prince João VI, presented the first production in Rio (1811) of Portugal’s opera buffa L’oro non compra amore. The Real Teatro de S João, founded in 1813, renamed the Imperial Teatro de S Pedro de Alcântara in 1824, produced mostly Italian operas, Rossini dominating the repertory until 1832, and Bellini and Donizetti after 1844. Opera companies usually included Italian artists living in Brazil, such as the celebrated prima donna Augusta Candiani, or visiting European singers, such as Rosine Stoltz and Enrico Tamberlick. A Verdi opera (Ernani) was first given in 1846, only two years after its première. The Teatro Provisório, renamed Teatro Lírico Fluminense in 1854, presented the most important seasons in the city until the end of the 19th century. Another theatre, the Teatro Ginásio Dramático, opened in 1855. Francisco Manuel da Silva, the author of the Brazilian national anthem, attempted to stimulate the use of the vernacular in the operatic repertory. In 1857, under the auspices of Emperor Pedro II, the Imperial Academia de Música e Ópera Nacional was created with that aim and the additional goal of producing at least once a year a new opera by a Brazilian composer. In 1860 the Academia was replaced by a new organization called the Ópera Lírica Nacional which immediately produced the first opera on a local subject written by a Brazilian-born composer: Elías Álvares Lobo’s A noite de São João. Operettas were generally presented at the Teatro Fénix Dramática. Since its inauguration in 1909 the Teatro Municipal has been the chief venue for opera as well as other musical activities. Since the 1960s the new Sala Cecília Meireles has been an important concert venue, but operas have also been produced there, including Monteverdi’s Orfeo in 1998.
Regular concert life emerged in Rio during the second half of the 19th century. Concert societies and clubs founded at that time included the Clube Mozart (1867), the Clube Beethoven (1882), the Sociedade de Concertos Clássicos (1883) and the Sociedade de Concertos Populares (1896). Most concerts took place in the existing theatres; concert halls as such were not built until the 1960s when the Sala Cecília Meireles opened, although smaller halls, such as the Salão Leopoldo Miguez at the Escola de Música, were in use much earlier. Several orchestras and orchestral associations were founded early in the 20th century. The Sociedade de Concertos Sinfônicos do Rio de Janeiro (1912) had its own orchestra under the direction of Francisco Braga until 1932. Walter Burle Marx founded the short-lived Orquestra Filarmônica do Rio de Janeiro in 1931, and in the same year Villa-Lobos created his own orchestra which lasted until 1935, when the Orquestra do Teatro Municipal (1934), subsidized by the city government, became available to him. The best organized orchestra, the Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira (Brazil SO), was founded in 1940 by José Siqueira. More recently the broadcasting station of the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) established its own Orquestra Sinfônica Nacional and its own chamber orchestra and choir. Among the city’s numerous choral groups the most important are the Associação de Canto Coral (at first known as Côro Feminino ‘Pro Música’) under the direction of Cleofe Person de Mattos, and the choir of the Instituto Israelita Brasileiro de Cultura e Educação, directed by Henrique Morelenbaum. The choir of the Teatro Municipal performed mainly opera selections and oratorios. Earlier choral societies included the Orfeão Carlos Gomes and the Côro Barroso Neto, both organized by the composer Barroso Neto. The Roberto de Regina Ensemble, established in the 1960s, specializes in medieval and Renaissance music. Among the several chamber ensembles that became active in the 1960s, the Rio de Janeiro Quartet, the Villa-Lobos Quintet and the quartet of the Escola de Música are particularly well known.
Concert promoting organizations have included the Associação Brasileira de Música (1930), the Cultura Artística do Rio de Janeiro (1933), the Associação Brasileira de Concertos (1947), the ABC-Pró Arte and the Associação Brasileira de Arte (ABRARTE). The Museu Villa-Lobos, founded by the Ministry of Education in 1960, has promoted numerous concerts and festivals of Villa-Lobos’s music. The Fundação Nacional de Arte (FUNARTE) has been active since the 1970s in organizing music festivals of various types and in sponsoring the publications of books, records and CDs on many aspects of the music of Brazil. Between 1975 and 1997 the Bienal de Música Brasileira Contemporânea, organized by the Instituto Brasileiro de Arte of the Ministry of Culture, presented 20 festivals introducing new works by Brazilian composers.
In the late 1950s Rio de Janeiro became a centre of national and international music festivals and contests, of which the most important have been the International Piano Contest (1958), the International Music Festival (1963), the International Singing Contests (from 1963), the International Music Festival of MEC Radio (1969), the Music Festival of Guanabara (the first was in 1969), the Villa-Lobos Festival (from 1966) with the International Competition of Villa-Lobos’s String Quartets (1966), the International Guitar Competition (1971), the Instrumental Ensembles Competition (1972) and the International Piano Competition (1974).
The major broadcasting station, the Radio Ministério da Educação (PRA-2), has an extensive art-music programme, and counts among its personnel some of the best musicians in the country. The Radio Jornal do Brasil has also broadcast an uninterrupted classical music programme since the 1980s.
The first official educational institution in Rio was the Conservatório Imperial de Música, founded in 1847 (active by 1848) by Francisco Manuel da Silva. Renamed the Instituto Nacional de Música by the republican government in 1890, it was incorporated into the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 1931, and became the Escola Nacional de Música at the founding of the University of Brazil (1937). In the late 1960s it became known as the Escola de Música da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. The directors of the school since 1890 have included some of the best-known music teachers of the country. In 1936 the composer Lorenzo Fernândez founded the Conservatório Brasileiro de Música (officially recognized by the federal government in 1944). The Conservatório do Distrito Federal ceased to function in the early 1960s. The Instituto Villa-Lobos within the Arts Institute of the University of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO) developed one of the most successful postgraduate programmes in Brazilian music in the 1980s. During the same decade there developed a number of small private studios for the production of electro-acoustic music, the best known being the Estúdio da Glória, maintained by the composer Tim Rescala, and that of the composer Vania Dantas Leite. Among the numerous private establishments the Academia de Música Lorenzo Fernândez, founded in 1953, has trained distinguished performing musicians.
The Academia Brasileira de Música was created by Villa-Lobos in Rio in July 1945. Its original 50 members were reduced to 40, of which 30 are composers and ten are musicologists, music critics and performers, in addition to an unspecified number of foreign corresponding members. The only professional union, Ordem dos Músicos do Brasil (1960), has had its headquarters in Rio de Janeiro. In the 1970s the federal council founded a Serviço de Documentação Musical for the dissemination of Brazilian new music.
L.M. Peppercorn: ‘New Academy of Music founded in Rio’, Musical America, lxv/16 (1945), 10 only
L.H.C. de Azevedo: Música e músicos do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1950)
F.C. Lange: ‘Estudios brasileños (Mauricinas) I: Manuscritos de la Biblioteca nacional de Rio de Janeiro’, Revista de estudios musicales, i/3 (1949–50), 99–194
Música no Rio de Janeiro imperial, 1822–1870: exposição comemorativa do primeiro decênio da secção de música e arquivo sonoro (Rio de Janeiro, 1962)
G.H. Béhague: Popular Musical Currents in the Art Music of the Early Nationalistic Period in Brazil, circa 1870–1920 (diss., Tulane U., 1966)
G. Béhague: Music in Latin America (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1979)
J.M. Neves: Música brasileira contemporânea (São Paulo, 1981)
V. Mariz: História da música no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1981, 4/1994)
C. Magaldi: ‘Music for the Elite: Musical Societies in Imperial Rio de Janeiro’, LAMR, xvi (1995), 1–41
For further bibliography see Brazil.
GERARD BÉHAGUE