Meridionalis Performs Brazilian Choral Works at Music of the Americas

On May 14, Americas Society's vocal ensemble Meridionalis performed Brazilian choral music for voices and organ. Written in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador da Bahia in the first decades of the nineteenth century, music on the program included liturgical pieces by Damião Barbosa Araújo, José Maurício Nunes-Garcia, and Sigismund Neukomm.

Napoleon's invasion of Portugal had unintended musical consequences thousands of miles away, when it forced King Dom João VI to move his court to the Brazilian colony. After a stop in Salvador da Bahia, the King arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1808 followed by an entourage that amounted to almost a third of the city's population at the time. The musical development of the new capital was astounding and swift. It is there that during the second decade of the century the three aforementioned composers met and shared musical experiences at churches and aristocratic salons.

Damião Barbosa Araújo was born in Bahia, lived for a few years in Rio de Janeiro, and later returned to Salvador, where he was Kapellmeister until the 1850s. Three of the composer’s sacred pieces were performed at the concert: De lamentatione Jeremiae Prophetae, O vos omne,and Vere languores nostros.

Nunes-Garcia served as Kapellmeister to the Portuguese crown in Rio de Janeiro and was one of the greatest exponents of classicism in the Americas. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1767, Nunes Garcia became a priest later in life, and was appointed Master of the Royal Chapel upon John VI of Portugal’s arrival in Brazil. His musical style was strongly influenced by Viennese composers Mozart and Haydn and some 240 musical pieces written by Nunes Garcia survive today. Most of his compositions are sacred works like those featured at the May concert, such as Judas mercator pessimus, Libera me, Miserere. Nunes Garcia also wrote some secular pieces, including the opera Le due gemelle and orchestral music.

Neukomm was the Austrian protégé of Joseph Haydn who lived in Brazil in the 1810s. Written by Neukomm when he left Rio de Janeiro in 1821, Canon enigmatique pour 8 voix was featured on the program. As is common in this genre, the piece is written on a single staff, in this case forming a square with performance instructions. The composer left an eight-part realization that survives today at the National Library in Paris, which holds most of his manuscripts. This score includes a text, written as a dialogue, that sheds some light on Neukomm's feelings on his departure from Rio de Janeiro, the city he had once considered making his permanent home.

What is that sound that comes so happily from the temple, as if today were Bacchus' feast? There jump the satyrs, the fauns, and the goats. And the masters of the Old Guard? Tra la la la la! Tra la la la la! Look, a really pretty melody! With these happy sounds we can well endure for hours on end

Stop, you criminal! What are you saying about fauns, sorcerers, etc.? We are singing and whistling all together a Requiem to the happily departed.

 If you so happily sing death, how does then your jubilation sound?

Oh, Heavens! He speaks, what does this imbecile want? Does he think himself more intelligent than Orpheus? Let him learn from us, the wretched! And let him not play the master, or criticize us. Let him stick to his habit, what does he   want  from us with this psalmody? We, who so gaily sing the Incarnatus, and the Sucsipe. That makes us loved by the noble and the humble. And guides us abundant glory and money, and he who doesn't submit to our customs, gets impoverished, wilts and starves in these places.

Gentlemen, if that is my reward, I pick up my suitcases and leave! Soon you will no longer see my sad face: breathe happily, dear Sirs, I will no longer disturb you.

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The wit contained in both the text and construction of this piece places Neukomm in the company of his teacher Haydn, with whom he remained close until the older composer’s death in 1808.

Stay tuned for Meridionalis’ next concert on Music of the Americas. Learn more at www.as-coa.org/musicoftheamericas.