British Forum for Ethnomusicology

Musica romantica in Montes Claros: Inter-Gender Relations in Brazilian Popular Song

Author(s): Martha Tupinamba de Ulhoa
Source: British Journal of Ethnomusicology, Vol. 9, No. 1, Brazilian Musics, Brazilian
Identities (2000), pp. 11-40
Published by: British Forum for Ethnomusicology
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3060788
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MARTHA TUPINAMBA DE ULHOA
Musica romantica in Montes Claros:
inter-gender
relations in Brazilian
popular song
This article
presents
a social
history of
muisica romantica, or love
song,
assessing
its role
among
the middle classes
of
Montes Claros, a mid-sized town
in Minas Gerais, Brazil. It looks at three
phases
in the
development of
musica
romantica.
firstly
the
serenading
modinhas
of
the
early
twentieth
century;
secondly
the
samba-canmao,
a
style
disseminated
by
the radio which
incorporated stylistic
elements
from
transnational
genres;
and
finally jovem
guarda,
which evinced
aspects of
the modernization
of
Brazilian
popular
music
in
general
in the 1960s. The
examples
of
mu'sica romantica which are analysed
in the article unveil some
of
the musical
strategies employed
within the
genre
to
convey
sentiment and establish
inter-gender
roles and
positions.
Characteristically composed
by
men, the
songs
indicate how
femininity
in
music has been described and
prescribed,
and how notions
of
masculinity
have
been constructed and
reinforced.
Introduction
Brazilian
popular
music has been best known to the
English-speaking
world for
bossa
nova,
and later for MPB
(Musica Popular Brasileira,
or Brazilian
popular
music),
an umbrella term for music
by
artists such as Caetano
Veloso,
Chico
Buarque
de Hollanda,
Milton
Nascimento,
Gilberto Gil and Olodum
among
others. This
article, however,
deals with musica romdntica,
which has not
attracted the "world music"
market, despite
its
great popularity
in Brazil.
Musica romantica
encompasses
a number of different
styles,
all of which deal
with romantic love.
I shall be
looking
at musica romantica as it is
presented through
the oral
history
of the middle classes in a mid-sized Brazilian town called Montes
Claros,
which is located in the semi-arid sertdo
region
of the northern
part
of
BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL. 9/i 2000 pp.11-40
12 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETH N M U S I C L GY VOL.9/i 2000
the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais. The aesthetic
preferences
of Montes
Claros's middle classes
-
and to a certain extent the values and tastes of the
Brazilian middle classes
living
in other small to mid-sized urban areas of
northern Minas Gerais
-
differ somewhat from those of
larger
centres in the
region
and also from the
hegemonic images
of "Brazilian-ness" associated
especially
with Rio de Janeiro. Therefore, what will be narrated here cannot be
extended to Brazilian
society
at
large
without a
degree
of licence.
Being
middle
class in Rio is rather different from
being
middle class in other
parts
of this
continental
country.
In small towns individuals
experience
far less
anonymity
than
people
in
large
urban
areas, and it is
generally
from the
major
centres that
new trends are diffused to the rest of the
country. Thus,
I shall be
addressing
the
ways
in which national trends have been
appropriated
and
adapted
to the local
conditions of middle-class life in a
provincial
town.
The data discussed here were collected
mainly
in the late 1980s.
During
this
period,
I interviewed
specialists
(disc
jockeys,
record store
salespersons)
and enthusiasts
(record collectors),
conducted
questionnaires
on musical
usage
and taste and observed local venues for music
consumption (radio
and
television
programmes,
bars and
pizzerias). Drawing
on this material as well as
on local
memoirs,
I have
attempted
to reconstruct the role of mu'sica romdntica
in Montes Claros.1
I shall focus
upon
a few
examples
of mutsica romdntica which were
especially popular among
members of the middle classes of the town. All of
these
pieces,
as is common to mu'sica romdntica in
general,
feature a male
voice. This voice describes an ideal of
femininity, through
which
masculinity
unfolds. These
songs
unveil some of the musical
strategies employed
within the
genre
to
convey
sentiment and establish
inter-gender
roles and
positions.
Characteristically men,
who
might
not talk about romance and
sentimentality
in
everyday
discourse,
compose songs
in which such sentiments are
expressed.
Thus, the
songs
indicate how men have described and
prescribed femininity
in
music,
and
simultaneously point
to male
perception
of
inter-gender relations,
and construct and reinforce notions of
masculinity.
Mursica romdntica is
highly popular
not
only
in Montes Claros,
but in
Brazil in
general.
In
comparison
with the other main
contemporary
Brazilian
popular
music
genres (MPB,
rock
brasileiro,
mu'sica
sertaneja),
mu'sica
romdntica stands on the
"popular"
-
in the sense of mass
production
-
side of
the overall field of Brazilian
popular
music. In
fact,
mutsica romdntica can be
understood both in terms of its
qualitative attributes,
that
is,
as music
perceived
to stem from folk and
ethnically
"authentic"
roots,
such as samba and other
1 See Carvalho 1991. Further
analysis
and
interpretation
has been carried out thanks to
research
grants
from
CNPq (Conselho
Nacional de
Pesquisa).
This
much-updated
version of
an earlier
project
was
developed
while I was on a
post-doctoral
leave of absence from the
University
of Rio de Janeiro at the Institute of
Popular Music, University
of
Liverpool. My
thanks to David Horn, Sara Cohen,
Natasha
Gay
and
especially Philip Tagg
for their warm
welcome and
patient listening.
I also want to thank John Gledson for his advice on
transcultural translation.
ULHOA Musica romantica in Montes Claros: inter-gender
relations in Brazilian
popular song
regional rhythms,
or of its
quantitative features,
as music seen to
belong
to the
masses.2 As a
mass-produced genre,
musica romdntica has its roots in the
emergence
ofjovem
guarda (young guard),3
the Brazilian
adaptation
of rock
(of
the
early
Beatles
type).
However,
in terms of musical
language,
its roots can be
traced back to
eighteenth-
and
nineteenth-century
Brazilian musical
practices,
especially
the modinha
song genre.
Modinha can be
roughly
translated as "love
song". According
to
Alvarenga
(1982:328-35),
in its first
stage (1750s
to
1850s)
it was salon
music, cultivated
both in
Portugal
and Brazil. Its melodic contours were
greatly
influenced
by
Italian
opera,
and in this erudite
stage,
it was
accompanied by
the
harpsichord
or the
piano.
In a second
phase,
which more-or-less
spanned
the
reign
of
Emperor
Pedro II
(1840-89),
modinhas became the material of street serenades
and were
accompanied by
a
guitar.
The
genre's
main characteristics are
undulating arabesque
melodic
contours,
intensive use of
arpeggios
and
large
skips
in the
melody;
its form is
usually strophic
with
refrain,
or the so-called
Brazilian waltz
(ABACA)
form. The Brazilian modinha
developed
in Rio de
Janeiro and
slowly
diffused to other
parts
of the
country, eventually reaching
Montes Claros around the
early
twentieth
century.
If one could trace a
history
of mu'sica romdntica
according
to its use in
Montes
Claros,
most
probably
its first
phase
would be the
serenading
modinhas
at the
beginning
of the twentieth
century.
In a second
phase
it
incorporated
stylistic
elements from transnational
genres,
such as the
bolero,
which
contributed to the
appearance
of a slower and
song-like
kind of samba
very
popular
in the 1940s and 1950s, the
samba-can?do.
A third
phase
becomes
evident with the modernization of
popular
music in
general
in the 1960s. At this
point
the
style
of mu'sica romdntica starts to
change, signalling
a shift in
behaviour
patterns
and social attitudes towards romantic love.
It is
important
to note that
throughout
the twentieth
century,
the uses and
functions of mu'sica romdntica have transcended the
political
and cultural
divisions of the middle classes in Montes Claros. Neither the shift in
power
from local conservatives to the liberals
during
the 1930s nor a historical fact
that
deeply
marked social relations in
general
in Brazil
-
the 1964
military
take-
over
-
left a
strong stamp
on mutsica romdntica.
Although styles changed
over
the
century,
musica romdntica remained the domain of male
voices, muting
discordant female voices which
may
have tried to redefine male ideals
regarding gender
relations.
2 See Ulh6a 1997 for a discussion of Brazilian
popular
music in relation to its
position
in the
tripartite hierarchy (art/folk/popular)
and in relation to its division into restricted and
large-
scale fields of
production.
3 The
"young guard" emerged
in
opposition
to the "old
guard" (velha guarda),
a term used to
refer to traditional samba
composers.
The movement was also known as "ie, ie, ie", which
probably
refers to its most
likely
source of
inspiration,
the Beatles
song
"She loves
you,
yeah, yeah, yeah".
13
14 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETH N M U S I C L GY VOL.91i 2000
A social
history
of Montes Claros's middle classes
Montes Claros is situated at a crossroads in the
migration
of
peoples
and musics
from the northern to the southern
parts
of Brazil and vice versa.
Originally
a
cattle ranch established on land
granted by
the
Portuguese
crown in
1707,
Montes Claros became a
trading post
after a church was built around
1770,
which attracted
neighbouring farmers, who established their weekend houses
there, turning
it into a
place
to
relax, do business and attend the
monthly
mass.
The first settlers
occupied
a
territory
which later came to be known as de
baixo,
or "lower" Montes
Claros, because it was located in the lowlands close
to the river
bank, which formed the northern
boundary
of the settlement.
Newcomers, who
began arriving
around the mid nineteenth
century,
had to
build their houses and businesses towards the more elevated
south,
a
territory
that became known as de cima, or
"upper"
Montes Claros. The "lower" sector
was dominated
by
monarchists with aristocratic
tendencies,
while the
"upper"
sector was
comprised
of
republicans
and liberals.4 A measure of the extent of
this
spatial
and
political opposition
is the fact that the band
supported by
the
"lower" sector refused to
play
for the commemorations of the Declaration of the
Republic
in
1889; later, they opposed
the
republican position
of the
military,
and still later the Liberal Alliance
(4lianqa
Liberal),
which
put
the dictator
Vargas
in
power.
In the late nineteenth
century,
descendants of the first
settlement and their affiliates shared with the Brazilian
emperor
a
positivistic
attitude towards science and a taste for
"high
culture" and the arts. The
"uppers" struggled
for cultural
prestige,
and were from time to time in
positions
of command. In the
past,
there were numerous famous incidents caused
by
this
rivalry,
some of them
quite violent,
others
played
out in
competitions during
carnival or in battles between the two
"party"
bands
-
Euterpe Montesclarense,
sponsored by
the
"lowers",
and Uniao
Operaria, sponsored by
the
"uppers".
The
rivalry
between the two
political
and cultural
groups
-
the
"aristocratic" and conservative "lowers" and the
"plebeian"
and liberal
"uppers"
-
manifested itself in the
performance practices
of the two
groups.
The "lowers" had their own
club, Clube Montes Claros
(Clube
MOC in Table
1),
where
parties
and balls with live music bands were held.
They
were
responsible
for
founding
most of the cultural institutions in Montes
Claros,
such
as local
newspapers,
the radio station and the
conservatory.
When the
"uppers"
took a certain control of the
political
situation after the
1930s, they
started
building
a cultural network that led to the
founding
of their own club
(Automovel Clube)
in the 1960s. For their balls and
parties, they
contracted
outside bands.
Despite
their
political
cultural
rivalries,
the inhabitants of both lower and
upper
Montes Claros
belong
to the
privileged
classes of the town. The class
4 The main source for historical data on Montes Claros comes from Hermes de Paula
(1979
[1957]).
Other sources
usually
refer back to his
account,
while
providing
additional details
and anecdotes.
They
are:
Anonymous (1988), Graca (1986)
and
Tupinambfa (1988).
ULH6A Musica romantica in Montes Claros: inter-gender
relations in Brazilian popular song
structure of Montes Claros is, however, fairly complex.
The local
upper
class
consists
basically
of a small number of
large
landowners and a few liberal
professionals, especially
medical doctors, some of whom also own
large
tracts
of rural land. The middle class is
very heterogeneous
in terms of
occupation,
but it can be
roughly
subdivided into an
upper-middle,
a middle and a lower
middle class. Medical doctors, dentists, shop-owners, lawyers
and
engineers
usually belong
to the
upper-middle class; they
have
large
and
recently
built
houses,
travel abroad and are
frequent guests
at
parties
held
by
the several local
newspaper
columnists. Teachers,
bank clerks and
upper
bureaucratic servants
constitute the middle stratum of the middle class. The lower middle class
consists
mainly
of
low-ranking
civil servants and
shopkeepers.
Manual
workers,
such as domestic servants, washerwomen,
street-cleaners and
industrial workers, comprise
the
upper portion
of the lower-class,
while the
poorest
sectors of the
population
include rural labourers and an ever
growing
number of
unemployed migrants
from the
countryside
and the north-east.
As in almost
every
small town in Brazil,
the
privileged
sectors make a
conscious effort to
distinguish
themselves from the
poor
and lower classes,
which is
typically expressed through
an
opposition
between
'pessoas
cultas"
(people
with
culture)
and
"gente simples" (simple people).
The outward
signs
of
"having
culture" are manifested
through preoccupations
with
cleanliness,
clothing,
musical taste and certain kinds of status
symbols, particularly
those
that indicate that one is in touch with the latest novelties to
emerge
in the
nation's cultural centres. Thus,
whatever other differences there
might
be
between the
"uppers"
and the "lowers",
both
groups
shared a
common,
traditional world vision. There
may
have been
"fights" during carnival,
or the
"lower" band
might
have refused to
play
for a commemoration
sponsored by
the
"uppers",
but the actual music and social behaviour at
any
social occasion
was
very
similar in both
groups.
Both factions
sang modinhas,
held soirees
(saraus),
and danced the
tango,
the
samba,
the fox and the bolero. There were
also a few neutral
spaces
in which
political
rivalries were
temporarily
suspended,
such as
Sunday masses, religious
festivities and the silent movies.
The social
organization
of the town has centred on
patriarchal families,
whose heads
developed
a network of
personal
relations in the
political
domain.
It is
interesting
to note the
conspicuous
absence of women as historical
figures
in local memoirs
(see
Carvalho
1991).
Even Dona Tiburtina,
a central
figure
in
the 1930s "liberal" revolution,
is often
only
mentioned in
passing,
or omitted
altogether.
In traditional Montes Claros the roles
played by
men and women
were well defined
by patriarchal values,
which ascribed to men the
public
domain and to women the
private,
domestic one.
Before the arrival of television in 1962, it was
customary
for middle-class
families in Montes Claros
-
particularly
the womenfolk
-
to
gather
on the
pavements
after
dinner,
to chat with one another and discuss current events over
coffee and
biscuits,
while the children
played games
such as hide-and-seek or
sang
rounds. These
gatherings
were
privileged spaces
for
passing
on the latest
gossip, gossip being
one of the
primary
institutions of social control in the small
town
setting.
15
16 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.9/i 2000
It is
possible
to divide the social
history
of
popular
music in Montes Claros
into two
major periods,
old Montes Claros with its serenades, soirees and
balls,
and new Montes Claros, embracing
the
period
after the 1964
military coup,
when the
jovem guarda
first
emerged. By
then the Automovel Clube was
starting
its activities,
but social
gatherings
were
restrained,
in
part
because
people
were afraid of
being
denounced to the secret
police (Departamento
de
Ordem Politica e
Social,
or
DOPS). According
to a local
newspaper
columnists
I
interviewed,
it was common for
people
to be called in for
questioning
after a
slip
of the
tongue
at a
party. Dancing
at the clubs started
fading,
and
people
began
to
gather
in smaller
groups
in associations called clubes volantes
(wandering clubs).
Clearly,
the
political
climate was not the
only
reason for the
change
in
social habits. Other
important
factors were the
increasing
modernization and
urbanization of Brazilian middle-class life in
general,
which was linked both to
the
advancing globalization process
and to social,
economic and cultural
changes
that occurred
during
the so-called "Brazilian Miracle" fostered
by
the
military government.
Fundamental in
favouring
these
changes
was television
broadcasting,
which
exposed
the
population
of Montes Claros
-
and of Brazil in
general
-
to modem consumer
goods
and to modem
patterns
of behaviour to a
degree
never achieved
by
the cinema. In the late 1960s and 1970s
youngsters
found themselves
meeting
more
frequently
at bars and
pizzerias
than at
parties
and
community-based
social activities,
which
suggests
that
they
were
adopting
trends common to
youths
in the
country's large
urban centres.
Music and middle-class social life in Montes Claros
Table 1
(below)
summarizes Brazilian
popular
music
history
and some of the
events and musical
genres
which were
important
for social life in Montes
Claros. Columns 2 and 3 are derived from Schreiner
(1985:5 [1977]),
who
surveyed
Brazilian
popular
music and classified it into six
phases: (1)
the
early
phase
of urban
popular
music
(with
the
modinha,
the maxixe and the
lundu); (2)
the Belle
epoque
(with
the
"importation"
of the
polka
and the
waltz)
and a
transitional
phase up
to the
beginnings
of the twentieth
century (with
the
ch6ro,
as well as
frevos
and
marchas); (3)
the stabilization of urban samba
up
to
around
1927; (4)
the
development
of samba in the so-called
"golden phase" up
to around 1946; (5)
a
pre-modern stage, up
to around 1958
(with
the brief
success of the
baido);
and
finally (6)
the
beginnings
of a modern
phase,
with the
emergence
of bossa nova around 1958.
Musical tastes in Montes Claros articulate with the
changing
role of music
in a
changing
social context. As its varied
population experienced
a shift from a
rural and traditional context to an industrialized and modern
one,
the venues for
musical
practices
and social interaction
changed
from serenades and
saraus,
to
promenading
(footing)
and
balls,
and then to bars and
pizzerias.
Musical
preferences
switched from modinhas and waltzes to boleros and
samba-canqao,
then to mutsica
sertaneja,
rock brasileiro and mutsica romdntica.
DATES PHASES MUS. GENRES HISTORY SOCIAL LIFE IN MOC MUS. GENRES IN MOC
OLD MONTES CLAROS
1850
early phase lundu
religious fiestas
hymns, psalms
modinha
maxixe
Belle
Epoque polka
waltz serenades modinhas
transition choro
1889
Republic
1900 Carnival marches
1910
stabilisation urban samba
1920
soir6es waltz
1930 Liberal Revolution
fox-trots
Golden
phase samba's Radio Nacional samba
1940
apogee [integration] balls (Clube MOC)
"lower' bolero
samba-canq9ao
1950 pre-modern bai5o
bai;?o
1958 modern Bossa Nova Bossa Nova
1960 Jovem Guarda Autom6vel Clube Jovem Guarda
NEW MONTES CLAROS
1964
Tropicalismo Military coup "upper" Beatles
(Globo TV)
[censoship] mobile clubs
1970
MPB
Mus. Romantica
1980
Musica
Sertaneja
Rock Brasileiro
1985 Civil Government FM radios
live music bars
1990
lambada I
pagode
Table I
a
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0
0)
a
0
0)
0
-0.
CD
CO)
0
0
0
0
S'
CD
(0
11.
0
II
I
I
b
I
i,
I
40.
7
I
i,
I-
II
I
LI
II
I
t
II
i,
D
II
i,
I
I
r
II
I
18 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.9/i 2000
For the vast
majority
of the members of Montes Claros's middle classes,
popular
music was
something
one listened and danced
to, although
there have
always
been a few local
performers.
One could listen to music
during
serenades,
in movie theatres and on the radio;
music was also
present
at local
religious
festivities. The
performance spaces
for dances were
family
houses and
social clubs. Social activities that involved music
changed
from the saraus of
the second decade of the
century
to the
parties
of the
1950s;
from the
tango
and
the Charleston to the twist and the bossa nova;
from music on the radio to music
on television. The dance
patterns
also
changed
from
couple dancing
to
single
dancing
in the 1960s.
By
the end of the
1980s,
the lambada
brought
dance
partners
back
together again.
Old Montes Claros
Up
until the
early
twentieth
century,
social life in Montes Claros,
as in other
small towns
throughout Brazil, centred on
popular religious festivities, such as
Coronations of the
Virgin, processions
and saints'
days,
and
during
these events
political
rivalries were set aside.
Many
of these festivals are still
celebrated,
but
over the course of the last
century,
new musical venues and
styles
were
introduced into the
town, providing
the local
population
with new musical
alternatives.
As I have
already noted, one of the first
styles
of
popular
music to arrive in
Montes Claros was the modinha.
Reminiscing
about musical life in the town in
the
early
twentieth
century, Cyro
dos
Anjos (1963:8)
described modinha
performances
in the
following
terms:
When there was
moonlight,
and the sisters,
with their
group,
went to
sing
modinhas at the Alto do Cruzeiro
[Cross Hill],
we
managed,
sometimes,
to deceive old Luisa and
join
the
party...
We
stayed
late with the
group.
At that time I had a
big
crush on Maria
da Gloria. I was about
eight
or
ten; she,
nineteen or
twenty.
Of her
features little remains in the archives of
my memory.
...
But,
what
really matters,
is that that creature
sang,
at the
guitar,
the most beautiful
modinhas in this world...
"It is
you,
flower of the
skies,
whom I refer
to";
"Wake
up, my beauty";
"Sleep,
for I
keep watch,
seductive
image";
"I know it was
madness";
"Of
my lyre,
I broke the feeble
strings"
... what love
messages,
what
sighing complaints
were entrusted to the uncertain
breeze,
in a
sonorous cocoon,
whilst the moon
spread
over the chaste maiden
dressed in
white,
its
conspiratorial pallor,
its
softening substance,
wrapping
creatures and
things
in the
vague scenery,
touched with
eternity?
ULH6A Musica romantica in Montes Claros:
inter-gender
relations in Brazilian
popular song
Composed by badly
wounded
bards,
most
songs expressed
masculine
love, chiding
scornful
girlfriends.
But so universal and effective is
poetic language,
that the
girls
suffused into those
songs
feminine
feelings, transforming
them into a vehicle for their own sorrow.
Thus,
in this
way
a
change
of
signs
took
place,
an inversion of the
target
-
and the
cry
of the miserable lover was transformed into a
weapon
of
the
enemy
sex.
(Cyro
dos
Anjos 1963:8)
This
description
of
early twentieth-century serenading
hints at several
issues that will
reappear
in relation to mu'sica romdntica:
firstly,
the
highly
sentimental character of modinha
performance,
not
only
because the
genre
was
sung
at
spellbinding
moonlit
serenades,
but also because modinha
lyrics
had the
nostalgic
flavour evinced
by
the titles mentioned
above, making
references to
"flowers of the
skies", "beauty", "seduction", "madness", "lyres"
and so on.
Secondly, Cyro
dos
Anjos
makes an
interesting
observation on
gender
roles and
performance practice, suggesting
that women used
poetry
written to
implore
their
mercy
to seduce
men, turning
"the
cry
of the miserable lover" into a
"weapon".
Gender relations are
presented
thus as a
power struggle,
mediated
by
music. In modinha
performance, therefore,
both men and women
played
with
conventional roles and behaviours
concerning
love and
sexuality
in a
patriarchal
environment. In traditional Montes Claros and Brazilian
society
at
large,
men and women were set
apart, serenading being
one of their means of
communication.
In his
memoirs, Cyro
dos
Anjos
also describes the arrival of the first
pianos
in Montes Claros. He tells of how on cold
nights,
instead of
serenades, there
were
soirees, involving performances
of
piano,
violin and flute
arrangements
of
Italian arias from such
operas
as
Norma,
Lucia de Lammermoor and La
Traviata, and
popular pieces,
with titles such as
"Lago
de
Como", "Sobre as
ondas",
"Canqao
russa" and "Murmuirio dos
bosques".5
Besides music, there
were also recitations of the
popular
romantic and Parnassian
poets
of the
nineteenth and
early
twentieth
centuries,
such as Castro
Alves,
Casimiro de
Abreu and Olavo
Bilac, among
others.
The
young Cyro
found these saraus rather
boring.
He was
quite
fascinated
instead
by
the
gramophone,
which at his father's store
poured
out the
rasping
voice of the announcer of a "certain Casa Edison" in Rio de
Janeiro,
and the
distant sounds of Schubert's "Serenade".6
Although
it was a small backland
town,
in the 1910s Montes Claros had some contact with the latest
products
coming
from the
emerging
music
industry,
such as
pianos,
music sheets and
gramophones,
in addition to the local tradition of modinha
singing.
5 "Cuomo
Lake", "Over the waves", "Russian
song"
and
"Whispers
of the woods",
respectively.
6 Casa Edison was a
recording pioneer
in
Brazil, starting
in 1902 to issue 78
rpms
of
modinhas, lundus, light European music, polkas
etc..
19
BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.9/i 2000
It is
very important
to
note, therefore, that events in Montes Claros
-
and
probably
in
any
small town almost
anywhere
in the world
-
were not isolated
from the influx and
impact
of transnational
developments. Indeed,
the
history
of
popular
music in Montes Claros at the
beginning
of the twentieth
century
must
take account both of the local
singularities,
that is, the
specific
historical
conditions and
stylistic
traits of the
town,
and of its
global links,
evinced in the
marketing
and
adoption
of
centrally produced genres
and
goods.
In
Brazil,
the
music
industry
started
up
as a
subsidiary
of a
global
economic structure.
Technological
innovations which had an
impact
on the
production, performance
and
reception
of
popular
music in Brazil include: in the nineteenth
century,
sheet music
printing
and the extensive
importation
of
pianos
(mostly
British or
French);
and in the twentieth
century,
the record
industry, starting
with
products
from Casa Edison around 1902; the radio, which had its
apogee
in the 1930s
and 1940s
(the
so-called Golden
Era), constituting
the vehicle for the
installation of a "national
integration" policy by
the
Vargas government;
and
television,
which in the 1960s
played
a fundamental role in the
military
dictatorship's
"national
security" policy.7
The Casa Edison records as well as some sheet music were
brought
to
Montes Claros from Rio de Janeiro, so that the musicians who
played
at the
silent movies and in the
"jazz
bands" could make suitable
arrangements.
The
repertory
and
programming
of the National Radio
(Radio Nacional)
dominated
everyday
life from the late 1930s onwards. With
television,
there was a shift
towards
youth programmes
and music festivals,
in which a new
post-bossa
nova
generation
of
songwriters
and artists
emerged.
Montes Claros had,
therefore,
a musical life of its
own, especially
with modinha
production
and
performance,
but it also
accepted
and
incorporated
the new
genres
introduced
by
the radio,
the cinema and television.
With the arrival of silent movies in
1914,
a new alternative was introduced
into the social life of Montes Claros. In silent
movies,
music had the function of
connecting
the
feelings
of
everyday
life to the
fantasy portrayed
on the screen.
A waltz in a minor
key played during
a romantic
situation,
whether in a dance
parlour,
or
accompanying
a "sad" scene,
could evoke
feelings
common to all in
those situations. In silent
movies,
musicians reacted to several levels of the
visual
presentation, by portraying intensity
of emotion
(mild/strong), speed
of
action
(fast/slow),
or
by evaluating
the action
(villain/hero).
Certain moods or
types
of action became
standards, according
to
Ducho,
who
played
the
mandolin for the silent movies in Montes Claros in the 1920s:
When the movie turned to a sentimental
part,
we
played
slow waltzes
in minor
keys:
"Saudades de Ouro Preto"
[Longing
for Ouro
Preto],
for
7 Part of the
"integration" policy
was the construction of a national music
identity,
which
would monitor samba
production.
"National
security"
was linked to the
right wing position
of the
military
and the centralization and
censorship
of
information, including
the
repression
of
protest
songwriters.
The
military regime
also subsidized the
spread
of television across the
whole national
territory
with the aim of
constructing
a consumer
public
for industrialized
goods.
20
ULH6A Musica rom3ntica in Montes Claros:
inter-gender
relations in Brazilian
popular song 21
instance. Sometimes we would be
playing
a
happy tune,
a fox
trot, for
instance. We
played
a lot of fox.
Cowboy
-
Tom Mix
-
we
played
fox.
For Charlie
Chaplin,
we
played happy
music: marches.
"Feniano,"
a
carnival march: we
adopted
this tune for comic movies. When Charlie
Chaplin
started
walking
with that cane of
his,
we
played
those fast
marches. When Tom Mix started
riding,
we
played
a
galope,
for
instance. We varied
[the tunes]
a lot. We were
following
the
movie;
we
didn't lose
track,
and when the action
changed,
we
changed
the music.
(Seu Ducho, interview
August 1989).
The musicians functioned as cultural brokers
(Coplan 1985:237), adapting
their
repertoire
and their
style
to
interpret
the
actions, moods and values
expressed
on the screen. The waltz was a musical
genre
that suited this
mediating process.
It was
already part
of the
serenading repertoire,
and in both
the moonlit streets and the silent
movies,
it was a
privileged
medium for the
expression
of sentiment.
Musical/cultural
meanings
are
acquired during
social activities related to
the culture
industry,
such as silent movies in old Montes Claros and television
soap operas
in modem Montes Claros. And music has functioned as a thread
which weaves
together
the social
fabric, especially
where
gender
relations are
concerned. Music has a
unifying
function. As I have said elsewhere
(Carvalho
1991:61),
in the movies and in the
soap operas,
it "works as a kind of
leitmotif,
because it refreshes the
memory
of the audience for the ethos of a
particular
kind of
situation," giving
it a narrative
quality.
Music is a
highly stylized
means of communication and therefore a suitable
medium for the
expression
of
feelings
that are hard to
express,
or which
may
even be taboo. For
young couples,
and
especially
for
young
women under strict
social
control, there was thrill attached to the
experience
of
synchronizing
movements in dances as
suggestive
as the
tango
and the waltz. There were not
very many places
and times where a middle-class
young
woman could
engage
in
courtship.
The boundaries
separating
a
"good" girl
from a "bad"
girl
were
very thin; middle-class women had to behave
carefully,
in order to ensure that
they
did not become the
targets
of malicious
gossip.
Since so
many public
spaces
were
prohibited
zones for
them, it was at
family parties
and
gatherings
that
they
had the
opportunity
for contact with men.
For some
women, religious
festivities were the
only opportunities
to have
any
contact at all with suitable bachelors. Other families were not so
strict,
allowing
their
single
women to
participate
also in
non-religious
social events.
Courtship
was much more
stylized
than it is
today,
and seasonal festivities were
good
occasions for
surreptitious
encounters. The Coronations of the
Virgin
Mary
-
in which
children, dressed as
angels, sang
traditional
songs,
while
offering
flower
petals
and a crown to a statue of
Mary
-
were safe occasions for
flirting.
Young
middle-class women flirted also in the
footing,
as Grac,a
explains
in
her memoirs
referring
to the 1940s:
BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.9/1 2000
The
well-spring
of romance in old Montes Claros was the
footing
on
Rua
Quinze,
a
city
centre street. Most
young men, who were old
enough
for
marriage, pursued
their studies in
bigger
centres and
therefore Rua
Quinze,
the site of the hotel that housed itinerant
salesmen,
was a
popular place
for
marriageable girls.
The
young
women strolled
along
the street while the men stood and talked
by
the
sidewalk,
all the while
observing.
After a while a man sent a note
asking
whether he could
join
the stroll.
(Graga 1986:25)
At the
footing, people
decided whether
they
would hold a dance, usually
in
the home of a relative of one of the
young
ladies. The men would collect
money
for the accordion
player.
The dances
usually
lasted until 10
p.m.
There was an
opportunity
for
bodily
contact while
dancing
waltzes and
tangos.
When dances
were held at houses with
pianos, they
were called saraus
(soirees),
because
they
were more formal and
had,
in addition to
music, poetry
recitations.
Saraus were more refined than other dance venues. An accordion would
suffice for a
simple
dance
party,
but 'nobler'
instruments,
such as a
piano
and a
flute,
were
required
for more
polished
events such as the saraus. The
pianists
were
usually
women educated at convents in Diamantina and Belo Horizonte.8
Dances,
saraus and the like were
very important
venues for romance and
courtship,
and in certain cases one of the few
opportunities
for middle-class
women to converse with men.
Radio
broadcasting
reached Montes Claros in
1944,
and the local middle
classes were
right up
to date with the latest hits and
programmes
broadcast
by
the National Radio.
According
to
Ruth, Fely
and
Cecy (interviewed
in
August
1989),
the
typical
calendar
year
for the local middle-class music fan consisted
of the
following:
1
November-February:
dedicated to
carnival; during
this
period people
learned the new carnival
songs
via the
radio;
2
February-June:
the National Radio featured sucessos
(hits),
with such
stars as Francisco Alves and Carlos Galhardo;
3 June: this was bonfire month; people
did not
pay
much attention to radio,
since there were numerous
festivities,
most of them with live accordion
music;
4
July-November:
attention turned back to the National Radio,
which
featured
programas
de audit6rio or live audience
participation
shows
with famous musicians of the time.
Except
for carnival music,
which was
mostly
made
up
at the time of
marches and faster
sambas,
the so-called
mid-year production
consisted of
slower and more
lyrical sambas,
the
samba-can?do. Samba-can?do
translates
literally
as
samba-song,
and it was
highly
influenced
by
the
bolero,
which
8 These are
larger
centres within the state of Minas
Gerais,
where middle-class
youngsters
were sent to be educated.
22
ULHOA Musica romantica in Montes Claros:
inter-gender
relations in Brazilian
popular song
dominated the record
industry
in Brazil after World War II. Like its
transnational
counterpart, samba-canqdo
is
highly
undulated in its melodic
contours and melodramatic in its
lyric content,
and in this
sense,
it is also
similar to the modinha.9
Lupicinio
Rodrigues
(1924-74),
the
composer
of
"Vingan9a"
(Revenge),
the
samba-canqdo
to be
analysed later,
stretched this melodramatic vein to its
limits. His
strategy
for
presenting
a
convincing
discourse included a sort of
open-hearted
confession of
personal
situations in a manner that could be
recognized
as sentimental, but nevertheless,
truthful.
According
to Luiz
Tatit,
a
Brazilian semiotician who has
analysed
the
compositional styles
of several
Brazilian
songwriters, "Lupicinio
was one of the most skilful and audacious
composers
of
passional
music: skilful for his
speed
in
constructing
a
convincing
discourse and audacious for
operating
in the
tangents
of false
sentiment, steadying
the textual excesses with the
melody" (1996:127).
In a
few sentences one learns not
only
about the
story
line
-
that the
protagonist's
lover has
betrayed
him with one of his own friends and that she
apparently
feels
remorse,
since she was found
"drinking"
and
wandering
-
but also about
the sentiments that
permeate
the
subject
-
revengeful joy,
shame and
contempt
-
which
ultimately
lead to a dreadful curse. The textual reiterations receive a
slightly
different
melody,
which
highlights
the emotional
intensity
of the
lyrics,
a
heightening
of
passional tensivity through frequency,
as Tatit would
have
put
it.
The National Radio maintained its lead in audience
ratings
in Montes
Claros until the
early 1960s,
when television came to the
city
and
gradually
took the
place
of radio as a source of entertainment. Television also
brought
new models of behaviour and
performance
made
specifically
for a new
emerging public,
the
youth. Among
the novelties was
jovem
guarda,
a
movement led
by
Roberto Carlos
(b. 1943).
New Montes Claros
With the onset of the
1960s,
the melodramatic
style
of samba-canQdo had
worn out, giving way
to bossa
nova,
which
privileged
a cooler and restrained
delivery
of
songs
with artistic and
literary
intentions. But this was not a
style
particularly
aimed at
youths.
However,jovem
guarda composers,
and
specially
Roberto Carlos, created a
space
for the
delivery
of
simple
and direct
songs
about
love,
in a
style
that was
up
to date with the new times and aesthetics. As
a
movement, jovem guarda
did not last
long,
but Roberto Carlos maintained
9 Because its function was more related to action, carnival music needed to be
composed
in
what Luiz Tatit
(1996:126)
has called the "to do" mode. Samba-canado, on the other hand,
was free from the festive mood that
permeated
carnival
song;
it could concentrate on other
modes of
expression, namely
the "to be" mode, in which emotional states could be
portrayed.
Songs
in the "to be" mode, dealing
with
passion
and
personal dramas, were
very popular
in
the 1940s and 1950s.
23
24 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.9/i 2000
his
popularity throughout
his successful career as the
"king"
of muisica
romdntica.
The main model for
jovem guarda's
Roberto Carlos was the
early Beatles,
especially
in the
strong emphasis
on
song
and soft vocal
style
he
employed.
It
is worth
citing
Sara Cohen's
description
of what would be later
recognized
as
the
Liverpool sound,
since it is also an
appropriate description
of
jovem
guarda:
... guitar and sometimes
keyboard based;
of medium/slow
tempo;
featuring
a
strong emphasis
on
song
and
melody
rather than
rhythm
and discord,
and a
relatively high-pitched
male vocal characterised
by
thin, reedy
or nasal tones...
(Cohen 1997:25)
The rock connections, especially
the use of the
guitar,
had a
modernizing
effect on Brazilian
popular
music in
general.
For the
"popular"
and mass-
oriented
segment,
it meant
modernity;
for the more restricted and
experimental
one it was a source of innovation. Following
bossa nova,
there was a
change
of
aesthetics. After the "electrification" of
popular
music with the introduction of
rock,
it was
possible
not
only
to break with tradition and
sing
about
anything,
including love,
without sentimentality,
as in the work of MPB artists such as
Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil,
but also to
sing,
once
again,
of love and
sentimentality
in a less
flamboyant
manner than the
samba-canqao,
the
strategy
employed by
Roberto Carlos.
The number of female rites of
passage
in Montes Claros which exerted
control over women's behaviour was
impressive.
From a
very young age,
a
little
girl
was faced with
public presentations
in which she learned her social
roles. The first of these was the Coronations of the
Virgin,
mentioned above. At
the
age
of fifteen,
the
teenager
was
presented
to
society
in
coming-out parties.
The debutante balls,
with several
girls being
"initiated" at the same time,
started
being
held in Montes Claros around 1956
(Lazinho, interview, September
1989).
In these balls,
the
high point
was a set of three waltzes that the
girl
danced with her father,
her brother and a sweetheart or a
friend, respectively.
The debutante balls were first held at the Clube Montes Claros and then
moved to the Automovel Clube when it was
inaugurated
in 1964. Music for
these balls and other
special "promotions"
at the Automovel Clube were
performed mostly by
outside bands. This move
away
from the use of music
performed by
locals also
represented
a shift in territorial influence from "lower"
to
"upper"
Montes Claros. There was not
only
an
increasing
number of
people
participating
in the social
gatherings,
but also the new club's
membership
was
more
heterogeneous.
The club in the "lower"
territory (Clube
Montes
Claros)
had a small number of members,
and
according
to social columnist Lazinho
Pimenta,
a
very
strict dress code and
equally
strict rules of
membership
admission.
The balls would
change
over time,
in the number of
girls participating
in
them and in the additional attractions programmed by
the club. From the late
ULH6A Musica romantica in Montes Claros: inter-gender relations in Brazilian popular song
1950s to the
early
1960s the
girls
who
participated
in the balls would also
parade
the next
day
for the audience of the 7
p.m.
session at the movie
theatre,
Cine
Fatima,
before the
screening began.
In the
1970s,
it was
customary
also to
bring
television
stars,
as
"attractions,"
to the balls. The debutante
teenagers
then
had the
opportunity
to meet their "dream" artists.
10
In the late 1950s
"glamour girl"
balls started
taking place.
In
these,
a
young
woman was selected from a
group
of contestants in their
early 20s,
for her
charm, education and flair in
public,
but these contests were not as
popular
as
the debutante balls had been in the
past.
In
general,
social
gatherings
in Montes
Claros were
being
decentralized with the
appearance
of new social clubs. In the
early 1960s, as I mentioned
above, clubes volantes
(wandering
clubs)
started
functioning.
As in the
past,
a
group
of
young
adults borrowed a
family
house
and threw a
party.
Lazinho mentioned that from 1960 to 1965 he knew of at
least four such
associations;
the clubs were called
"Gardenia", "Social
Figueira", "It",
and
"Oqui"; they
were made
up
of
people
who did not want to
pay
the
high membership
fees of the older
clubs,
and who
preferred
to come
together
in a less formal
way.
For all of these
occasions, teenagers
in Montes Claros danced to
jovem
guarda.
With the
dictatorship,
dances
gradually stopped,
and
courtship patterns
loosened,
as
young people began
to
gather
at bars and
pizzerias.
Music has
accompanied
and
helped
construct this
process
of modernization in
inter-gender
relations. We shall follow its
history
as we examine a few
examples
of musica
romdntica that were
especially popular
in Montes Claros.
Musica romantica in Montes Claros
The musica romdntica tradition in Montes Claros
began
in the first
quarter
of
the twentieth
century
with the
serestas, groups
of serenaders who
sang
and
played
in the moonlit streets. In old Montes
Claros,
men dressed in white linen
suits and Panama hats serenaded their beloveds well into the
night. They sang
modinhas and other love
songs, accompanied by groups
of instrumentalists who
usually played guitars, mandolin,
flute and violin
(Ducho,
interview
August
1989).
The modinha is considered folk music in Montes
Claros, although
several
modinhas have known
authorship.
A famous
example
is the 1860s
"Quem
sabe"
(Who
knows)
by
the
nineteenth-century composer
of
opera
in the Italian
style,
Carlos Gomes
(1836-6).
The
opening phrase,
'Tdo
longe,
de mim
distante"
(So
far
away,
distant from
me),
stresses the word
"longe" (far away),
and the
phrase
that follows it
develops
the
longing
for the beloved's
thoughts
("where
are
your thoughts
that seem so distant from
me?"),
as can be seen in
Figure 1, overleaf.
10 The
heyday
of the Coronations in Montes Claros
spanned
the 1930 and 1940s, and the
debutante balls were held from 1956 to
1982, when the last ball was held with
only
18
girls
(Lazinho, interview).
25
26 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.91i 2000
Tao
Ion-ge
de mim dis
-
tan-te
Figure
1 "Quem sabe" (Carlos Gomes)
In Montes Claros, many
modinhas were
composed
in the first two decades
of this
century.
The
story
of a
pact
made
by composer
Joao Chaves and his
serenading partners during
one of their numerous bohemian excursions is
legendary:
the first to die would be serenaded in the
cemetery by
his survivors.
The
group kept
the
promise
and Joao Chaves
composed
a modinha, "O bardo"
(The bard),
to serenade his deceased friend. 11
The most famous modinha to have been
composed by
a native of Montes
Claros is "Amo-te muito"
(I
love
you so), by
Joao Chaves
(1885-1970).
The
lyrics
(see below) compare
the
poet's feelings
for his beloved with nature; his love is as
inevitable as the waves that kiss the beaches or the bird that
sings
at dawn. The
similes build
up
an
image
of the
poet's feelings
that
increasingly intensify,
from the
tendemess of flowers
being
touched
by
dew to Christ's
passion.
Amo-te muito, como asflores amam
Ofrio
orvalho
que
o
infinito
chora...
Amo-te como o sabid
dapraia
Ama a
sanguinea
e deslumbrante aurora
Refrain:
Oh! Nao te
esquecas que
eu te amo assim!
Oh! Ndo te
esquecas
nunca mais de mim
Amo-te muito, como a onda a
praia,
E a
praia
a onda
que
a vem
beijar
Amo-te tanto como a branca
perola
Ama as entranhas do
infinito
mar...
Refrain...
Amo-te muito, como a brisa aos
campos
E o bardo a lua derramando luz
Amo-te tanto como amo o
gozo
E Cristo amou ardentemente a Cruz
Refrain...
11 This and other modinhas
sung by
serenaders in Montes Claros, including
the ones
mentioned
by Cyro
dos
Anjos,
can be found in Mauricio
(1976).
ULHOA Musica romantica in Montes Claros:
inter-gender relations in Brazilian popular song
I love
you
as much as the flowers love
The cold dew that
infinity weeps
I love
you
as much as the coastal thrush
Loves the blood-red
splendorous
dawn
Refrain:
Oh! Don't
forget
that I love
you
so!
Oh! Never
forget
me
I love
you
as much as the wave loves the beach
And the beach the wave that kisses it
I love
you
as much as the white
pearl
Loves the
depths
of the infinite sea
Refrain...
I love
you
as much as the wind loves the fields
And the bard loves the moon
overflowing
with
light
I love
you
as much as I love
pleasure
And Christ
passionately
loved the Cross12
Refrain...
The
melody
of "Amo-te
muito", especially
in the
verses, parallels
some of the
features of
"Quem
sabe". The first
part
of the verse in both modinhas forms a
period
of
eight
measures subdivided into two musical
phrases,
the first four
measures in the tonic and the second four in the
dominant, both
finishing
the
musical
period
with a
perfect
cadence. The melodic contour is
undulating
and
the melodic line is
chromatically
ornamented. The unaccented
turns,
appogiaturas
and mordents have a melodic function: their
expressive purpose
is
not
only
to
convey
the emotive content of the
piece,
but also to fulfil the
prosodic
characteristics of Brazilian
Portuguese.
For
instance, the first five
notes of "Amo-te muito"
emphasize
the word muito
(so much), expressing
not
only
the
intensity
of the sentiment but also the natural anacrustic
tendency
of
spoken Portuguese,
as can be seen in
Figure
2.
The word seresta
(serenade)
has two
meanings
in Brazil:
(1)
the actual
street
serenading,
and
(2) any
informal
group
of
singers accompanied by
A-mo
-
te mui-to co-mo_as flo
-
re a-mam
Figure
2 "Amo-te muito"
12 I do not recall ever
hearing
the third verse of this modinha.
Perhaps
the local
population
of
Montes Claros were shocked
by
the references to carnal
pleasures (gozo)
and
by
the idea of
the crucified Christ
loving
his
martyrdom.
27
BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.9/i 2000
guitars.
In Montes
Claros,
there still are three
organized
seresta
groups
who
usually perform
at activities related to civic clubs
(i.e. Rotary,
Lions and
Elos)
or at
anniversary parties
and events associated with
political campaigns.
The
second
meaning
of the term refers to
any group
of
people gathered
at
birthday
parties
or
any
other kind of reunion to
sing
"old" romantic
songs.
The
repertoire
for these
gatherings
is made
up predominantly
of the
songs
that were
popularized by
the National Radio from the 1930s to the 1950s. A
song
that has
been
frequently sung
at these informal serestas is
Lupicinio Rodrigues'
samba-
canqdo, "Vinganga",
of 1951.
Unlike "Amo-te muito",
in which the
poet
describes the nature and
intensity
of his
passion
for his
beloved, "Vingan9a"
is a
song
of
contemptuous jealousy
for
a lost lover. Both themes are
very
common in Brazilian
popular
music. In
"Vingan9a",
the author describes his
joy
when he hears that his ex-lover is
crying
and
drinking heavily
because she has realized her
loss; by then, however,
it is too late, since she has
already
"dishonoured" him. The woman in
Lupicinio's
song
"falls" because of her
infidelity
and her
subsequent drinking.
The author
wishes her banned from
society,
left to wander without a
place
to rest.
"Vinganga",
as performed by
Linda Batista
(1919-88): 78rpm
RCA 80-0802-A
(1951).
Reissued on
"Lupicinio Rodrigues", Colegao
nova hist6ria da musica popular
brasileira.
1976. Sao Paulo: Abril Cultural.
Eu
gostei
tanto
Tanto
quando
me contaram
Que
Ihe encontraram
Chorando e bebendo
Na mesa de um bar
E
que quando
os
amigos
do
peito
Por mim
perguntaram
Um
soluqo
cortou sua voz
Ndo Ihe
deixoufalar
Ai, mas eu
gostei
tanto
Tanto
quando
me contaram
Que
tive mesmo
quefazer esforqo
Pra
ninguem
notar
0 remorso talvez
seja
a causa do seu
desespero
Voce deve estar bem consciente do
que praticou
Me
fazer passar
essa
vergonha
com um
companheiro
E a
vergonha
e a
heranqa
maior
que
meu
pai
me deixou
Mas
enquanto houverforqa
em meu
peito
eu nao
quero
mais nada:
S6
vinganqa, vinganqa, vinganqa
aos santos clamar
Voce hai de rolar como as
pedras que
rolam na estrada
Sem ter nunca um cantinho de seu
pra poder
descansar
I liked it so much
So much when I was told
28
ULH6A Musica romantica in Montes Claros: inter-gender
relations in Brazilian popular song
That
you
were found
Crying
and
drinking
At a table in a bar
And when
my
buddies
Asked about me
A sob choked
your
voice
You couldn't
speak
Oh! but I
enjoyed
it so much
So much that when I was told
I had to make an effort
So
nobody
would notice
Remorse
might
be the cause of
your despair
You are
probably
aware of what
you
have done
To dishonour me with a friend
Honour
(shame)
is the most cherished inheritance left
by my
father
But while I have
any strength
that's all I want:
Revenge, revenge, revenge
to the saints I shout
You
ought
to roll like the
pebbles
that roll on the streets
Without ever
having
a
place
to rest
Although
the
song
was written from a male
point
of view, "Vingan9a"
was
recorded
by
a woman,
Linda Batista, re-invoking Cyro
dos
Anjos's
observation
that women can
accept
the male voice as their own.13 The
lyrics
reiterate the
romantic notion that a man faced with
unrequited
love turns to
drinking
and
wandering.
With
regard
to the musical characteristics of
"Vingan9a",
the
song
is a
samba-canqao,
that
is,
a
song
with a samba
feeling,
in which there is a drive
forward, away
from the first down-beat.
By slowing
the samba down in order to
accommodate the ornamented undulations of common Brazilian melodic
contours,
the
samba-can?do
became more suitable for
couple dancing,
and
therefore,
a musical
genre
suitable for
mediating gender
relations. Linda
Batista,
with her
poignant
vocal timbre and rubato
interpretation,
adds to the
intensity
of the
passionate
tone of the
piece.
As in the modinhas we examined,
the
undulating
melodic contour is
generally descendant, especially
in the second half of the
song. Furthermore,
the melodic articulation that
Lupicinio
uses is similar to that of the modinha
mentioned in relation to "Amo-te
muito,"
in that it also
begins phrases
with an
anacrusis. The
appogiatura
underlines the word tanto
(so
much),
highlighting
the sense of
pleasure
the author felt when he heard about his lost lover's
misfortunes. Linda Batista
emphasizes
this feature even more
by stretching
the
three first
syllables (notes)
and
delaying
the
fourth,
which is the
appogiatura
proper. (See Figure 3.)
13 She was one of the National Radio's
great
stars of the time, and
"Vinganca"
was her
biggest
success. The
song
was
performed
and recorded
by
several artists.
29
30 BBRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.9/i 2000
Eugos-tei
tan-to tan-to
quan-do
me fa
-
la-ram
Figure
3
"Vinganga"
The tradition of love
songs
of
contemptuous jealousy
as well as the
tradition of
serenading
the beloved maiden who listens inside the house
highlight important aspects
of
gender
relations in Brazil and in Latin America
in
general:
"machismo" and its female
counterpart
"marianismo". "Machismo"
refers to male
virility
and translates into
arrogance
and
intransigence.
"Marianismo" refers to the cult of the
Virgin Mary:
like
Mary,
the ideal
Brazilian woman should have
spiritual strength
and moral
superiority;
she is to
be venerated for her
position
as
mother;
and she has to submit to men;
moreover,
like the
Virgin,
she must be
"pure".
Machismo is the
personification
of male
authority
in the Brazilian
patriarchal
tradition. In
"Vingan;a", Lupicinio Rodrigues
voices the
preoccupation
of the
Brazilian "macho", who has to maintain a
persona
of control and domination. In
this rationale, it is a matter of
pride
for a man to show his
power
as a seducer,
but a matter of shame if his
partner
leaves him for another man. The ideal
woman within the "macho" discourse submits to the demands of men and has
an infinite
capacity
for
self-abnegation
and sacrifice.14 These features seem to
be
projected
in the
songs
that have been examined so far.
Let us now observe how
gender
relations are dealt with in a
typical
example
of musica romdntica from the
1970s,
when Brazilian
society
was
undergoing
a "modernization"
process.
According
to an enthusiast I
interviewed,
the
song
"Detalhes"
(Details), by
Roberto Carlos and Erasmo
Carlos, epitomizes
mzusica romdntica. Like
"Vinganga",
this
song
is also about a romance that has ended. The
singer
claims
he is
sorry
for
having
lost the
girl
and wishes that the small
everyday things
that
were common to their life
together
continue to remind her of him. He also
hopes
that she realizes how much he loved her.
14 Marianismo, as Stevens
(1973) phrases it,
is the other face of machismo in Latin America.
Although
men have
political authority,
women have
mystical power.
In other
terms,
even
though
women were restricted to the domestic
domain, they
could benefit from their
position
of
semi-divinity
to control men
emotionally. According
to this
interpretation,
women
fulfilled the roles of
"big
mamas" for their
"naughty" boys. They
should act as mother
figures
and treat men as
big
children who have to be humoured.
ULH6A Musica romantica in Montes Claros: inter-gender
relations in Brazilian popular song 31
"Detalhes" by
Roberto Carlos and Erasmo Carlos. Performed
by
Roberto Carlos. CBS
137745(1971)
Ndo adianta nem tentar me
esquecer
Durante muito
tempo
em sua vida eu vou viver
Detalhes tdo
pequenos
de nos dois
Sao coisas muito
grandes prd esquecer
E a toda hora vdo estar
presentes,
voce vai ver
Se um outro cabeludo
aparecer
na sua rua
E isto Ihe trouxer saudades minhas a
culpa
e sua
0 ronco barulhento do seu carro
A velha
calqa
desbotada, ou coisa assim
Imediatamente voce vai lembrar de mim
Eu sei
que
um outro deve
estarfalando
ao seu ouvido
Palavras de amor como
eufalei,
mas eu duvido
Duvido
que
ele tenha tanto amor
E ate os erros do meu
portugues
ruim
E nessa hora voce vai lembrar de mim
A noite envolvida no silencio do seu
quarto
Antes de dormir voce
procura
o meu retrato
Mas na moldura ndo sou eu
quem
Ihe sorri
Mas voce ve o meu sorriso mesmo assim
E tudo isso
vaifazer
voce lembrar de mim
Se
alguem
tocar seu
corpo
como eu nao
diga
nada
Nao va dizer meu nome sem
querer
a
pessoa
errada
Pensando ter amor nesse momento
desesperada
voce tenta ate
ofim
E ate nesse momento voce vai lembrar de mim
Eu sei
que
esses detalhes vao sumir na
longa
estrada
0
tempo que transforma tudo, amor, em
quase
nada
Mas
quase
tambem ha mais um detalhe:
Um
grande
amor nao vai morrer assim
Por isso de vez em
quando
voce vai, vai lembrar de mim
Nao adianta nem tentar me
esquecer
Durante muito, muito
tempo
em sua vida eu vou viver
Nao, nao adianta nem tentar me
esquecer
Fade...
It's useless to even
try
to
forget
me
I will live in
your
life for a
long
time
The
tiny
details that
belonged
to the two of us
Are too
big
to
forget
They
will
always
be
present, you
will see
BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.9/i
If another
long-haired
man
appears
on
your
street
And this makes
you
miss
me, it's
your
fault.
The
noisy
sound of his car
Or his faded
jeans,
or
something
like that
Immediately, you
will remember me
I know
somebody
else must be
whispering
in
your
ear
Words of love like the ones I
spoke,
but I doubt
I doubt he has as much love
And even the mistakes of
my
bad
Portuguese
And then
you
will remember me
At
night enveloped
in the silence of
your
room
Before
falling asleep you
look for
my picture
But in the frame it's not I who smiles at
you
But even so
you
see
my
smile
And all that will make
you
remember me
If someone touches
you
like I
did, don't
say anything
Don't
say my
name to the
wrong person
Thinking you
are in
love, desperately you try
till the end
And even then
you
will remember me
I know that these details will vanish in the
long
run
Time that transforms
everything, my love, into almost
nothing
But there is also another detail:
A
great
love will not die
just
like that
So once in a while
you will, you
will remember me
No, it's useless to
try
to
forget
me
For a
long, long
time in
your
life I will live
No,
it's useless to
try
to
forget
me
Fade...
Although
there is resentment on the
part
of the
rejected male,
in
"Detalhes,"
he neither deifies the
beloved,
as in "Amo-te
muito",
nor
denigrates her,
as in
"Vingan9a".
In the
previous examples,
the woman was
kept
at a
distance;
in
"Detalhes" she is
brought
closer to the
subject. Furthermore,
Roberto
Carlos's more direct tone is enhanced
by
musical
gestures.
The
melody
is
declamatory
with an
economy
of notes and an insistence
by
means of shakes
on certain tonal
degrees.
These musical features
give
the
song
a
conversational
quality,
unlike the
lyrical
-
but
distancing
-
features of the
modinha. The
speech-like
and terraced
melody
of "Detalhes" does not allow
for a
build-up
of tensions in the
song.
As shown in
Figure 4, except
for a
rapid emphasis
with a
skip
in the word
"esquecer" (forget),
Roberto Carlos
maintains the level of
passion
in his
song quite
low
key.
It is worth
32 2000
ULHOA Musica romantica in Montes Claros: inter-gender relations in Brazilian popular song
comparing
this with
Figures 1,
2 and
3,
which
emphasize particular
words
by
clearly articulating
them in
metrically strong positions.15
Nao a-di-an-ta nem ten-tar me
es-que-cer
Figure
4 "Detalhes"
Roberto Carlos's nasal vocal timbre is
usually soft, sometimes with a
breathy,
sometimes with a
pleading quality.
His vocal
style
enhances his tone of
romantic
sincerity
and
vulnerability.
He uses
very
little vocal
ornamentation,
except
for occasional vibrato.
Economy
of means also
apply
to his
compositional style.
He often uses an AAB
pattern,
both in
rhyme
schemes and
melodic
designs. Frequently,
a small melodic
fragment
is
repeated,
or two short
fragments
are
sung
in
succession,
and these
paired fragments
are followed
by
a
longer
melodic
phrase completing
the musical
period.
In
spite
of the
frequent
repetitions,
he achieves
variety by gradually adding
instruments to the
orchestration, quoting
music from older
pieces
when
key
words are mentioned
in the
song, and, frequently, by modulating by ascending conjunct degrees.
The
internal
repetitions
in each
song
and the maintenance of the same format for so
many years actually
add to the narrative
quality
of Carlos's
style.
In
fact,
the
ways
in which
"lyricism"
or
"narrativity"
are used in muisica
romdntica can either increase or decrease the distance between the
poetic
voice
and the
object
of desire.
Contemplative songs,
like
modinhas,
tend to talk about
the beloved in an idealized and
distancing way. Musically,
this is achieved
through
undulated melodic contours and
chromaticism,
in addition to the
lyrical
content.
Songs
in a narrative
style,
such as
"Detalhes", speak
more
directly
to
their
listeners, creating
an
atmosphere
of
intimacy
like that of a face-to-face
conversation.
The
language
in Roberto Carlos's
songs
often describes
everyday
romantic
situations
(i.e.
a
pass,
the
anticipation
of future
love-making, self-pity
or
jealousy).
Women in his
songs
are either
eagerly awaiting
the
poet's
return
home, or,
if the romance has
ended, they
are remembered for the
good
times.
Women are never treated
contemptuously
in Roberto Carlos's
songs
as
they
are
in
"Vinganga"
and other classics of the samba-can9ao
repertoire.
There
are,
therefore, significant
differences of tone in the
ways
women are
portrayed
in
traditional and modern muisica romdntica.
15 The tradition of
highlighting key
words with some sort of musical
emphasis
in western
music
goes
back at least to the
emergence
of Italian
opera
in the
early
seventeenth
century.
In
his seconda
pratica,
Monteverdi used dissonances
(as
in Orfeo's aria "Tu se
morta")
or
music
density (as
in "Tancredi i
Clorinda")
to
convey
affect.
33
BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETH NOM U SIC OLOGY VOL.9/i 2000
Musica romantica and
inter-gender
relations
Like Latin American melodramatic
cinematography,
mutsica romdntica acts out
what lies at the core of western
society: patriarchal
values. Women and men
alike must be
taught
how to
behave, and
experimention
with ritualized forms
that invoke these values can be both cathartic and instructive. After
all, the
viewers know
exactly
how melodramatic films will
end, and there are no
surprises
in the sounds and
development
of love
songs; yet people go
time and
time
again
to see such
films, just
as
they
listen over and over
again
to their
favourite love
songs,
often
singing along
with them.16
Silvia Oroz
(1992),
who has conducted
in-depth
research into Latin
American
melodrama, claims
that,
in addition to
patriarchal values, melodramas
place
women in inferior roles
by invoking
Judaic-Christian
conceptions
of sin
and
guilt.
In this
context, romantic love is
represented
as the universal
panacea,
not
only
for
gender inequality,
but also for social and ethnic
inequality.
This
Judaic-Christian role for love
helps give meaning
to the
mediocrity
of
ordinary
everyday life, making people
feel somehow heroic
(Oroz 1992:49). Through
social sanctions and
tradition, the
patriarchal system places
women in the
sphere
of the
private
and the
sentimental,
men
being
seen as
public
and rational
figures (Oroz
1992:59).
By relegating
to women an inferior
status,
like all
repressed beings, they
also become
potentially dangerous,
and the melodrama
strives to both domesticate and invoke these
dangers.
The
"mother",
the "sister"
and the "wife" constitute "inferior"
-
but domesticated
-
prototypes
of female
roles;
the "bad" woman and/or
prostitute,
on the other
hand,
are
inherently
"dangerous";
the "beloved" can be either "inferior" or
"dangerous",
or both
(Oroz 1992:60).17
The musical
examples
of mu'sica romdntica viewed here that conform to the
melodramatic model
are,
no doubt "Amo-te muito" and
"Vingan9a":
the first
enshrines the beloved and the second
disparages
the ex-lover. In "Amo-te muito"
the
poet
cannot
help
but love his
goddess,
since his love is not
only
natural
(as
inevitable as the waves that kiss the
beach),
but also
mystic (as
heroic as Christ's
love for the
cross). Through metaphor,
the
song
invokes the
pleasures
of
physical
contact: it describes the touch of wind and
light;
it
speaks
of
kisses;
and it refers
to the
depths
of the sea and the
pearl lying languidly
within it. The
poet
then
retreats to
speak
of the winds in the fields and the
light
of the
moon,
before
culminating
with an almost
explicit expression
of
desire, proclaiming
a love of
16 In Brazil one can read in advance what will
happen
in the
prime
time television
soap
operas,
but this does not seem to affect audience
ratings.
17 The
origins
of melodrama
("Melos" meaning
sound in motion and 'drama" the
plot
development)
are the Camerata Fiorentina's
experiments
with their idea of Greek drama.
Their aim at
moving passion
and concentration in individual dramatic
story
lines was
maintained
alongside
its
history.
When
opera
became more stable as a
genre,
melodrama
began
to
disappear
until the latter
quarter
of the
eighteenth century,
when it became a serious
type
of
"Vaudeville", including
the intercalation of
songs.
The
plots
are conservative and
have moral
purposes.
Melodrama functions like a
"popularized tragedy" (Oroz 1992:18-31).
34
ULH6A Musica romntica in Montes Claros:
inter-gender relations in Brazilian
popular song
pleasure (in fact, "gozo"
could be
literally
translated as
"orgasm")
as
passionate
-
but also as sacred
-
as Christ's ardent love for the cross.
"Vinganca",
on the other
hand, portrays
the
prototype
of the bad woman.
She is
denigrated
and
disqualified
because she left the
poet
for another
man,
which is inadmissible in
patriarchal
mores; the man is the one who can come
and
go, pick
and choose. There is bitterness and extreme resentment in the
lyric
content of
"Vinganca".
Linda Batista's rendition of the
song
is
quite
flamboyant.
The introduction is
extensive,
and there is much
improvisation,
following
trends common to
arrangements
of the 1940s and 1950s. The samba
pattern
is slowed down and transformed
by
the bolero beat. The
singer
delivers
the
song
in a dramatic
vein, emphasizing
the words that
convey
the
quality
of
the emotions the
song
invokes. Her
poignant
vocal timbre has a
piercing
quality,
which adds a certain
degree
of violence and tension to the
song.18
The
voice is at the centre of the
arrangement,
and it is surrounded
by cascading
and
twirling
violin and
piano arpeggios, taking
the listener into a world of
pure
melodrama.
"Detalhes",
as
performed by
Roberto
Carlos, takes a different
approach.
The short introduction starts with a broken chord
by
the flutes. The
strophic
song begins
with a subdued vocal solo which has a
whispering
and almost
pleading quality. Although
the vocal
style
is
soft,
the voice stands at the front of
the
arrangement.
Just before Roberto Carlos
sings
the word "details" for the
first
time, a
glockenspiel signals
the wishful intent of the
song:
that the
girlfriend
should not
forget
their time
together.
As the
song progresses,
the
voice
gradually
blends
-
and almost fades
-
into the
accompaniment,
which
builds
up
in
density,
with the
strings playing
counter-melodies of
long
notes in
conjunct
motion; and at the
end, the voice returns to the forefront.
Hostility
is absent in
"Detalhes", as the
poet,
with wishful
longing,
addresses his
ex-girlfriend.
He is
nostalgic
and he declares his
expectation
that
she will remember the small routine details of their love
life, and he
hopes
that
her new
boyfriend
will remind her of him. But even
though
the
song
is
sentimental,
it is not melodramatic. The narrator is aware that their love will
eventually fade,
but he
hopes
that
they
will be reminded of one another from
time to time.
With the
emergence
of
jovem guarda,
musica romdntica continued to be
romantic, but it lost the melodramatic character of earlier
styles.
Roberto
Carlos, however,
does
operate
within traditional Brazilian moral values when
he
composes songs
with
explicitly
Christian
themes, such as "Jesus Cristo"
(1970)
or "Nossa Senhora"
(Our Lady) (1993),
or even when he refers to
popular proletarian figures,
as in "Camioneiro"
(Lorry driver) (1984).
His
songs
which deal with romance
range
from the
depictions
of
teenage
flirtations of the
jovem
guarda years
to the ballads directed at a mature adult audience further on
in his career.
Although
his
portrayals
of romance seem to
challenge
traditional
18 I thank
Philip Tagg
for this observation on how Linda Batista's rendition is in itself a
"paraverbal" analogue
to the
subject matter.
35
36 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETH NOM U SICOLOGY VOL.9/i 2000
notions of
patriarchy
and
machismo, inter-gender
relations are
only
superficially
modernized in his romantic
songs.
In Music as social text, John
Shepherd
(1991)
devoted a
chapter
to music
and male
hegemony
which raises issues of relevance to the
understanding
of
musica romantica.
Shepherd
claims that in the modem industrial world, focus is
placed upon
the visual and the
public,
and the main
strategy employed
to
sustain male
hegemony
is the
emphasis
on vision as the sole
legitimate
and
preponderant
means of
relating
to the world: "vision, smooth and
silent,
stresses
separation
at a distance"
(Shepherd 1991:159). Thus, Shepherd contends,
men
exert
power by isolating
and
objectifying
women.
One could
argue
that the first two
examples
of mu'sica romantica
operate
in
accordance with the visual
model;
the
lyrics speak
of iconic
representations
of
women, distant and idealized in the case of "Amo-te muito", and
rejected
and
despised
in
"Vinganga". Musically
the
songs emphasize
the melodic
contours,
carrying signification
not to the arena of actual relations, but to the domain of
(public) staged "performance":
either in the realm of the serenade to be heard in
the moonlit
atmosphere
or in the realm of the bar or the social
gathering,
where
it is
dramatically
acted out. Linda Batista
only
reiterates the male role
by
first
referring
to a "female other" and
secondly by emphasizing,
in her
interpretation,
the
lyric
content of the
song:
the
protaganist's delight
that his
former lover is
paying
the
price
for her
betrayal.
Both
songs
have had
recordings
that
highlight
the
nostalgic
and the melodramatic.
In "Detalhes" there is a more subtle
approach, especially
in Roberto
Carlos's choice of a less
poignant
rhetoric. But this
approach
is not without its
own
"dangers".
In his
rendition,
Roberto Carlos
displays
an
apparent
vulnerability,
a
"naturalness",
which is related to his use of a
colloquial
intonation in his
singing,
not
only
in his relaxed and soft vocal
style,
but also in
his use of intervals that are almost
speech-like;
he seems to be
talking
to a
person
who is
very
close to
him,
not of someone who is outside the discourse of
the
song. Furthermore,
in his choice of
pronouns
and
vocatives,
he
speaks
of
and to
"you",
and not of a distant "other".19 This is the
language
of the intimate
(female)
domestic
sphere,
not that of the
flamboyant, performative, public
domain.
Despite
their distinct
strategies,
all three
songs
are rendered from male
perspectives.
The first has a
lyrical,
sentimental and
nostalgic quality
of
sentiment, evoking
a mother
figure,
the idealized muse. The second is
melodramatic;
it
proclaims
the
public punishment
for
breaking
the dominant
patriarchal
rule. The third is
colloquial
and
intimate,
a return to the
objectification
of the
private,
where women continue to have no voice.
19 For this discussion I am indebted to observations made
by ethnomusicology
students at
Queen's University
Belfast
during
a seminar
presentation
I
gave
there on 11
February
1998.
ULHOA Musica romantica in Montes Claros:
inter-gender
relations in Brazilian
popular song
Conclusion
The construction of
gender
in
popular
music is often
quite complex, especially
in the
strategies
it
employs
to
reproduce
relations of
power
and domination. In
heavy metal,
for instance,
there is no need for overt violence towards women,
because more subtle mechanisms,
such as male
victimization,
exclusion of
women and
androgyny
reproduce
and
adapt patriarchy
to modem times
(Walser
1993).
In
heavy
metal women are
presented
either as a
powerful
threat
against
whom men endure a "frantic but futile
struggle" (Walser 1993:118)
or
they
are
altogether
excluded from the all-male and
public
world. Even the
signs
of their
"threatening" power,
"the elements of
appearance
that have been associated
with women's function as
objects
of the male
gaze",
are
appropriated through
androgyny (Walser 1993:124).
In musica romantica,
male victimization has been the main
strategy
for the
enactment of male domination. In traditional forms of mutsica
romdntica,
like
the
serenading repertoire
and the
samba-canqao
of the 1940s and
1950s,
women are idealized
-
but unreachable
-
or feared as
dangerous
and unreliable.
In modem mu'sica romdntica,
as
exemplified by
Roberto
Carlos,
victimization
is
portrayed
in subtle
ways:
vocal timbres are soft and
pleading;
the
lyrics
invoke the small
-
but
significant
-
details of
everyday life; the
singer
invites
sympathy by referring
to his
disadvantaged
class
background (his
bad
Portuguese).
But the
underlying
context
through
which the
singer
invokes the
sympathies
of the listener is
premised
on
patriarchal
orientations toward inter-
gender relations; though
the man must enter the domestic
sphere
to
engage
in a
romance,
the
public sphere
is
preserved
as a male domain: the woman waits for
the man to come home
(signalled by
the sound of a car in the
street);
her
solitude is
experienced
in the silence of her bedroom
(as
she looks at his
photograph);
and she is to
belong exclusively
to one man
("don't say my
name
to the
wrong person").
It
may
seem
inappropriate
to relate
heavy metal,
with its thick texture,
loudness and overt
display
of
masculinity,
to muisica
romdntica,
which is
smooth,
soft and
clearly
sentimental in its
representation
of romance and love
relations. Yet, despite
their different
languages,
both
genres "reproduce
rather
directly
the
hegemonic
strategies
of control and
repression
of women that
permeate
Western culture"
(Walser 1993:118).
As in
heavy metal,
the voice in
musica romdntica is a male
voice;
women are excluded as
speaking subjects;
they
are told what to feel and how to behave. Female fans in metal are invited to
identify
with an
image
of
mystery
and
danger,
while female fans of mutsica
romdntica are instructed to be
dependent upon
a man who comes and
goes
according
to his own
will,
and the
punishment
for
refusing
these conditions is
social
degradation
and solitude. The
only way
that women can turn "the
cry
of
the miserable lover into a
weapon"
is
by using
the male voice to remind men of
the
powerful
threat women
pose
to them, thereby revealing
their
vulnerability.
But in
doing so,
the
sympathies they
elicit favour
men,
the vulnerable victims of
the
objects
of their
gaze. Thus,
this is a
power struggle
whose terms men
37
BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.9/i 2000
control, greatly limiting
the
options through
which women can maintain their
respectability.
While
patriarchal
values
permeate
the whole of the western world,
in mid-
sized
provincial
Brazilian towns such as Montes Claros,
where
anonymity
is
limited,
the control of women's behaviour and
especially
their
sexuality
within
the middle-class sectors is of critical concern to the
preservation
of the
patriarchal system. Though
in old Montes Claros women were rather more
closely
monitored than
they
are
today,
women are still
responsible
for
safeguarding
the moral integrity of their families. The
slightest slip,
conscious
or unconscious,
can
quickly get
the
gossiping tongues wagging, tarnishing
not
only
the
reputation
of the woman involved,
but
crucially
also that of her
menfolk. Thus,
it is
through
their control of women that men define their status
as
respectable, upstanding
members of the
community.
Not
surprisingly,
women are central
figures
in the demarcation of local class distinctions,
in that
they
have been the
principle protagonists
in
many
of the events in which class
differences are
publicly enacted,
such as Coronations of the
Virgin Mary
and
debutante and
"glamour girl"
balls. In such contexts,
musica romdntica has
played
a central role in
providing
models for
inter-gender
relations which are in
harmony
with the
patriarchal system.
But musica romdntica conceals its aims
by heralding
romantic love as an
escape
from the humdrum
mediocrity
of
everyday life, demarcating
a
space
for
fantasy
and intense emotional
experience.
Meaning, however,
is
always complex
and
flickering.
Just as
popular
romantic
songs
construct idealized notions of
gender relations, they
also
construct notions
(again idealized)
of
femininity
and
masculinity.
No doubt
Roberto Carlos has
changed
the tone of muisica romdntica and however much
his
approach may
reinforce
patriarchal values,
he has also
forged
new
alternatives in the
representation
of
masculinity. Again
we can turn to Sara
Cohen,
when she talks about the
Liverpool sound,
which
suggests
"a
masculinity
that is rather
soft,
vulnerable and less macho, aggressive
and
assertive,
less
threatening
or
explicit
... The
lyrics convey
a similar
impression,
covering
a broad
range
of themes and issues but
suggesting
a
fragile
masculinity
-
men who are
lost,
confused and
betrayed" (Cohen 1997:29).
Even
though
Roberto Carlos
may
be
projecting
notions of
gender
dependency,
he is also
forging
a modem model for the Brazilian lover,
not
macho but also not
quite
sure of where to
go
and how to act. While his vocal
timbre invokes
sympathy by portraying
male victimization,
it also evinces a
sense of
insecurity
with
regard
to the construction of a modem
masculinity,
as
the clear-cut boundaries
defining
men's and women's
spaces
become more
blurred. This
might
be an invitation to
experiment
with new
possibilities
...
38
ULH6A Musica romantica in Montes Claros:
inter-gender
relations in Brazilian
popular song
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Note on the author
Martha
Tupinamba
de Ulhoa
(formerly Carvalho)
is Professor at the Instituto
Villa-Lobos of the
University
of Rio de Janeiro. She holds an M.F.A.
degree
in
Piano Performance from the
University
of Florida and a PhD in
musicology
39
40 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.9/1i 2000
from Cornell
University.
She serves on a number of research boards and
committees, including
the Brazilian National Research
Council,
the Latin
American IASPM and the Brazilian Association for Research and Graduate
Studies in
Music,
and she was
recently
based at the Institute of
Popular
Music
at the
University
of
Liverpool,
where she held a
post-doctoral fellowship.
She
has
published widely
on various
aspects
of Brazilian
music,
both in Brazil and
abroad. Her current research centres on semiotic musical
analysis
of
popular
Brazilian
song.
E-mail:
mulhoa@cyberhome.com.br.