Pixinguinha
Music List
Publications
Composer Essay
Selected Works
References
Born Alfredo da Rocha Viana Filho in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 23, 1897; died in Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, February 17, 1973.
Education: Rio de Janeiro, educated in the school of Prof. Bernardes and the Liceu Santa Teresa, beginning ca. 1906; Mosteiro de São Bento, secondary school studies; studied music with César Borges Leitão, ca. 1910; learned to play cavaquinho from his brother Henrique and musicians who frequented the family’s house; began the study of flute with his father and Irineu de Almeida, ca. 1911; Instituto Nacional de Música, Rio de Janeiro, one semester, 1933.
Composing and Performing Career: First recordings with the group Pessoal de Bloco for the Casa de Faulhaber label, 1910–11; began to play in local bars and clubs with the carnival group Filhas da Jardineira, 1911; first composition, “Lata de leite,” 1911; directed a wing of the carnival group Paladinos Japoneses, 1912; first professional engagement, playing in the orchestra of pianist Pádua Machado, 1912; joined the orchestra of the Cine-Teatro Rio Branco, 1913; Grupo de Caxangá, bandmember and principal composer, beginning 1914; Oito Batutas, formed and directed, 1919, toured in Brazil, 1920, toured in Paris and Argentina, 1922; Victor Talking Machine Company of Brazil, musician and arranger, beginning 1929; Grupo da Velha Guarda, founder and leader, beginning 1931; Orquesta Columbia, director and arranger, beginning 1933; Rio de Janeiro, directed and performed with various radio orchestras, beginning ca. 1933; recorded for Leopold Stokowski, 1940; switched principal instrument from flute to tenor saxophone, 1946; São Paulo, Festival da Velha Guarda (Festival of the Old Guard), returned to prominence after several years of inactivity, 1954; composed his first film soundtrack, Sol sobre a lama, 1962.
Teaching Career: Rio de Janeiro, Colégio João Alberto, ca. 1949–66; Escola Vicente Licínio Cardoso, ca. 1949–66; Serviço da Educação Musical e Artística, teacher of music and choral song, 1952–66.
Honors/Awards: Rio de Janeiro, named a public functionary, 1933; Rio de Janeiro, honorary street name, Rua Pixinguinha, 1956; Clube de Jazz e Bossa, Ordem da Bossa, 1967; Ministro do Trabalho (Ministry of Labor), Ordem do Mérito do Trabalho, 1967; honored on the occasion of his 70th birthday by the Legislative Assembly, the Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro, and the Museum of Images and Sound, 1968; Porto Alegre, keys to the city, 1969; Universidade de Brasília, selected as speaker for first commencement ceremonies (unable to attend for health reasons), 1971.
Music List
[The following list of titles includes only works that were composed by the subject of the entry; it is not a list of recordings that were made by the subject. Although the composer may have made recordings of his own works, the list is not restricted to those recordings but in many cases includes performances by other artists of the composer’s work. The list is made up of publication and discographical data, in cases where such information available. Although no effort has been made to include documentation of the earliest recording of the works listed, the date of the earliest recording that is readily available has been given. —Ed.]
“Acerte o passo” (choro). 1951. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda.
“Agüenta, seu Fulgêncio” (choro). 1930.
“Ai, eu queria” (samba). 1927. Co-composer, Vidraça.
“Ainda existe” (choro). 1927.
“Ainda me recordo” (choro). 1932. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: Camargas RC 001; Concord Picante CJP-389-C; RCA Camden CALB 5041.
“Amigo do povo” (choro). 1928.
“Assim é que é” (polca). 1957.
“Os Batutas.” 1957. Co-composer, Duque.
“Baia” (samba). Recorded: Concord Picante CJP-389-C.
“Benguelê” (lundu africano). 1946.
“Bianca” (valsa). 1946. Co-composer, Andreoni.
“Buquê de flores” (marcha-rancho). 1968. Co-composer, W. Falcão.
“Cafezal em flor” (canção). 1930. Co-composer, Eugênio Fonseca.
“Caixa alta.” Recorded: Discos Marcus Pereira CDM-0031.
“Carinhoso” (samba). 1937. San Francisco: Guitar Solo, 1987. Co-composer, João de Barro.
“Carinhoso” (samba-choro). 1916–17. New York: Robbins, n.d. Co-composers, Berrios Pedro, Braga Carlos. Recorded, 1928: Camargas RC 001; Discos Marcus Pereira MP-10056; Fono Schallplatten
FCD 97725; FUNARTE PA 82002.
“Carnaval tá aí” (marcha). 1931. Co-composer, Josué de Barros.
“Casado na orgia” (samba). 1933. Co-composer, João de Baiana.
“Casamento do coronel Cristino” (polca-choro). 1930.
“Um caso perdido” (samba). 1930.
“Céu do Brasil” (marcha-rancho). 1940. Co-composer, Gomes Filho.
“Chegui” (choro). 1946. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: Camargas RC 001.
“Chorando sempre.” Recorded: Camargas RC 001.
“Chorei” (choro). 1942. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda.
“Um chorinho no parque São Jorge” (choro). 1958. Co-composer, Salgado Filho.
“Os Cinco companheiros” (choro). 1942.
“Cochichando” (choro). 1944. Co-composers, João de Barro, Alberto Ribeiro. Recorded: Pro Arte Digital PAD-1191; Pro Arte PCD 353; Rhino R270563.
“Conversa de crioulo” (samba de partido-alto). 1932. Co-composers, Donga, João de Baiana.
“Cuidado, colega” (choro). 1948. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda.
“Dança dos ursos” (samba). 1930.
“Dando topada” (maxixe-polca). 1957.
“Descendo a serra” (choro). 1947. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: Camargas RC 001.
“Desencanto.” Recorded: Discos Marcus Pereira CDM-0031.
“Desprezado” (maxixe). 1929.
“Devagar e sempre” (choro). 1949. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: FUNARTE PA 82002; RCA Camden CALB 5041.
“Didi.” Recorded: Concord Picante CJP-389C.
“Dininha” (valsa). 1948. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda.
“Diplomata.” Recorded: Discos Marcus Pereira CDM-0031.
“Displicente” (choro). 1948. Recorded: RCA V100.053; RCA Camden CALB 5041.
“Dominante” (tango). 1948.
“Ele e eu” (polca-choro). 1947. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: Camargas RC 001.
“Encantadora” (valsa). 1928.
“Escorregando.” Recorded: Concord Picante CJP-389-C.
“Estou voltando” (choro). 1932. Recorded: RCA V100.053.
“Eu sou gozado assim” (samba). 1931.
“Fala baixinho” (choro). 1964. Co-composer, Hermínio Belo de Carvalho.
“Festa de branco” (samba). 1927. Co-composer, João de Baiano.
“Uma Festa de Nanã” (lundu africano). 1941. Co-composer, Gastão Viana.
“Foi muamba” (samba carnavalesco). 1930. Co-composer, Indio.
“Fonte abandonada” (canção). 1930. Co-composer, Indio.
“Fraternidad” (tango). 1928.
“Gavião calçudo” (samba). 1929.
“Gloria” (valsa). 1934. Recorded: Discos Marcus Pereira MP-10056.
“Guiomar” (marcha). 1929. Co-composer, Boão da Baiano.
“Ha! hu! lá! ho!” (samba de partido-alto). 1931. Co-composers, Donga, João da Baiana.
“Harmonia das flores” (choro). 1964. Co-composer, Hermínio Belo de Carvalho.
“Os homens implica comigo” (samba). 1931. Co-composer, Carmen Miranda.
“Infantíl” (choro). 1927.
“Ingênuo” (choro). 1947. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: Camargas RC 001; Discos Marcus Pereira MP-10056; FUNARTE PA 82002; RCA CDM 10129.
“Inspiração.” Recorded: Discos Marcus Pereira CDM-0031.
“Iolanda” (valsa). 1935.
“Isso é que é viver” (choro). 1964. Co-composer, Hermínio Belo de Carvalho.
“Isto não se faz” (choro). 1964. Co-composer, Hermínio Belo de Carvalho.
“Já andei” (batucada). 1932. Co-composers, Donga, João da Baiana.
“Já te digo” (samba). 1919. Co-composer, Otávio Viana. Recorded: Ubatuqui UBCD-20003.
“Jardim de Ilara” (canção). 1919. Co-composer, C. M. Costa.
“Knock-out, Fox-trot.” 1919.
“Lá-ré” (polca). 1923–25.
“Lamento” (choro). 1962. Co-composer, Vinicius de Morais. Recorded: Barclay XBLY 80385; Camargos RC 001; Discos Marcus Pereira MP-10056.
“Lamentos” (choro). 1928. São Paulo, Brasil: Irmaos Vitale, 1981.
“Lata de leite.” 1911.
“Leonor” (samba). 1930.
“Levante, meu nego” (maxixe). 1932.
“Love Is Like This.” Santa Barbara, Calif.: Ipanema Music, n.d. Co-composers, Gilberto Ray, Berrios Pedro, Braga Carlos.
“Lusitânia” (canção). 1932.
“Mais quinze dias” (choro). 1964.
“Mama, meu netinho” (marcha). 1941. Co-composer, Jararaca.
“Mamãe Isabé” (macumba). 1933. Co-composer, João da Baiana.
“Marilene” (choro). 1951. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda.
“Marreco quer água” (polca). 1959. Recorded: FUNARTE PA 82002.
“Meu coração não te quer” (choro). 1941. Co-composer, E. Almeida.
“Minha cigana” (marcha). 1948. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda.
“Mis tristezas solo lloro” (tango). 1928.
“Modinha brasileira.” Recorded: Camargas RC 001.
“Mulata baiana” (samba-jongo). 1938. Co-composer, Gastão Viana.
“Mulher boémia” (samba). 1928.
“Mundo melhor.” 1967. Co-composer, Vinícius de Morais.
“Não gostei dos teus olhos” (samba). 1933. Co-composer, João da Baiana.
“Não me digas.” Recorded: Discos Marcus Pereira CDM-0031; Discos Marcus Pereira MP-10056.
“Não posso mais” (choro). 1953.
“Naquêle tempo” (choro). 1934.
“Naquêle tempo” (choro). 1947. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: Camargas RC 001; Discos Marcus Pereira MP-10056; RCA Camden CALB 5041; RCA V100.053.
“Nasci para domador” (samba). 1933. Co-composer, Valfrido Silva.
“No elevador” (choro). 1964.
“Noite e dia” (choro-canção). 1968. Co-composer, W. Falcão.
“Nostalgia ao luar” (valsa). 1942.
“Número um” (choro). 1927.
“O Gato e o canario” (polca). 1949. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: Camargas RC 001.
“Os Oito Batutas” (choro). 1948. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: Discos Marcus Pereira MP-10056 or Discos Marcus Pereira CDM 003.
“O meu conselho” (samba). 1931.
“O Teu cabelo não nega.” Recorded: Ubatuqui UBCD-20003.
“Onde foi Isabé” (embolada). 1929.
“Oscarina” (valsa). 1934.
“Paciente” (choro). 1959.
“Pagão” (choro). 1947. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda.
“Página de dor” (valsa). 1938. Co-composer, Indio.
“Papagaio sabido” (samba). 1930. Co-composer, C. Araújo.
“Patrão, prenda seu gado” (chula raiada). 1931. Co-composers, Donga, João da Baiana.
“Pé de mulata” (samba). 1928.
“Pelo Telefone” (piano). 1916. Co-composer, Ernesto Joaquim Maria dos Santos. Recorded: Fleur de Son FDS 57918-2; Milan 73138356482; Nimbus NI 5338; Rhino R270563.
“Poema de raça” (samba). 1955. Co-composers, Z. Reis, Benedito Lacerda.
“Poética” (polca). 1955.
“A pombinha” (samba). 1919. Co-composer, Donga. “Por você fiz o que pude” (samba). 1935. Co-composer, João da Baiano.
“Pretenciosa” (polca). 1928. San Francisco: Guitar Solo, 1987. Recorded: Fleur de Son FDS 57918-2.
“Proezas de Sólon” (choro). 1947. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: Camargos RC 001.
“Promessa” (samba). 1928.
“Que perigo” (choro). 1955.
“Que queré” (macumba). 1932. Co-composers, João de Baiana, Donga. Recorded: Museu Villa-Lobos C- 83.
“Quem foi que disse” (samba). 1928.
“Rafael.” Recorded: Ubatuqui UBCD-20003.
“Raiado” (samba). 1931. Co-composer, Gastão Viana.
“Rancho abandonado” (canção). 1930. Co-composer, Indio.
“Recordando” (choro). 1935. Recorded: Discos Marcus Pereira CDM-0031.
“Retratos.” Recorded: Concord Picante CJP-389-C.
“Rosa” (valsa- canção). 1937. Co-composer, Otávio de Sousa. Recorded: Discos Marcus Pereira MP-10056.
“Rosa” (valsa- canção). 1917 or 1918.
“Salto de grilo.” Recorded: Discos Marcus Pereira CDM-0031.
“Samba de fato” (samba de partido-alto). 1932. Co-composer, João da Baiano.
“Samba de nego.” 1927.
“Samba do urubú” (variações sobre urubú). 1927.
“Samba fúnebre” (samba). 1972. Co-composer, Vinícius de Morais.
“Samba na areia” (samba). 1930.
“Sampa” (samba). Recorded: Caju Music MK-CCD 4002.
“Sapequinha” (polca-choro). 1926.
“Sarravulho.” Recorded: Discos Marcus Pereira CDM-0031.“Saudade do cavaquinho” (choro). 1946. Co-composer, Muraro.
“Sedutor” (choro). 1949. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: Camargos RC 001.
“Segura ele” (choro). 1946. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: Discos Marcus Pereira MP-10056; GM Recordings GM 2035 CD; Kuarup Discos M-KCD-064.
“Seresteiro” (choro). 1949.
“Seu Lourenço no vinho” (choro). 1948. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda.
“Sofres porque queres” (choro). 1917 or 1918.
“Sofres porque queres” (choro). 1950. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: RCA Camden CALB 5041.
“Solidão” (choro). 1964.
“Soluços” (choro). 1950. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: RCA Camden CALB 5041.
“Sonho da Índia” (fox). 1950. Co-composer, N. N., Duque.
“Sonhos.” Recorded: Camargos RC 001; Discos Marcus Pereira CDM-0031.
“Stella” (fox-blue). 1950. Co-composers, De Casto, Sousa.
“Tapa buraco.” Recorded: FUNARTE PA 82002.
“Te encontrei.” Recorded: Discos Marcus Pereira CDM-0031.“Teu aniversário” (choro). 1950.
“Teus ciúmes” (samba). 1928.
“Triangular” (choro). 1942.
“Tristezas não pagam dívidas” (valsa). 1942.
“Um a zero” (choro). 1946. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: Caju Music MK-CCD 4002; FUNARTE PA 82002; SACI 8000.
“Um chorinho para Elizeth.” Recorded: Discos Marcus Pereira CDM-0031.
“Urubatã” (choro). 1929. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda.
“Urubú” (samba). 1929.
“Vagando” (choro). 1951. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: Camargos RC 001.
“Vamos brincar” (choro). 1927.
“Variações sobre o urubú e o gavião” (choro). 1945.
“Vem cá! Não vou!” (choro). 1929.
“Vi o pombo gemê” (batucada). 1932. Co-composers, Donga, João da Baiana.
“A Vida é um buraco” (choro). 1930. Recorded: Discos Marcus Pereira CDM-0031; Discos Marcus ereira MP-10056.
“Você é bamba” (samba). 1935. Co-composer, João da Baiano.
“Você não deve beber” (samba). 1940. Co-composer, Manuel Ribeiro.
“Vou pra casa” (choro). 1964.
“Vou vivendo” (choro). 1945. San Francisco: Guitar Solo, 1987. Co-composer, Benedito Lacerda. Recorded: Camargos RC 001; FUNARTE PA 82002; Nimbus NI 5338.
“Xou Kuringa” (macumba). 1932. Co-composers, Donga, João da Baiana.
“Ya ho africano” (lundu). 1938. Co-composer, Gastão Viana.
“Zé Barbino” (canção). 1941. Co-composer, Jararaca.
Incidental and Commercial Music
Sol sobre a lama. 1962. Film soundtrack.
Publications
About Pixinguinha
Books and Monographs
Alencar, Edigar de. Vide e morte gloriosa do grande músico negro Pixinguinha. Juazeiro do Norte: Graf. Mascote, 1982.
———. O fabuloso e harmonioso Pixinguinha. Rio de Janeiro: Cátedra, 1979.
———. Vida e morte gloriosa de Pixinguinha. Juazeiro do Norte, Brazil: Mascote, 1981.
Barboza da Silva, Marilia Trindade, and Arthur L. de Oliveira Filho. Filho de Ogum bexiguento. Rio de Janeiro: Edição FUNARTE, 1979.
Braga, Sebastião. O lendário Pixinguinha. Rio de Janeiro: Edição Muriaquita, 1995.
Cabral, Sérgio. Pixinguinha: Vida e obra. Rio de Janeiro: Lidador, 1980.
Carvalho, Herminio Bello de. Sessão passatempo. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumara, 1995.
As the historian and music critic Ary Vasconcelos said, if you have fifteen volumes to talk about all of Brazilian popular music, it is certainly too few. But if space for one word is at your disposal, all is not lost; write quickly: ”Pixinguinha.” Considered by many to be the figure who defined Brazilian popular music, Pixinguinha left an indelible mark as a composer, instrumentalist, arranger, and bandleader. The work attributed to him is vast and has influenced many composers and performers of his and later times. Conservative estimates credit him with more than 600 compositions, but his influence reached beyond his compositions to Brazil’s recording industry, where Pixinguinha served as the principal arranger for a very large number of early recordings and wrote orchestrations that defined many genres of Brazilian popular music.
The child who was to become famous as “Pixinguinha,” Alfredo da Rocha Viana Filho (“Filho” meaning “junior”), was born in Rio de Janeiro, probably on April 23, 1897. (Although the nation celebrated his seventieth birthday in 1968, his certificate of baptism bears the earlier date.) Named for his father, Alfredo was one of nine children born to Raimunda Maria Viana and her second husband. His nickname, originally “Pin-zin-dim” (“good boy” in an African dialect), was given to him by an African grandfather. After he contracted smallpox as a child, “bexiguinha” (“pockmarked,” with the diminutive suffix “-inha”) and “Pizindim” were combined to yield “Pixinguinha.”
Pixinguinha’s father Alfredo worked for the telegraph company and played the flute. Having a passion for music, the elder Alfredo allowed a host of musicians to frequent the family’s home, which became known among them as the “Pensão Viana” (Viana boarding house). Pixinguinha began his musical education on the cavaquinho, a small, four-stringed lute resembling a ukulele. Later, he picked up the flute, on which he played from memory the choros (improvised music styles) that on occasion he had heard his father and his father’s friends play late into the night. By 1911, delighted with the talent of his young son, Alfredo purchased a European flute and contracted Irineu de Almeida of Rio de Janeiro to teach the boy music theory. Later in his life, some of his friends and colleagues urged him to return to school to receive a formal basis in musical theory to support his extraordinary intuition and experience. In 1933, he matriculated in the Instituto Nacional de Música in Rio de Janeiro; however, he left after only a single semester because some of his instructors insisted that they had nothing to teach him.
In 1911, Pixinguinha was invited by de Almeida to join the carnival orchestra of the Grêmio Filhas da Jardineira in the “Battle of Confetti” during carnaval, which was held on the Avenida Central of Rio. In the same year, he began to substitute for musicians in the clubs and bars of the Lapa neighborhood. The following year, he accepted an invitation to direct the harmony instruments (probably strings and winds) of the carnaval group Paladinos Japoneses and thereby began a long series of appearances with a host of carnival groups.
Pixinguinha’s professional career as a musician began while he was still in short pants playing the flute in beer houses. Later, he advanced to the more prestigious theater and cinema orchestras of Rio when he wrested a job in the Teatro Rio Branco from an older musician, largely because Pixinguinha often disregarded his score, improvising extemporaneous parts with a skill honed by choro instrumental duels. After earning a reputation as one of Rio de Janeiro’s premier instrumentalists, Pixinguinha was invited by Isaac Prankel, the owner of the Cinema Palais, to organize a novel type of orchestra. Prior to 1919, the orchestras in the foyers of theaters performed only European classical music. The group that Pixinguinha formed and directed, the Oito Batutas (Eight Experts), presented instead a program of popular music featuring virtuoso instrumentalists. Propelled by nationalist and populist sentiment, the group became so popular that people would come to the Palais just to hear them, never bothering to enter the auditorium.
After traveling to perform in other Brazilian cities, the Oito Batutas played for the visiting rulers of Belgium. In 1922, the ensemble (with only seven batutas) traveled to Paris for a six-month stay, despite objections in the Brazilian press that the band representing the nation to Europeans included black Brazilians. Following the enthusiasm that the Brazilian maxixe provoked in Europe over a decade earlier and the enormous success of African-American ragtime and fox trot, the Oito Batutas enjoyed tremendous popularity and attracted international recognition for Brazilian music. While in Paris, Pixinguinha absorbed jazz style (he later composed fox trots and shimmies and changed the configuration of the Batutas) and took up the saxophone, an instrument he would play exclusively after 1946, when he feared that age was dulling his legendary virtuosity on the flute.
Pixinguinha led a number of different musical ensembles and was musical director of the Companhia Negra de Revistas, a nationally acclaimed entirely black variety show that presented popular arts, including instrumental music, singing, dance, comedy, and some theater. In the company, he met Albertina Nunes Pereira, known on stage as Jandyra Aymoré, whom he wed on January 5, 1927. In the 1920s, Pixinguinha entered what may have been the most influential phase of his career when he began working as a radio bandleader and in recording studios. In 1929, he signed a contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company, later known as RCA Victor, as the arranger and band director for the studio’s band, a role he would assume also for other labels during the next two decades.
Following the arrival of “talking films” in Brazil, large numbers of musicians became unemployed. In December 1930, Pixinguinha joined the commission that led the marche aux flambeaux, a protest march by musicians to the president’s palace in Rio de Janeiro to demand legal protection of composers’ rights, incentives for national music production, and a means to publish compositions.
When Leopold Stokowski brought the All-American Youth Orchestra to Brazil in 1940, Stokowski’s friend Heitor Villa-Lobos invited Pixinguinha to be among the musicians who represented Brazil. The sessions aboard the ship Uruguai were recorded, and 16 of the more than 100 songs selected by Stokowski were released by Columbia as Native Brazilian Music.
From 1940 to 1950, Pixinguinha was still very active in recording and only receded briefly from the public eye between 1950 and 1954, when other musical styles were more popular. In 1954, he returned to the public eye in the I Festival da Velha Guarda (First Festival of the Old Guard), which was organized by Almirante for Rádio Record in São Paulo. A second festival in 1955 led to recordings and additional performances with the Velha Guarda, a group composed of the best instrumentalists of Pixinguinha’s generation.
Pixinguinha continued to compose until the end of his life, even writing a score of songs while recovering from a heart attack in 1964, paying tribute in compositions to the hospital’s cook, expressing his loneliness, and celebrating his discharge from the hospital. Pixinguinha died February 17, 1973, in the church Nossa Senhora da Paz in Ipanema (Rio de Janeiro) as he awaited the baptism of a friend’s child prior to attending the parade of the Banda de Ipanema. When the parade reached the front of the church, news of Pixinguinha’s death brought thousands to tears and the band to silence. Pixinguinha was buried to the sound of 2,000 voices singing “Carinhoso,” one of his most popular songs.
Selected Works
While Pixinguinha first made his name as a performer, his most lasting impact on Brazilian music was as an arranger and composer. Antonio Carlos Jobim, composer of the bossa nova classic “Girl from Ipanema” (“Garota da Ipanema”), considered Pixinguinha the founder of Brazilian popular music. At the height of his influence, Pixinguinha was arranging and composing for the major record labels in Brazil and pioneering forms of orchestration that would become standard for previously unrecorded popular music styles. His ability to compose and arrange undoubtedly was developed early by the demands of choro, at which he excelled. While he did not create the style, he is widely considered to be one of the greatest chorões, responsible for drawing global attention to the style and developing its composition potential in the ensemble structure. Pixinguinha is also credited with introducing popular instruments and elements into erudite composition in Brazil.
The roots of choro are most often attributed to experimentation with the polka in Brazil in the decade of the 1870s, when it was mixed with Brazilian musical styles that incorporated African elements such as the lundu and modinha. The result was not only a Brazilianized polca, but a host of other musical styles including maxixe (which was also influenced by Cuban habanera and Argentine tango, and later became popular in Europe) and choro, considered by many musicologists to be the first truly Brazilian form of music. The name choro is derived from the verb chorar, meaning “to cry” or “to weep.” Baptista Siqueira, in his history of Brazilian music, attributes the creation of the choro ensemble to the flutist and professor of music Joaquim Antônio da Silva Callado. Callado observed players of the cavaquinho, who had learned polkas by ear, performing while facing a guitarist who improvised contrapuntal responses. Callado created a quartet, Choro Carioca, in which he played melody on the flute backed by the improvised interactions of strings (a cavaquinho provided harmony, and two guitars, bass counterpoint). Choro demands virtuoso improvisatory ability on the part of all the instrumentalists, as the exchanges often amount to extemporaneous duels in which the instrumentalists attempted to derrubar (chop down) each other. While it may have predated jazz by several decades, choro structurally resembles ragtime in many ways, placing similar demands on musicians.
Pixinguinha learned early to apply theories of harmony and counterpoint in these musical duels, preserving a choro sensibility that eschewed formulaic harmonies. Later in life, according to classical composer Brasílio Itiberê, when Pixinguinha abandoned the lead instrument (flute), he revolutionized harmony in Brazilian composition with his explorations on the saxophone, which was used in Brazilian ensembles of that era to provide melodic accompaniment. Itiberê insisted that Pixinguinha seized elements of counterpoint incipient in the formulaic accompaniments of popular music and, reinvigorating these formulas, composed or arranged for popular compositions multiple melodic voices in which each has its own integrity.
Pixinguinha composed his first song, the three-part choro “Lata de leite” (Can of Milk), in 1911. The piece is about musicians returning home who, early in the morning, stop to drink milk left by milkmen on doorsteps. Throughout his life, he continued this practice of writing songs in response to observations of daily events, producing compositions that are estimated to number as high as 2,000. Many were written for carnaval or in response to the grueling demands of his constant performance with various musical ensembles. Some of his most famous pieces arose out of these everyday inspirations. The samba “Já te digo” (I Already Told You) composed in 1919 with his brother China (Otávio Viana), was a response to a challenge Pixinguinha perceived in Sinho’s composition “Quem são eles?” (Who are they?) from the previous carnaval. The choro “Um a zero” (One to Zero), composed in 1946 with Benedito Lacerda, is so difficult to perform that even the cavaquinho player of the Rio de Janeiro Municipal Orchestra declared it impossible; it was a celebration of Brazil’s victory over Uruguay in the World Cup.
Pixinguinha’s fellow batuta Donga (Ernesto Joaquim Maria dos Santos, 1889–1974) is credited with composing the first song registered as a samba carnavalesco, “Pelo Telefone” (1916). The piano score was written by Pixinguinha, and the song became one of the great successes of the 1917 carnaval. Later, the song was the first recording explicitly labeled a samba. Unlike Pixinguinha, who spent most of his formative years listening to choro musicians, Donga frequented the house of Tia Ciata, a priestess from the state of Bahia who lived near the Praça Onze in Rio de Janeiro. Praça Onze was the habitual gathering place of ex-slaves and immigrants from the northeast of Brazil. There, the young musician would have encountered popular music forms like the samba de roda (ring samba), the jongo, and the afoxé, all dance styles that sprang from African predecessors in the cities and plantations of the northeast.
The name “samba” was not Donga’s creation. The term was undoubtedly of African origin, applied to dances that were brought to Rio by migrants from other states such as Bahia and Pernambuco. These styles of music, most of which were dominated by percussion instruments, were performed at Praça Onze and the home of Tia Ciata, and it is probably from these rhythmic influences that Donga fashioned “Pelo Telefone.” Over time, composers including Donga, Pixinguinha, Sinhô (José Barbosa da Silva), and Heitor dos Prazeres established the genre called samba-carioca (samba of Rio de Janeiro) or samba da cidade (samba of the city), with a characteristic syncopated rhythm that would come to dominate much of Brazilian carnaval music.
With the formation of the Oito Batutas in 1919, Pixinguinha pioneered the presentation of Brazilian popular music in elite music settings, performing popular musical genres with complex instrumental arrangements. Initially composed of Pixinguinha, Donga, Pixinguinha’s brother China, Raul Palmieri, Nelson Alves, José Alves, Jacó Palmieiri, and Luis Oliveira, the group was the first to gain substantial international recognition for the performance of indigenous Brazilian music. It traveled widely throughout Brazil and to Argentina and France, undergoing changes in personnel and instrumentation, especially after encountering North American jazz bands in Paris in 1922. Various members of the group would last appear under the name Batutas on a recording in 1928, long after the Batutas were no longer performing together regularly.
Even before Pixinguinha’s encounter with jazz in Paris, he composed works that demonstrated his increasing experimentation with the instrumentation and harmonic structure of Brazilian music. The song “Carinhoso” (Affectionate), probably composed in 1916 or 1917 as a slow variation of the polca, was criticized by a Brazilian critic when it was released in 1928 by the Orquesta Típica Pixinguinha-Donga for not being sufficiently “Brazilian.” Other compositions, some of them choros predating the trip to Paris but only recorded later, were victims of similar criticism. Musicologists and critics later came to regard some of these compositions as the most important sambas and choros of the era, indicating the degree to which Pixinguinha had developed the musical potential in these genres, adding voices and counterpoint of a complexity that was typically associated at that time with North American fox-trot and jazz.
Starting in 1929, Pixinguinha worked as an arranger and band leader for RCA Victor (as well as Brunswick and Columbia), and it is in this capacity that he may have had the greatest impact on Brazilian music. Ensembles asked to record by Victor frequently performed regional or popular musical styles that had no precedent of complex orchestration. The task of creating appropriate orchestration, arranging compositions, and writing them down often fell to Pixinguinha. In the process, he was often as responsible for “composition” as the artists whose names appeared on the record labels and who were credited with composition on sheet music. In this way, he literally “composed” entire musical styles, establishing the standards and structure of these genres as Brazilian music made the transition to mediums of mechanical recording.
Reference
Alencar, Edigar de. O fabuloso e harmonioso Pixinguinha. Rio de Janeiro: Cátedra, 1979.
—. Vida e morte gloriosa de Pixinguinha. Juazeiro do Norte, Brazil: Mascote, 1981.
Barboza, Marilia T. Filho de ogum bexiguento. Rio de Janeiro: Edição FUNARTE, 1979.
Cabral, Sérgio. Pixinguinha: Vida e obra. Rio de Janeiro: Lidador, 1980.
———. “Pixinguinha.” In Enciclopédia da música brasileira: Erudita, folclórica, e popular, 616–619.
São Paulo: Art Ed., 1977.
Schreiner, Claus. Musica Brasileira: A History of Popular Music and the People of Brazil. Translated by Mark Weinstein. New York: Marion Boyars, 1993.
Siqueira, Baptista. 3 vultos históricos da música brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Ministério da Educação e Cultura, 1970.
Vasconcelos, Ary. Carinhoso, etc.: história e inventário do choro. n.p.: Gráfica Editoria do Livro, 1984.
Greg Downey