M. Camargo Guarnieri and the Influence of Mário de Andrade’s Modernism

Modernism in Brazilian art music called for a convergence of separate emphases: 1) renovation of compositional practices through the adaptation of current techniques; and 2) incorporation of native elements to better align art music with the hybrid Brazilian heritage. The music of M. Camargo Guarnieri (1907 – 93) maintains a modern aesthetic even with an obvious preference for nationalist content, demonstrating that it was possible to combine the two emphases without sacrificing the integrity of either.¹ Guarnieri’s artistic temperament and compositional output (which includes art songs, symphonies, chamber and piano pieces, operas, and masses) must be considered in the context of his personal affiliation with Mário de Andrade (1893–1945).² Andrade supported Guarnieri’s creative instincts, and through their long relationship, the elder figure fostered in various ways consistency and momentum for Guarnieri’s ever-evolving compositional style.

Indeed, the parallels between Guarnieri’s music and Andrade’s message are of intense interest to scholars; here they will be explored in context with the composer’s professional endeavors (which remained anchored in Andrade’s counsel even as he thought independently), as Guarnieri sustained his mentor’s directive to perpetuate the musical traditions of an immensely varied culture. To summarize comprehensively Guarnieri’s contributions to American music, this article will 1) outline Andrade’s modernist ideology and methodology; 2) explore pivotal events that shaped Guarnieri’s and Andrade’s professional and personal relationship (including Andrade’s stylistic criticism of Guarnieri’s music); and, 3) survey the foundational points of Guarnieri’s individual musical language and details related to the critical reception of his music.

Initiating Musical Modernism

After initially recruiting reform for Brazilian literature, Mário de Andrade began constructing valid hypotheses about the renovation of art music. Despite positive advancements for Brazilian culture after the Semana de Arte Moderna, the 1922 event (partially masterminded by Andrade)³ had little to do with the culmination of modernist practice and nationalist content in musical compositions, a favorable convergence of ideals that occurred only years later.⁴ In his post-conference essay “O movimento modernisto,” Andrade did, however, revel in the banding together of artists after the Week, stating that, “they now marched with the multitudes.”⁵ The conference seemingly instigated dialogue among composers intent on presenting the “intellectual goals” of the movement, bringing together those previously isolated within individual approaches to art-music reform. The year 1922 was thus a new “declaration of independence” for Brazilian culture (on the centenary of political independence) and a successful break with an artistic heritage considered exhausted of its potential.

Andrade began perpetuating his belief that music (the abstract discipline) could reflect the societal environment in which it was created, and while he considered Heitor Villa-Lobos “completely national” (see Neves 1981, 43), Andrade knew that his efforts would be better spent on next-generation representatives of a new aesthetic current. Andrade knew that he was demanding these young composers to write within newly created cultural parameters without the benefit of standardized compositional instruction,⁶ and he began his crusade in direct response to the uncertainties of those working in such an unsettled cultural atmosphere. To be most effective, Andrade supported composers not as one of them (he signed his name to only one musical composition), but instead by guiding others; it was thus in a supporting role that Andrade set out to develop modernist principles in others. He declared that the composer’s function was a social one, and that “moral obligation” should remain at the core of the profession. Stemming from that conviction was the insistence that music depict social reality, to which the recognition and subsequent representation of a multilayered Brazilian society was crucial. Ultimately, then, Andrade understood Brazilian modernism as distinct from concurrent European trends, and to emphasize the separation, he focused on “o povo brasileiro,” seeking brasilidade in the nation’s blended culture. Andrade was not, however, content with the long-accepted “trio” emblem of Brazilian society (Indian, Portuguese, and African). Nineteenth-and twentieth-century migrations to São Paulo (stimulated by agricultural, industrial, and commercial economies) resulted in...