ChiquinhaGonzaga

Lua Branca, Chiquinha Gonzaga

Chiquinha Gonzaga was raised to be a society lady and educated by the most qualified teachers in the Rio de Janeiro of her time. But that's not at all how things turned out. Besides being the most important Brazilian composer of the 19th century, Chiquinha Gonzaga's legacy is that of a provocateur of social norms, who defied the patriarchal order.

Image description: This is an old photograph of a woman. The image is in sepia tones, with a light background. The woman is shown in profile facing left, with her hair pulled back into a bun. She is wearing a dress with embroidered details on the sleeves and neckline. Around her neck, she has a pendant.

Daughter of an Empire-era military officer, Francisca Edwiges Gonzaga had already been Chiquinha since she was very young. She received an upbringing typical of girls from families with political and aristocratic ambitions: she learned to read and write, a bit of mathematics, French, went through catechism, studied Latin and, of course, music — more specifically, the piano, a mark of good breeding for girls. But she subverted every expectation placed upon her, and her most important composition (the immortal "Ó, abre alas," from 1899) could well serve as an epigraph for this figure who paved the way for women's independence in the 20th century.

A pioneer of feminism in Brazil, Chiquinha Gonzaga caused scandals in society by leaving her husband to live the life she wanted — something absolutely uncommon in her time. The reason that led her to rebel against her marriage was the fact that her husband forced her to give up any musical ambitions. But Chiquinha chose her piano.

Being a “separated” woman meant having a terrible reputation in the eyes of society at the time. Chiquinha was disowned by her family and could no longer raise her three children. Left on her own, she began giving piano lessons, which not only provided her with a livelihood but also drew her further into Rio de Janeiro's bohemian-musical world from the 1870s onward.

The gas lighting installed in Rio de Janeiro changed the city's nightlife. With Parisian aspirations, bohemian life grew alongside the cafés and bars, many of them with their own house pianos. In this context, Chiquinha would stand out as a composer, and her maxixes — seen by her critics as lascivious — would become a hit in the hands of musicians and in the whistling of the population. In 1877, Chiquinha Gonzaga's first sheet music was published, and the titles of the pieces give a bit of a sense of the compositions' tone: "Harmonias do coração," "Atraente," "Sedutor," "Não insistas rapariga," "Plangente," "Sultana," and "Os olhos dela."

Image description: This is an old black-and-white photograph. In the image, we see a formal meeting in an indoor setting. In the background, there is a long wooden table with several people seated around it. On the left, more people are seated, while on the right, other individuals are also seated. The arrangement is organized symmetrically, with some individuals closer to the table and others farther away. Everyone appears to be focused on something in front of the table, possibly a discussion or presentation.

Chiquinha Gonzaga dared to take her place in the world at her own expense. She engaged in historic struggles in the last quarter of the 19th century. She didn't just claim to be a republican and abolitionist: she took to the streets handing out pamphlets, shouting slogans, took part in festivals aimed at raising funds for the Abolitionist Confederation, and, by selling her sheet music door to door, raised the money to free enslaved people. At almost 70 years of age, she became the main leader of the movement demanding the payment of royalties for artists, and was the founder of one of the leading associations on the subject, the Brazilian Society of Theatrical Authors (SBAT). Her companion until the end of her life, thirty-six years her junior, was registered and presented as being her son. She was a notorious bohemian, and as a polka written in her honor put it, she was "loved by all." Or almost.

Image description: This is an old black-and-white photograph. In the image, four people are posing together in front of a building with a tiled roof. From the left, there is a person wearing traditional clothing with colorful details, followed by another person in formal attire. In the center, a woman is wearing a long, voluminous dress, while on the right, another person is dressed in a classic suit. Everyone appears to be smiling and looking at the camera.

If there were admirers, there were also critics. In 1914, the first lady, cartoonist Nair de Teffé, played the maxixe "Gaucho" (also known as "Corta-Jaca") at a soirée held at the Catete Palace. This amounted to a double scandal for conservatives: both for playing that lascivious music, and for having performed it on guitar — which, at that time, was seen as a lesser instrument, played at serenades by the "populace." Rui Barbosa (who had lost the 1910 elections to the then-president, Hermes da Fonseca) delivered a speech that conveyed his political conservatism and revealed prejudices against the popular music that had been taking shape in Rio de Janeiro:

Uma das folhas de ontem estampou em fac-símile o programa da recepção presidencial em que, diante do corpo diplomático, da mais fina sociedade do Rio de Janeiro, aqueles que deviam dar ao país o exemplo das maneiras mais distintas e dos costumes mais reservados elevaram o corta-jaca à altura de uma instituição social. Mas o corta-jaca de que eu ouvira falar há muito tempo, que vem a ser ele, Sr. Presidente? A mais baixa, a mais chula, a mais grosseira de todas as danças selvagens, a irmã gêmea do batuque do cateretê e do samba. Mas nas recepções presidenciais o corta-jaca é executado com todas as honras de música de Wagner, e não se quer que a consciência deste país se revolte, que as nossas faces se enrubesçam e que a mocidade se ria!

Rui Barbosa's criticism was aimed at condemning national musical genres against a high culture, embodied by the German composer Richard Wagner. But the reality is that a good part of the Brazilian music that was becoming increasingly popular — the maxixe, the "Brazilian tango" — had ties to classical music education in the country.

Among waltzes, tangos, polkas, and other genres, Chiquinha Gonzaga composed more than two hundred works. The first published pieces date from 1877, and many of the pieces Chiquinha produced were successful operettas — inflecting the genre in language: now, besides the maestro, there was also a maestrina. Asserting herself in an absolutely male-dominated milieu, she composed "Ó, abre-alas," which marks the invention of one of the most important Brazilian musical genres: the carnival marchinha.

Image description: The image is a black-and-white photograph. In the central part is a person seated next to a piano. The person is dressed in a black suit and a white shirt. The hands are resting on the piano. In the background, there is a wall with a floral picture and a date written "17/10/32."