Choros,chorinhos,andchorões

Flor Amorosa, by Antônio Callado, performed by Altamiro Carrilho

The sound of a transverse flute soloing a melody, cavaquinhos with their high-pitched strumming, the spot-on accompaniment of the 7-string guitar — with the bass lines on the lower strings and the chords picked on the others — and the pandeiro, with precise cadence and attack, giving the dynamics the music calls for. That's enough to know we're near a roda de choro. Other instruments (wind, percussion, string…) also join this circle, but the feeling they produce together is what makes choro — perhaps the first typically Brazilian musical style — what it is: choro.

Image description: This is a photograph of a historic building located in a residential neighborhood. The image shows a panoramic view of the building, which occupies most of the scene, with modern buildings in the background. The building has several windows and decorative balconies, with a light-colored, detailed façade. On the right, there is a green area with trees. In the lower right corner, a car is parked.

At the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, Rio was a jumble of musical forms, genres, and variations. Polkas, serenades, waltzes, habaneras, tangos, and maxixes crossed paths in the pulsing urban popular music scene. In this sonic hustle, choro developed as a kind of corruption of these genres, softening the rigidity of the court's fancy balls to gain a freedom and rhythmic breaks that only the streets could offer.

Until the 19th century, the expression "choro" did not refer to a musical genre. Just as "samba" and "batuque" were once generic terms for a musical gathering, "choro" was where the meeting of the flute and two other instruments -- ill-reputed at the time --, the cavaquinho and the violão, took place, played in a "tearful" (“chorosa”) way. It was from then on that "choro groups" became known as such. This musical arrangement was first put together by flutist Joaquim Antônio da Silva Callado, considered the "father of the chorões." His 1880 piece, Flor Amorosa, is regarded as a founding landmark of choro. Callado passed away that same year, at the age of 31.

Image description: This is a black-and-white engraving. The central figure faces forward, with short hair combed into two side parts. He wears a classic suit with a checkered bow tie. The background is drawn with horizontal and vertical lines, suggesting movement or waves.

Decades later, in 1936, the postman and amateur musician Alexandre Gonçalves Pinto — known as Animal — published O Choro: Reminiscências dos Chorões Antigos, the first book dedicated to the subject. The book compiles the names and respective instruments of hundreds of chorões, from 1870 up to the year it was published. There are dozens upon dozens of entries commemorating the chorões of Rio. The parties and choros of the era are also recalled: "I shall here describe the old parties devoted to the good and famous choros of that unforgettable time, for they are, to me, a great conveyor of nostalgia. Such were the parties at the house of Machado Breguedim, in Estação do Rocha, Machadinho, as he was known, was a renowned flute player, and the choros organized at his residence were abundant with excellent delicacies and washed down with fine drinks; being a high official of the Customs House, he was well off financially, and so he made great savings to spend on his parties, where he gathered his musician friends. The parties at Machadinho's house would go on for many days, always in the greatest harmony, intimacy, and enthusiasm, and worthy of great admiration were the groups of chorões who followed one after another, each wishing to show off his own compositions and the worth of his mechanical dexterity and refined breath. And such were the parties at the house of the unforgettable Machado Breguedim"

Image description: This is a painting in tones of blue and gray, depicting four musicians in an urban setting. On the left side, a musician plays the flute, wearing a suit with a checkered pattern. Beside him, another musician holds a guitar, wearing pants with blue dots. Further to the right, a third musician plays the trumpet, also dressed in blue. Finally, a musician sits on the ground, with hands raised, wearing a suit with blue dots. The background features geometric shapes and shadows, suggesting a construction or building.

These memories reveal the social profile of the first chorões — musicians from the urban lower middle class, generally civil servants, mail carriers, railway workers, or members of military bands. They moved between the elite salons and the popular backyards of nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro, spaces marked by the coexistence of the erudite and the popular. As researcher Lira Neto observes, these musicians “had the right to sound their flutes, guitars, and cavaquinhos in the parlor, in full view of anyone passing by on the street, while the yard remained reserved for the atabaques and agogôs of the batuqueiros,” separated by a “social screen” that reflected the racial and cultural hierarchies of the time.

Among the many chorões mentioned by Gonçalves Pinto is Alfredo Vianna, a talented flutist who was skilled in reading music and owned instruments of different systems, signaling the technical modernization of the craft. His legacy, preserved in scores and in the memory of musicians, would be carried on by his son — none other than Alfredo da Rocha Vianna Filho, the immortal Pixinguinha. With him, choro, born from Callado's sentimental flutes and the gatherings of the Rio de Janeiro middle class, would find its highest and most definitive point in the history of Brazilian music.

Image description: The image is a black-and-white photograph of a man playing a flute. He is sitting in a chair with a floral-patterned rug to his left. The background is simple, with a white wall and a brown curtain on the left. The man is wearing a white suit and has a medal on his lapel.

Choro continues, generation after generation, evoking a feeling that only it can. The generation that would come after Pixinguinha's, whose greatest name is perhaps Jacob do Bandolim, continued to define choro as one of the genres most beloved by Rio residents — and, since 2020, a piece of Brazil's intangible heritage.