[La Passion du Baroque Brésilien; Missa de Nossa Senhora do Carmo;
José Mauricio Nunes Garcia; Association of Choral Singing; Cleofe
Person de Mattos, Director; Camerata de Rio de Janeiro; Henrique
Morelenbaum, Director; Jade 75443-2 (1991)]
In
May 2012, John Malveaux announced that www.MusicUNTOLD.com
had
purchased the piano reduction of The
First Choral Masterpiece in Black Music History, the
Requiem
Mass (1816) by José Maurício Nunes-García.
The music is for
Four-Part Chorus of Mixed Voices and Alto, Tenor and Bass Solos with
Piano Accompaniment. It was written to commemorate the death of
Portugal's Queen Mother.
José
Mauricio Nunes Garcia (1767-1830) was an Afro-Brazilian composer and
organist who was the grandson of slaves. Antonio Campos Monteiro Neto
has generously made his information available to AfriClassical.com.
We received word from him on March 12, 2012 that his website on José
Mauricio Nunes Garcia had been updated at
http://www.josemauricio.com.br
Antonio
wrote: "This long delay occurred because I had to rewrite all
his biography, due to new documents found at the Cathedral of Rio de
Janeiro."
"From Nunes Garcia are known 240 musical pieces, but research shows that his actual production would be almost twice this number. This quantity, and the quality of his works made him one of the most important composers of Brazil, in most of his lifetime a colony of Portugal."
"From Nunes Garcia are known 240 musical pieces, but research shows that his actual production would be almost twice this number. This quantity, and the quality of his works made him one of the most important composers of Brazil, in most of his lifetime a colony of Portugal."
"Today,
thanks to the outstanding work made by musicologist Ms.
,Cleofe Person de Mattos (1913-2002) the main
facts of the composer's life are established, and his
remaining works are cataloged. To her memory we dedicate
this website." The
website is in both Portuguese and English.
Monteiro Neto gives
details of the youth's music education:
“According to
Manuel de Araújo Porto Alegre, his early biographer, he had "a
beautiful voice and a great musical memory"; "reproduced
everything he heard", and "created melodies of his own and
played the harpsichord and the guitar without ever have learned to".
In 1779, at twelve, he began to teach music. José Mauricio never
had a piano or a harpsichord, and trained himself by teaching
harpsichord to the society´s ladies. To learn the organ, he was
assisted by some good organists in the churches. José Mauricio
completed his education in the "Royal Classes", with
lectures in history, geography, latin grammar and philosophy, and
rhetoric as well."
The Webmaster of
the Brazilian site recounts the process Nunes Garcia
followed to be ordained as a priest in the Archdiocese, or See,
of Rio de Janeiro. Studies for the priesthood led to the ordination of Nunes Garcia in 1791. A productive period followed for the composer. When he was exposed to the movement for independence from Portugal, the composer began composing works influenced by Brazilian folk music.
Monteiro Neto continues: "He took
part in meetings at the Literary Society, founded in
1794, until its closing and the arrest of its leaders in
1797, after they had been accused of revolutionary activities against the Portuguese Crown."
"The Tempest and Zemira are overtures from 1803 which mark the composer's diversification of his compositions into the instrumental genre," according to Monteiro Neto.
"The Tempest and Zemira are overtures from 1803 which mark the composer's diversification of his compositions into the instrumental genre," according to Monteiro Neto.
A royal wedding in 1817 gave the composer access to skilled musicians from Portugal. The year 1817
was also when José Mauricio Nunes Garcia composed the first
Brazilian opera, Le Due Gemelle (The Two Twins). His
output in 1818 included, we are told by Monteiro Neto, a
Novena (CPM 67), a Mass for the Feast of Our Lady of
Carmel (CPM
110), a Qui Sedes and Quoniam (CPM 163) and three
Motets, as well as a Mass for Feast of the Beheading of St.
John the Baptist. We are further informed by Monteiro
Neto that in December 1819 he conducted the first
Brazilian performance of Mozart's Requiem (K 626).
The score of Le Due Gemelle was destroyed by fire
in 1825. Nunes Garcia wrote his last work, St. Cecilia's Mass, in 1826. Financial problems are believed to have contributed to the composer's death in 1830. A number of recordings of his works are described at the website of Monteiro Neto.
Comment by email:
A Question and Supplements to the blog:
I continue to be insecure about his family name.
By Brazilian practice it should be García (and is so recognized by the Library
of Congress), with Nunes as his mother's maiden name. Then why was this
priest's son (yes, and from an extra-curricular venture, which might explain it)
also named Nunes-García? Eileen Southern gives his name as Nuñes (in Portuguese
it would be Nunhes).
That aside, I published "The life and works
of Nunes-García" in The Black perspective in music, v14n1 (1986/Spring)
p93-102.
As for his 1816 Requiem, my edition was
published by Associated Music Press in 1977 (piano-vocal score), with
performance materials on rent. We performed this in Finlandia Hall in Helsinki,
which was later recorded in Finland on Columbia M-3331. Subsequent major
performances have been given by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra with the Brazeal
Dennard Chorus, conducted by Leslie Dunner, and by the New York Philharmonic
and the Morgan State University Choir, conducted by Paul Freeman. The latter
performance was with the nation's music critics all in attendance at Avery Fisher
Hall, each of whom relayed their unanimously enthusiastic -- if not astonished
-- reviews to their home town newspapers. This was the origin of the statement
that this work was Black music history's first choral masterpiece.
There must be, however, a warning. A pirated and
faulty edition has been issued, lacking my permission and that of Columbia
Records and Associated Music Publishers. A law suit is forthcoming which will
also affect purchasers of that illegal version.
In my BPIM article, I provided a selective
works list. The full list will appear within the multi-volume reference work,
now in progress (since 1968).
Dominique-René de Lerma
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