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CD Curumim Making of do CD Curumim - Camargo Guarnieri CD-List of Songs Lacan Group Paulista Chamber Orchestra releases CD with Camargo Guarnieri compositions About Camargo Guarnieri List of main compositions Photos Interview with Vera Silvia and Tânia Guarnieri Interview with Sister Marion Verhaalen Portuguese "The CD will be launched in October" |
"Guarnieri was a musical architect of the caliber of Beethoven" By Alcides Ferreira (Sept, 4, 2007)
1) How did you get in touch with Camargo Guarnieri`s work? Why did you decide to write about him? I was teaching at Alverno College in Milwaukee and our faculty took "Brazil" as a year long study. We had lecturers come in each month to speak on various aspects of the country. Juan Orrego Salas came to Milwaukee from Indiana U. to speak about the arts in Brazil. He said that we didn't have much information because Brazilians did not write much about their arts (this was 1964-65 and there were not yet many Brazilian universities requiring research). Some of us studied Portuguese that year. In 1967 I began my doctoral studies at Columbia U. in New York. I remembered what Dr. Salas had said and looked for a topic on Brazilian music. Salazar's (**) 1945 book was the only reference I found. It had one paragraph each on Villa-Lobos, Francisco Mignone and Guarnieri. I thought everybody knew Villa-Lobos (though there was not yet a book in English on him) so I considered the other two. My major performing instrument was piano and both had written more than 100 piano pieces at that time, so I chose to write my dissertation on The Solo Piano Music of Francisco Mignone and Camargo Guarnieri. I applied to the Organization of American States in Washington, DC for their addresses and a grant to do the research. Guarnieri answered very graciously and immediately, but not Mignone. I did receive the grant to fly into Rio and contacted Mignone. He was hesitant because the first Guanabara Competition had been held earlier that year and his music, along with that of Guarnieri and other "older" composers, was booed off the stage. He did cooperate in the end and was grateful for my interest in him. I spent a year in Brazil with my time divided between Rio and São Paulo. I also spent a little time in Vitoria and I visited Brasilia over Christmas that year with a friend. I was able to hear their music in live concerts and over the radio. I also met many people who knew them and shared their thoughts about the two composers. Dona Mercedes Reis Pequena at the Biblioteca Nacional in Rio was a tremendous help. I spent a total of four months in São Paulo. I went to Guarnieri's studio on Rua Pamplona twice a week. I recorded my interviews with him. Each time he gave me a satchel of his scores. I transcribed the interviews, analyzed the music, and prepared questions for the next interview a few days later. This went on for four moths with two interviews each week. He was so organized and gracious that, in those four months, I was able to analyze all of his music, not just that for piano. I realized what a tremendous composer he was. I finished the dissertation and graduated from Teachers College, Columbia U. in May of 1970 and intended to complete a book on him. Guarnieri and Vera came to Milwaukee as guests for a four day Brazilian Music Festival at Alverno College in Nov-Dec, 1969. They were here for ten days and I took him to other Universities in Milwaukee and Madison where he gave presentations. He asked me to provide a scholarship to Alverno for Cristina Capparelli Gerling of Uberlândia, which I did. In 1973, I began to give a series of piano pedagogy workshops on the Pace Program in various conservatories and universities throughout Brazil over the next ten years. I have been to Brazil ten times, and each time I updated my information on his new compositions, and I stayed with the family after that first year. In the early 1990s, Vera Silvia urged the USP to publish my manuscript on him, which they agreed to do. She was the translator into Portuguese. 2) In Guarnieri`s work and life, the issue of Brazilian culture values is strongly present. Could you talk about that? How do you explain his dedication to his roots? Guarnieri was virtually a self-educated composer. He had a few piano lessons as a child but spent his time improvising and absorbing the rich folk music around him in Tietê. This was a blessing in the sense that he developed his own abilities to a high degree. It was a limitation in that he was not able to share ideas with other young musicians until he met Mário de Andrade on March 18, 1928 when he was already twenty-one. I wrote about this in the English edition of my book. He was a brilliant young man with deep feelings. He had only gone to second grade and this lack of formal education gave him a deeply shy sense. He was a very strong personality, yet he could be shy and tender in his interactions with people. Andrade affirmed in him the direction he had set and in some ways was like a musical "father" to Guarnieri. 3) You had the opportunity to interview him sometimes. Could you describe to us these meetings? Tell us a little about him as an ordinary person, not the great composer. I always felt Guarnieri's deep sincerity when we spoke. He was a very generous man and permitted me to take his manuscripts home each week. I always felt he was "himself" with me: candid, open, willing to discuss whatever I proposed. He spoke no English but my Portuguese was developed enough for us to carry on discussions. Often on Friday evenings, he would invite me to go with his family to a little restaurant where we had chicken wings. I stopped to see him also in Cleveland one year when he was head of the Robert Casadesus Competition at the Cleveland, OH Conservatory. After a concert that evening, he said "Let's go eat!" so a large group of us went to an Italian restaurant. He loosened his tie and enjoyed the varied company that sat around the table. I have also on occasion gone to lunch with Guarnieri and his brother Rossini. They were very close and it was wonderful just to share those kinds of homey, relaxed hours with them. Rossini loved to discuss ideas, and Guarnieri would usually just sit and smile and listen to Rossini. I also have been fortunate to be welcomed by Vera Silvia into their wonderful family. Over the years, I enjoyed seeing the children grow into wonderful young people. 4) Guarnieri studied and worked for some time in the US. Could you speak about these periods and the importance to his life and work? Guarnieri visited the United States on several occasions. I was astounded to learn that, when he spent six months here at the invitation of the U.S. in 1942, he and Mignone had both been in the beautiful chapel of my Franciscan motherhouse in Milwaukee for a concert. Other visits are detailed in my two books on him. These were very important because they gave him both exposure and affirmation of his tremendous talent. It is often difficult for those closest to a gifted person to realize and affirm that person. Aaron Copland wrote that he was a gifted young man with plenty to say and the means to say it. Guarnieri subsequently dedicated some of his works to American musicians and received prizes for his works. This international recognition when he was 35 was very rewarding for him. 5) Could you speak about his legacy to music, in general? I am certain that time will prove that Guarnieri is one of the finest composers of this hemisphere. He was interested in writing pure music and was not deterred by any gimmicks. He claims he was the only composer who had a "school" of composition, that is, that taught the discipline of creating musical structures. When others were using musical instruments to produce nonmusical sounds (rapping on the wood or playing in unconventional ways), Guarnieri continued to pursue musical forms. He finally came to exploring serialism in his own time, but he kept it subservient to the musical ideas. I think he was a musical architect of the caliber of Beethoven. 6) Could you tell us a little about yourself? What do you do nowadays? I understand that you had also worked on other Brazilian composers. I was born and raised in Milwaukee, a lovely city north of Chicago. Milwaukee has had a rich musical heritage and continues to produce fine performers and composers. I have been a teacher, author and composer for over fifty years. My teaching has included four years of elementary and secondary music teaching, 20 years at Alverno College in Milwaukee, 27 years at the Wisconsin Conservatory during which time I also coordinated the piano program for Milwaukee's Public Schools. I am beginning my third year at Stritch University, also here in Milwaukee. My own compositions include: numerous published works for piano, several piano courses (one published by UFRGS in Porto Alegre), six song cycles, a children's opera, an Oratorio on Judith, and much liturgical music. I have published six books within the last ten years, including the two on Guarnieri. I had published privately a book on Brazilian music in 1976. I am active in musical organizations here in the city and I am currently on an international writing team to update the history of my Community, the School Sisters of St. Francis. It has been a full, wonderful life and my experiences in Brazil have been a very special part of my life. (*) Sister Marion Verhaalen is a community member of the School Sisters of St. Francis of Milwaukee, where she is a well-known performing pianist, composer, arranger and music pedagogue. She has two degrees in piano performance and holds a Doctorate in Music Education from Teachers College at Columbia University with a specialization is Brazilian Music. She has taught at Alverno College, the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, and presently teaches at Cardinal Stritch University, all in the Milwaukee area. She has published six books and composed and arranged a large, varied repertoire of music for piano, voice, choral groups and instruments. Her Book, in English, about Guarnieri is "Camargo Guarnieri, Brazilian Composer: A Study Of His Creative Life And Works" In 2004, The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, from the University of Texas, acquired the extensive records of Sister Verhaalen. "The Marion Verhaalen Collection on Camargo Guarnieri and Twentieth-Century Brazilian Music" includes musical scores, LPs, tapes, CDs, correspondence and notes regarding contemporary Brazilian music, especially of the last three decades. (*) Adolfo Salazar (1890-1958), Spanish composer and music researcher. |
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