Music and musicians in the Maços de População of the Captaincy and Province of São Paulo (1765-1850)

• Grant number: 22/11899-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: March 01, 2023
• End date: February 28, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Music
• Principal Investigator: Paulo Augusto Castagna
• Grantee: Daniel Issa Gonçalves
• Host Institution: Instituto de Artes (IA). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Public Archive of the State of São Paulo keeps in its power the "Maços de População", a handwritten collection of censuses of the various parishes of the then Captaincy of São Paulo, starting in 1765 and reaching, in some cases, the Second Empire in 1850. It is considered the most complete population and economic census in São Paulo, providing detailed information about its inhabitants - including their musical activity, when this represents a profitable professional activity.The importance of this large body of documents as a primary source for São Paulo's musical life is not unknown. Musicologists and Music Historians have used (and still use) the "Maços de População" as sources of information for their work. However, a systematic analysis of all this corpus in order to extract from them all the data referring to music, as we now propose to do, was never made.Our goal is to proceed with the reading and analysis of this entire documentary corpus in search of elements related to music, its authors and actors. Then move on to their transcription, organization and analysis. The research results will make possible to generate, after its completion, a reference publication with indexes and lists of musicians classified by location and period, offering, for the first time, an overview of the musical activity in São Paulo for the period of 1765 to 1850 - and also allowing to rediscover many professional musicians of the past for whom the record in the "Maços de População" represents, nowadays, the only material proof of their existence.The importance of this large body of documents as a primary source for São Paulo's musical life is not unknown. Musicologists and Music Historians have used (and still use) the "Maços de População" as sources of information for their work. However, a systematic analysis of all this corpus in order to extract from them all the data referring to music, as we now propose to do, was never made.The research results will make possible to generate, after its completion, a reference publication with indexes and lists of musicians classified by location and period, offering, for the first time, an overview of the musical activity in São Paulo for the period of 1765 to 1850 - and also allowing to rediscover many professional musicians of the past for whom the record in the "Maços de População" represents, nowadays, the only material proof of their existence. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

DANIEL ISSA GONÇALVES; PAULO AUGUSTO CASTAGNA. “Indios muzicos” do século XVIII: a banda indígena do Embu (1783-1829). REVISTA VORTEX-VORTEX MUSIC JOURNAL, v. 12, 2024-12-13. (22/11899-3)

DANIEL ISSA GONÇALVES; PAULO CASTAGNA. “Indios muzicos” do século XVIII: a banda indígena de Itapecerica (1767-1835). REVISTA VORTEX-VORTEX MUSIC JOURNAL, v. 12, 2024-12-13. (22/11899-3)