The Music from Elomarian Sertões: an investigation of harmonic and formal procedures in songs by Elomar Figueira Mello

• Grant number: 24/10911-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2025
• End date: October 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Music
• Principal Investigator: Francisco Zmekhol Nascimento de Oliveira
• Grantee: Luís Antônio Santos Vilalva
• Host Institution: Instituto de Artes (IA). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The musical work of Elomar Figueira Mello (1937-) primarily employs the song as a means of expression, in an artistic conception that blends elements of popular culture - stemming from his origins in the hinterlands of Bahia - with sophisticated elaboration and intertextuality, oscillating between the oral and the written. Consequently, his songs, characterized by triadic harmonies and diatonic melodies, cloak significant modal and harmonic ambiguities and rather unusual musical processes, which, combined with their structures, result in highly distinctive works in comparison to both the Brazilian popular song and Brazilian chamber songs. Thus, the aim of this project is to investigate Elomar's harmonic and formal procedures. To this end, we have selected five songs: "A Pergunta", "Cantoria Pastoral", "Na Quadrada das Águas Perdidas", "Na Estrada das Areias de Ouro", and "Seresta Sertaneza", to be analyzed harmonically based on Schoenberg 1969, Vincent 1951, Tiné 2008, and Paz 2002; and formally through Spencer and Temko 1994[1988]. Subsequently, we seek to relate the observed musical procedures to the song texts through semiology-Nattiez (1971 and 1990[1987]) and Tatit 1999[1994]-and topical theory with Agawu 1991, Monelle 2006, and Piedade (2005, 2007, 2011).