The ways of Gilberto Mendes and the classical music in Brazil

Author(s)

Carla Delgado de Souza

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
• Defense date: 2011-02-12

Examining board members

Rita de Cássia Lahoz Morelli; Samuel Mello Araujo Junior; Rose Satiko Gitirana Hikiji; Maria Suely Kofes; Denise Hortencia Lopes Garcia

• Advisor: Rita de Cássia Lahoz Morelli

Abstract

The present Doctorate thesis is an ethnography of the social experience of Gilberto Mendes - one of the most important Brazilian composers of classical contemporary music. Our objective is to understand how he struggled with some aesthetical dilemmas and related himself with the musical field political and power instances since 1940's, when he decided being musician, until the moment of his consecration in Brazil and abroad. By the study of Gilberto Mendes trajectory, it was possible to map many relations between aesthetical and politics, art and market, which were determinant not only for him, but also for other authors which experienced the classical music field in the second half of XX century. Although Gilberto Mendes biographical journey is the conducting wire of this narrative, the work cannot be considered as a monologue. The analogy more appropriated for this text refers to a drama, with the purpose of illuminating a whole context of relations between people, institutions and aesthetics present in his social experience. The work and the trajectory of Gilberto Mendes are put in dialogue with other composers production, in a way that we can hear and understand him from the perspective of the aesthetical arguments and the hearing and political possibilities of his social time and place (AU)