Issues of Lyric Diction of Brazilian Portuguese as Applied to José Siqueira’s Oito Canções Populares Brasileiras

Abstract

Issues of Lyric Diction of Brazilian Portuguese as Applied to José Siqueira's Oito Canções Populares Brasileiras Marcel Ramalho (bio) LANGUAGE AND DICTION In the early twentieth century, the Brazilian nationalist movement in the arts brought concerns about the development of Brazilian art song and pronunciation of Brazilian Portuguese in classical singing. Alberto Nepomuceno (1864–1920) was the first Brazilian composer to express his desire to develop a Brazilian art song tradition. He and other composers used the German Kunstlied and its high level of expressivity and symbiosis between words and music as the parameter through which they would measure the excellence and effectiveness of sung Brazilian Portuguese. In order for that excellence to be achieved, a thorough study of the sung national language with the goals of understanding its musical possibilities had to be performed. Spearheaded by Mário de Andrade (the same intellectual who led the Modernist movement and the Week of Modern Art of 1922), the Primeiro Congresso da Língua Nacional Cantada (First Conference for the Sung National Language) happened in São Paulo City in 1937. The main goal of this conference was to "unify the way in which the language was spoken and sung by the elimination or minimization of the use of regional dialects. As with music and other arts, the shift was toward the creation of a national language."1 The intent of establishing a standard pronunciation of Brazilian Portuguese for singing was "animated by the desire to serve the cause of Brazilian nationality in the arts of language and singing,"2 with the resulting norms published in 1938. The organizers of this conference had a second conference in mind, which was supposed to occur in 1942. Due to political reasons, this second conference never happened. In 1956, the Primeiro Congresso Brasileiro da Língua Falada no Teatro (First Brazilian Conference for the Language Spoken in Theater) took place in Salvador, but the goal of this congress was not the establishing of a pronunciation standard. According to the organizers of the event, this task would happen naturally through the work of radio, television, and cinema, among other media (with no mention of singing).3 Almost seventy years after the Primeiro Congresso, the pronunciation of sung Brazilian Portuguese once again gained prominent place as a subject for discussion and research among Brazilian and American scholars. In 2007, new norms were published after discussions that took place between [End Page 363] 2003 and 2007 in several different music conferences in Brazil, including the IV Encontro Brasileiro de Canto (4th Brazilian Singing Convention), which happened in São Paulo in 2005. The main goal of the Normas para a Pronúncia do Português Brasileiro no Canto Erudito (Norms for the Pronunciation of Brazilian Portuguese in Classical Singing) was "to establish a standard for a recognizable Brazilian pronunciation for classical singing, without foreign or regional features, laying aside the consideration of international influences and of the important regional and historic varieties of our language for future studies."4 An English version of these norms was published in the Journal of Singing in 2008.5 In 2017, Marcía D. Porter published Singing in Brazilian Portuguese: A Guide to Lyric Diction and Vocal Repertoire, the purpose of which was "to provide professional and amateur singers and pianists, voice teachers, coaches, students of singing and others interested in lyric Brazilian Portuguese (BP) a tool or guide to help with the pronunciation of the language."6 This article discusses aspects related to lyric diction of Brazilian Portuguese as applied to the Oito Canções Populares Brasileiras (Eight Popular Brazilian Songs), by José Siqueira (1907–1985). Given the regional character of Siqueira's overall opus and of these songs in particular, it is this author's understanding that several adaptations of the 2007 norms are necessary because, as stated by Brazilian linguist Thaïs Cristófaro Silva, "linguistic systems are dynamic and, in that sense, any document of a normative character will present limitations."7 The limitations in this case are related to meeting the needs of this specific repertoire and the cultural identities it aims to portray. In that sense, this article is aligned with the...