Nacionalismo, engajamento e música instrumental: a sonoridade do Quarteto Novo

Abstract

Based on a musical appreciation of the album Quarteto Novo, specifically the phonogram “Algodao”, and discussions on political art and national-popular in the 1960s, this paper aims to contextualize the production of the homonymous group and to verify the way in which a cultural conjuncture is revealed even in instrumental music. The nationalist project assumed by the Quarteto Novo to produce a new music and a new language of improvisation would be closely related to an ideal that encouraged artistic productions with a strong political bias articulated to elements of popular culture. The Quarteto Novo emerges from this context, produces in line with a certain ideal, but its work cannot be reduced to schematic classifications. The group both broke with a type of sound prevalent in instrumental music of the period, and opened new horizons for this music. More than applying ready-made formulas or blindly obeying aesthetic guidelines, this production appropriated different musicalities (local, regional, but also cosmopolitan) to produce a musical synthesis whose legacy seems fundamental to instrumental music in Brazil.