Pixinguinha
Pixinguinha (born April 23, 1897 in Rio de Janeiro ; † February 17, 1973 ibid), actually Alfredo da Rocha Viana Filho, was a Brazilian musician , singer , composer and conductor . He anchored the saxophone in Brazilian popular music and wrote around 600 choros , many of which became classics.
Live and act
Pixinguinha comes from a musical family; his father Alfredo da Rocha Viana was a flautist. After taking flute lessons from his father, he received lessons from Irineu de Almeida ; He wrote his first compositions at the age of 14. As a 15-year-old he appeared with his flute wherever the elderly made music, so that he was scolded as a “rogue” (“pinzinguim”), from which his nickname is derived. In 1912 he began to work professionally as a musician in revues, cinemas and cabarets. From 1919 he played in the Oito Batutas octet , with which he ultimately expanded the traditional choro line-up of two guitars, cavaquinho and flute to include the timbres of saxophone , trumpet and other wind instruments as well as percussion instruments such as reco-reco , pandeiro and Ganzá . He also established counterpoint as the basis for choro and its improvisations .
In 1922 Pixinguinha appeared in Europe with the Os Batutas , which emerged from the ensemble; in order to be able to play in larger halls, he switched to the soprano saxophone . In 1930 Pixinguinha disbanded the orchestra and concentrated mainly on his career as a composer, arranger and director of the studio orchestra Orquestra Victor Brasileira . His compositions were made famous by interpreters such as Francisco Alves and Mário Reis .
In 1939 he became a member of the group of Benedito Lacerda, where he concentrated on the tenor saxophone (and thus the second voice). In the 1940s he was involved in the recording of Brazilian music, which Leopold Stokowski initiated for Columbia Records . Despite the recognition from colleagues and friends, Pixinguinha could only rarely perform in the last two decades, as the choro was hardly noticed anymore. In 1963 he wrote the music for the film Sol sobre a Lama with Vinícius de Moraes .
Selection of works
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Web links
- Pixinguinha - official website (Portuguese)
- Pixinguinha lives: 100 years of choro
- Pixinguinha at Allmusic (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Claus Schreiner Musica Latina, music folklore between Cuba and Tierra del Fuego Frankfurt am Main 1982, p. 337
- ↑ Larry Crook: Brazilian music: northeastern traditions and the heartbeat of a modern nation . ABC-CLIO, September 2005, ISBN 978-1-57607-287-5, (accessed May 26, 2013).
- ^ Larry Crook: Focus: music of northeast Brazil . Taylor & Francis, March 24, 2009, ISBN 978-0-415-96066-3 , p. 138 (Accessed May 26, 2013).
- ↑ Tamara Elena Livingston-Isenhour, Thomas George Caracas Garcia. 2005. Choro: A Social History Of A Brazilian Popular Music. Indiana University Press 2005, p. 98
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pixinguinha |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Rocha Vianna, Alfredo da (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Brazilian musician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 23, 1897 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rio de Janeiro |
| DATE OF DEATH | 17th February 1973 |
| Place of death | Rio de Janeiro |