Camargo Guarnieri

Mozart Camargo Guarnieri (February 1, 1907 – January 13, 1993) was a Brazilian composer.

Name

Guarnieri was born in Tietê, São Paulo, and registered at birth as Mozart Guarnieri, but when he began a musical career, he decided his first name was too pretentious and subject to puns. Thus he adopted his mother's maiden name Camargo as a middle name, and thenceforth signed himself M. Camargo Guarnieri. In 1948, he legally changed his name to Mozart Camargo Guarnieri, but continued to sign only the initial of his first name. One of his brothers was named Rossine (a Portuguese misspelling of Rossini) Guarnieri, another one Verdi Guarnieri.

Life

He studied piano with Ernani Braga and Antonio de Sá Pereira and composition with Lamberto Baldi at the Conservatório Dramático e Musical de São Paulo. In 1938, a fellowship from the Council of Artistic Orientation allowed him to travel to Paris, where he studied composition and aesthetics with Charles Koechlin and conducting with François Ruhlmann (Béhague 2001). Some of his compositions received important prizes in the United States in the 1940s, giving Guarnieri the opportunity of conducting them in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago. A distinguished figure of the Brazilian national school, he served in several capacities; conductor of the São Paulo Orchestra, member of the Academia Brasileira de Música, and Director of the São Paulo Conservatório, where he taught composition and orchestral conducting. In 1936 he was the first conductor of the Coral Paulistano choir. His œuvre comprises symphonies, concertos, cantatas, two operas, chamber music, many piano pieces, and over fifty songs. Some consider him to be the most important Brazilian composer after Heitor Villa-Lobos. Shortly before his death in São Paulo in 1993, he was awarded the Gabriela Mistral Prize by the Organization of American States as the greatest contemporary composer of the Americas.

Works

Opera

Pedro Malazarte (comic opera in one act, libretto by Mário de Andrade, premiered in May 1952 at the Theatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro)
Um homem só (tragic opera in one act, libretto by Gianfrancesco Guarnieri, premiered on November 29, 1962, at the Theatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro)

Orchestral

Symphonies
- Symphony No. 1 (1944)
- Symphony No. 2 "Uirapuru" (1945)
- Symphony No. 3 (1952)
- Symphony No. 4 "Brasília" (1963)
- Symphony No. 5 (1977)
- Symphony No. 6 (1981)
Overtures
- Abertura Concertante (1942)
- Abertura Festiva (1971)
Suites
- Suite infantil (1929)
- Tres Dansas para Orquestra (1941). The first dance is "Dansa Brasileira" (originally composed for piano in 1928), which is his best-known and most-recorded piece outside South America.
- Suite IV Centenario (1954)
- Suite Vila Rica (1957), taken from the music for the film "Rebelião em Vila Rica"

Concertante

Piano
- Piano Concerto No. 1 (1931)
- Piano Concerto No. 2 (1946)
- Choro for piano and orchestra (1956)
- Piano Concerto No. 3 (1964)
- Piano Concerto No. 4 (1968)
- Piano Concerto No. 5 (1970)
- Piano Concerto No. 6 (1987)
- Variations (Variações sobre um tema nordestino) for Piano and Orchestra (1953)
Violin
- Violin Concerto No. 1 (1940)
- Choro for violin and orchestra (1951)
- Violin Concerto No. 2 (1952)
Viola
- Choro for viola and orchestra (1975)
Cello
- Choro for cello and orchestra (1961)

Chamber/instrumental

String Quartets
- String Quartet No. 1 (1932)
- String Quartet No. 2 (1944)
- String Quartet No. 3 (1962)
Cello Sonatas
- Cello Sonata No. 1 (1931)
- Cello Sonata No. 2 (1955)
- Cello Sonata No. 3 (1977)
Violin Sonatas
- Violin Sonata No. 1
- Violin Sonata No. 2
- Violin Sonata No. 3
- Violin Sonata No. 4
- Violin Sonata No. 5
- Violin Sonata No. 6
- Violin Sonata No. 7
Viola Sonata (1950)
Sonatina for Flute and Piano (1947)

References

Béhague, Gerard. 2001. "Guarnieri, (Mozart) Camargo". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.

External links

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