Description:
A Brazilian art song anthology with a bilingual introductory study contextualizing the genre, poetry translation into English and IPA transcription. Everything singers and voice teachers need to bring to light this beautiful repertoire.
Brief description: Patricia Caicedo is a soprano and musicologist whose scholarship and performances center on Latin American and Iberian art songs. She has released eleven albums and published numerous scholarly editions of scores and books, including The Latin American Art Song: Sounds of the Imagined Nations, the go-to history on its subject. She is also an avid performer of these works, having performed all over the world in addition to founding and directing the Barcelona Festival of Song, which focuses on the performance and study of Latin American and Iberian art songs in Spanish, Catalan, and Portuguese. She is the host of the podcast, Latin American and Iberian Art Song, in which she interviews composers and leading experts from across the world. Patricia holds a Ph.D. in musicology from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a Medical Doctor's degree from the Escuela Colombiana de Medicina. Patricia is an Executive Board Member of the International Music Council of UNESCO.
Review Quotes:
From the Journal of Singing: "This new anthology is a part of the excellent Latin American and Spanish Vocal Music Collection, published by Mundo Arts Publications. The prefatory material, in both Portuguese and English, has a generous section on Brazilian-Portuguese lyric diction, including a discussion of the special features of this rich language. The use of nasalized vowels and diphthongs in Portuguese diction and word linkage are explained here in detail. A glossary of terms specific to Brazilian song is a valuable addition for the musician unfamiliar with song forms such as Moda, choro, and batuque, or with musical directions, such as bem ligado (very legato), or with Brazilian musical instruments, such as the pandeiro, a percussion instrument. Extensive vowel and consonant charts complete the diction section. Each song is prefaced by a composer's biography, the standard three-line translation (IPA, original text, and English), and the range of the song. Women and other underrepresented minority composers are included, within the period parameters of songs composed between 1800 and 1950.
Perhaps one of the most fascinating features of this anthology is the "Introduction to the Brazilian Art Song," a detailed history that places the development of Brazilian songs squarely within the context of the political, social, and cultural history of the region. The editors have created a detailed history and description of the provenance of the genre. Patricia Caicedo, the scholar behind this art song series and director of the Barcelona Festival of Song, says in her foreword that, "It is not surprising that hundreds of art song composers and poets emerged in such a rich, diverse, and stimulating environment. Nor is it surprising that cultural diversity and hybridization are expressed in Brazilian art song: African, indigenous, and European elements coex-ist in it, making this repertoire one of the world's richest." With the astute and thorough scholarship of this first volume, we look forward to the second volume of later songs of the twentieth and twenty-first century now being planned."