September 20, 2012 <Back to Index>
PAGE SPONSOR |
José Maurício Nunes Garcia (September 20, 1767 – April 18, 1830) was a Brazilian classical composer, one of the greatest exponents of Classicism in the Americas. Born in Rio de Janeiro, son of mulattos,
Nunes Garcia lost his father at an early age, and his mother perceived
that her son had an inclination for becoming a musician and, for this
reason, improved her work to allow him to continue his musical studies. Nunes Garcia became a priest and, when prince John VI of Portugal came to Rio de Janeiro with his 15,000 people, Nunes Garcia was appointed Master of the Royal Chapel. He sang and played the harpsichord, performing his compositions as well as those of other composers such as Domenico Cimarosa and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
He was a very prestigious musician in the royal court of John VI. His
musical style was strongly influenced by Viennese composers of the
period, such as Mozart and Haydn.
Today, some 240 musical pieces written by Nunes Garcia survive, and at
least 170 others are known to have been lost. Most of his compositions
are sacred works, but he wrote also some secular pieces, including the
opera Le due gemelle and the Tempest Symphony. On September 22 1767, in a humble house at Rua da Vala, in Rio de Janeiro, a boy was born to a couple of free mulattos,
Vitória Maria da Cruz and the tailor Apolinário Nunes
Garcia. Vitória was born in the city of Mariana, in the province
of Minas Gerais,
and Apolinário, in Ilha do Governador (Governor's Island), near
the city of Rio de Janeiro. Victoria's mother was Joana
Gonçalves, slave of Simão Gonçalves, and
Apolinário was the son of Ana Correa do Desterro, slave of the
parrish Apolinário Nunes Garcia. Their baptism documents have no
record of their fathers' names, an evidence they were both their lord's
children. Victoria and Apolinário married in 1762. The boy, who
had been born on St Maurice's day, was baptized José Mauricio
Nunes Garcia, on December 20 of this same year, in the city's See, now the church of Nossa Senhora do Rosário. An
aunt, whose name is not known, lived with the family. After
Apolinário's death in 1773, they both raised the small boy, and,
when his precocious musical talent was detected, they succeeded to
contract, not without sacrifice, Salvador José de Almeida e
Faria to teach him music. Faria had been educated in the musical style of the province of Minas Gerais in the 18th century,
and there he made his career; this explains why this style is present
in Nunes Garcia's early compositions. To
complete his musical education, he probably joined the See's boys
choir, as a soprano. The choir's components were students of the
Seminário de São Joaquim, today Pedro II school, where
they learned to read music, Greek and Latin. According
to Manuel de Araújo Porto Alegre, one of his early biographers,
the young boy had "a beautiful voice and a sharp musical memory";
"reproduced everything he heard", and "created his own melodies and
played the harpsichord and the guitar without ever have learned to". In
1779, at twelve, Nunes Garcia began to teach music. Since he never had
a piano or a harpsichord, he exercised on the keyboard by teaching the
society's ladies in their homes. He learned to play the organ later,
when he was already a priest, assisted by some good organists in the
churches. He
completed his education in the "Royal Classes", public classes with
lectures in history, geography, Latin grammar, philosophy and rhetoric. The abbreviation CPM, used below, refers to the Thematic Catalogue of Nunes Garcia's
Works, compiled by the musicologist Mrs. Cleofe Person de Mattos. In 1783, at 16, Nunes Garcia composed his first surviving work: the antiphon Tota pulchra Es Maria (CPM 1). In
the 1780s, he studied for the examinations he had to go through to take
the holy orders, and developed a musical partnership with the old
chapel master and subchantre of the See, deacon João Lopes
Ferreira. These would be his first steps to succeed him as the chapel
master. In
1784, the brotherhood of Saint Cecilia, the traditional guild of the
musicians, was founded in Rio de Janeiro. Nunes Garcia, at 17, was
allowed to sign the foundation act, as he was already recognized as a
professional music teacher. By the end of the 1780s, he had already a large repertoire of his own: a Litany for Our Lady for 4 voices and organ, in 1788; the anthems O Redemptor Summe Carmen and Pange Lingua, both in 1789; and the works a capella for all the Holy Week of the See, the Bradados or Passions, of these the most important was Bradados de 6ª feira maior (CPM 219), or Passion for Good Friday; this work originally included some motets classified - and nowadays sung - apart: Crux Fidelis (CPM 205), Heu Domine (CPM 211), Popule Meus (CPM 222), Sepulto Domino (CPM 223), and Vexilla Regis (CPM 225). In 1790 Nunes Garcia composed an instrumental work that made him famous in Rio de Janeiro: the Funeral Symphony (CPM 230). He
requested the holy orders in 1791. The two main prerequisites to be
accepted were to prove the true Catholic faith from himself and from
his parents, and to be free from "any color defect". The first had been
proved through research and witnessing from his parents' and
grandmothers' friends. To overcome the second, he requested to be
dismissed from his "defect", in which he was successful. In June 1791,
he began the necessary examinations, and in March 1792 he was approved.
There
was one last requirement to take orders: to be an estate owner. This
was gone through with the help of one of his student's father, Thomaz
Gonçalves, a rich merchant who donated him a house at Rua das
Bellas Noutes. Nunes
Garcia tried to develop himself in oratory, as it was useful to a
priest, taking part in meetings of the Literary Society, founded in
1794. In 1797, the society was closed and their leaders arrested, under
the accusation of revolutionary activities against the Crown. Among the
arrested was Manuel Inácio da Silva Alvarenga, a poet born in
the city of Vila Rica, and relative of Inácio José de
Alvarenga Peixoto, one of the condemned leaders of the Inconfidência Mineira, a 1789 uprising in the province of Minas Gerais. In
1795, he was appointed as public music instructor, installing a free
music class in his own house. There the only instrument left for
teaching was a steel guitar, used in sequence by all the students.
Great musicians and singers there began their musical education. They
would enrich Rio's musical stage during almost all the 19th century. Following
his ordination, Nunes Garcia enjoyed a period of great productivity.
From this period are known 32 pieces of music, among them graduals,
antiphons, various psalms, a Magnificat (CPM 16) for voices and organ, the vespers Vésperas das Dores de N. Srª. (CPM 177) ,Vésperas de N. Srª. (CPM 178), and several works for Holy Week: two Miserere, one for Maundy Thursday (CPM 194), and the other for Good Friday (CPM 195), and, in 1797, his first mass, Missa para os pontificiais da Sé - Pontifical mass of the See. On July 4th (or 5th),
1798, deacon Lopes Ferreira passed away. Two days earlier, perhaps
because of his imminent death, Nunes Garcia was nominated chapel
master. His dream of succeeding the master had come true. The position
of subchantre was occupied by deacon José Mariano. In
1799 he joined the brotherhood of Nossa Senhora do Rosário e
São Benedito dos Homens Pretos, in whose church the See was installed. This same year he composed a Funeral Office (CPM 183) and a Requiem Mass (CPM 184), in honour of the deceased deacons, probably a personal tribute to Lopes Ferreira, and the Matins of Christmas (CPM 170). As
his house at Rua das Bellas Noutes was near the city's Public Garden,
there is evidence that he took part in the traditional serenades there,
for, in 1837, the scores of three of his popular compositions were
printed by music editor Pierre Laforge; the Modinhas: Beijo a mão que me condena (CPM 226) - I kiss the hand that signs my condemnation; Marília, se não me amas (CPM 238) - Marília, if you don't love me, and No momento da partida, meu coração t'entreguei (CPM 239), - at the moment of the departure I gave you my heart. At the beginning of the 19th century, he diversified his production with two overtures: The Tempest (CPM 233) and Zemira (CPM 231), both written in 1803. Few of his other works composed between 1800 and 1807 are known: two graduals, the motet Te Christe Solum Novimus (CPM 52), written in 1800, the Te Deum for the Matins of the Assumption (CPM 91) the Mass in B Flat (CPM 102), both written in 1801, and the antiphon In Honorem Beatissimae Maria Virginis (CPM 4), written in 1807. He
resumed his rhetoric classes with Silva Alvarenga from 1802 to 1804,
but of his purely rhetorical works, only the titles of two of his
sermons are known. Despite celibacy, Nunes Garcia had in the first decade of the 19th century
a marital relationship with Severiana Rosa de Castro, born in 1789, she
herself a free half - breed. From this relationship five children were
born: José Apolinário, in 1807; Apolinário
José, in 1808; Josefina in 1810, Panfília in 1811 and
Antônio José in 1813. The elder, José
Apolinário, later changed his own name to José
Maurício Nunes Garcia Jr, after his father's acknowledgement, in
1828. In January, 1808 the brig Voador brought
to Rio the news of the imminent arrival of the Portuguese Royal Family.
They were fleeing from the invasion of their kingdom by the French
troops, led by general Junot. Some weeks later, another boat brought the information of the precise date of the arrival: March 7th, and a request from prince regent John: to assist at a Te Deum,
celebrated in the city's See, in thanksgiving for the successful trip.
Some steps were taken in advance for the occasion, and at the informed
date, the Anglo - Portuguese fleet reached the bay of Rio de Janeiro. The
prince regent and his court disembarked the next day, walking from the
port to the See. Along the way, there were fireworks, music and the
churches' bells tolling. When the prince entered the church, a "great
orchestra", joined by the boys' choir, began to play. The music was conducted by Nunes Garcia. About it, besides probably his Te Deum in D (CPM 96) written in 1799, there were presented the antiphons O Beatae Sebastiane, and Sub Tuum Praesidium (CPM 2). The
prince regent, though enthusiastic about the music, did not have the
same opinion about the players. Soon he became aware of the precarious
state of the See, and the quarrels between the Chapter and the church's
brotherhood. One of his first decrees in Rio was to transfer the
Chapter to the church of the Firsts of the Carmel, next to the
Governor's Palace. Soon he had the idea to create a Royal Chapel, to
replace his Patriarchal of Lisbon, to be installed in this church. The
institution was made official when the Portuguese bishop Dom
José Caetano da Silva Coutinho arrived in the city, on April 25th,
1808. He had to act with diplomacy to integrate the priests of the
Patriarchal of Lisbon with the Chapter of the See of Rio de Janeiro.
The admission of the Brazilian priests had been officialized, but the
Portuguese clergy thought otherwise: in an anonymous document, they
stated that, as a measure of economy, the ministers should be limited
to those who previously served the prince regent. This would spare him
to see in his chapel someone with a "visible physical defect". That
someone with a "visible physical defect" was Nunes Garcia. That
was only the beginning of a series of aggressive actions, that had the
objective of humiliating the man they considered to be of an inferior
race. But the prince regent, recognizing his musical gifts, confirmed
him, on November 26th, as the master musician of the Royal Chapel. That made Nunes Garcia officially the first musician of the kingdom of Portugal. The
move of the court to Rio de Janeiro was traumatic to the city's 60,000
natives. At once there were 15,000 new inhabitants, needing housing and
food. The court servants were first lodged at the ucharia -
the city's food warehouse at the Carmelite Monastery. The aristocrats
needed houses for themselves and for their families, and since there
were no homes left, they resorted to requesting them by force. Once
chosen, the house was marked with the initials P.R. (Prince Regent),
and their owners had to leave it in 24 hours. To
avoid problems with food supply due to the sudden increase in the
city's population, the prince regent decreed that improvements would be
made at the Royal Farm of Santa Cruz, a former Jesuit settlement
distant seven leagues (30 miles) from the city. Tre property had been
transferred to the Crown in 1769, when the Jesuits were expelled from Portugal and all the colonies. The goods there produced were transported to Rio and sold at the ucharia. The
farm would be soon transformed in a summer palace for the royal family.
Since, when it was owned by the Jesuites, it had a choir of slaves, and
as they would be useful at the masses, the prince regent commissioned
two music teachers to live and work there to improve their music skills. The
musical ensemble of the See did not please the prince. To improve their
quality, the musicians of the Patriarchal of Lisbon, most of them still
living in that city, were called to Rio. The task of composing new
works was left to Nunes Garcia. From 1808 to 1811, he composed about 70
works for the royal solemnities. The main compositions of 1808 were the Mass of São Pedro de Alcântara (CPM 104), offered to prince Dom Pedro, the Missa Pastoril (CPM 108) - Pastoral Mass, the Missa em Fá (CPM 103) - Mass in F, an orchestrated Qui Sedes (CPM 162) and some works which are now lost: a Christmas Mass, and a Mass for the queen Saint Elizabeth, both for voices and organ. The
musicians of Lisbon were artists of great technique and virtuosity, and
they made Rio de Janeiro an important musical center at that time. The
quality of the performers was reflected in the works of the chapel
master. But as they were acquainted with a different musical style, and
were not satisfied that they were being conducted by a musician who
they considered was of an inferior race, they acted as a pressure group
against him. The musicians of the old See also joined the new orchestra. In 1809, even with an incomplete music staff, various ceremonies were celebrated with music. This year a holiday in thanksgiving for the royal family's successful trip to Rio was decreed, and a Mass and a Te Deum were composed by Nunes Garcia, for this first year. The other 1809 compositions were: a Mass of St. Michael the Archangel, the Mass for St. Peter of Alcantara (CPM 105), the Mass for the Feast of the Visitation of Our Lady and the one For the Kingdom's Guardian Angel. Holy Week was celebrated solemnly in the Royal Chapel. Among the compositions heard was a Creed for 8 voices, for Maundy Thursday, a Motet of Our Lady, both lost. The surviving works were: Judas Mercator Pessimus (CPM 195), the Matins for the Resurrection (CPM 200), - and the sequentia Lauda Sion (CPM 165), for the feast of Corpus Christi. In this same year he composed the music for two allegoric stage plays, written by Gastão Fausto da Câmara Coutinho: Ulissea, Drama Eroico (CPM 229) and O Triunfo da América (CPM 228) - The Triumph of America. In
February 1809, the prince regent, impressed by the improvisations
played by Nunes Garcia at the pianoforte in his palace, retrieved a
medal from the coat of the baron of Vila Nova and attached it to his
garments, making him a knight of the Order of Christ. Still in this year, he was named archivist of the royal music files, just brought from the Queluz Palace in
Lisbon to Rio. This job put him in contact with a more up-to-date
repertory, and by studying the scores, he incorporated new techniques
to his compositional skills. His
salary, although sufficient for him alone, was not enough to face his
children's needs for food, education and care. Soon he, in severe debt,
decided to mortgage his house. Despite his personal problems, he proceeded with his work. His compositions of 1810 are the Matinas de S. João, - Matins of St. John, the Mass and the Te Deum in thanksgiving for the successful trip of the royal family, the antiphon Ecce Sacerdos (CPM 5), and the Magnificatfor the Vespers of St. Joseph (CPM 17). By the end of the year he had finished the motet Praecursor Domini (CPM 55), for the farm of Santa Cruz, and the Missa de N. Srª da Conceição (CPM
106) - Mass of the Conception of Our Lady, a turning point in his
musical career. This work reflects clearly what he had learned with the
royal music files. In
1811, probably due to the excess of work, Nunes Garcia may have felt
severely ill; an evidence for this was a request to the prince to "say
the mass at home". The
prince regent, also aware of the pressure put upon him by the European
musicians, had no option but to demand his former court composer, Marcos Portugal to
cross the ocean and substitute him. It seems that Portugal did not want
to leave his country. But pressed by the prince, he left Lisbon in
March 1811. After a month's trip, he was warmly received in Rio de
Janeiro. As in Lisbon eleven years before, he was nominated Master of
Music of the Royal Chapel and Director of the Royal Theatre of
São João, then under construction. His first meeting with
Nunes Garcia was likely to be cordial. The priest, requested to play a Haydn sonata
at the harpsichord, received greetings for his performance, and
Portugal declared: "Beautiful! You are my brother in Art! Surely you
will be for me a friend." There
is no evidence that Nunes Garcia was dismissed in the replacement, or
suffered financial loss because of it. Instead, the new situation
seemed to be advantageous for him. The titles of some of his own
compositions from this period show a clear division of work: Portugal
became responsible for the music at the main ceremonies of the Royal
Chapel, leaving him the ceremonies of the royal Quinta da Boa Vista,
and of the royal farm of Santa Cruz, such as it is in the subtitle of
the motet Tamquam Aurum (CPM 56). Besides,
having six other mouths to feed, he was now able to find the necessary
free time to accept commissioned works from other churches, increasing
his own income. After 1811, most of his works were no longer written
for the Royal Chapel, but for smaller churches in Rio de Janeiro. By
this time the mortgage on his house was paid, another evidence of his
financial health. In
the year 1813, Nunes Garcia began to compose regularly for the church
of the Thirds of Carmel, side by side with the Royal Chapel. Upon
request of his friend Baptista Lisboa, he wrote two psalms: Laudate Dominum (CPM 76) and Laudate Pueri Dominum (CPM 77). This same year, for the church of Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte (Our Lady of the Good Death) he orchestrated his Matinas da Assunção de Nossa Senhora (CPM 172) - Matins of the Assumption of Our Lady, written in 1808, and wrote a Missa Pequena - Small Mass, to the feast of Saint Therese. In
1813 the Royal Theatre of São João, still unfinished, was
opened to the public. In this same year, the French army, led by Napoleon Bonaparte, was defeated in Leipzig, and in 1814 Pope Pius VII returned to Rome from his exile in Avignon.
These events were cheerfully celebrated in Rio de Janeiro. Only two of
the works written by Nunes Garcia in 1814 are known: the Novena do Apóstolo São Pedro (CPM 66) - Novena of the Apostle St. Peter, and the Bendito e Louvado Seja o Santíssimo Sacramento (CPM 12) - Blessed and Praised let it be the Holiest of Sacraments. On November 22nd he
was awarded from the Prince Regent's Privy Purse an annual amount of
25$000 (twenty five thousand réis), to build his "clerical
assets". In 1815 he composed the Matinas do Apóstolo São Pedro (CPM 173) - Matins of the Apostle St. Peter, for the brotherhood of São Pedro dos Clérigos. In
December 1815, in order to grant for Portugal a seat at the Holy
Alliance's assembly, Brazil was promoted from a Portuguese colony to a united kingdom with Portugal and Algarves.
In theory, this would make all Brazilians equal in rights to the
Portuguese, but in practice, everything was kept as it was. In the
beginning of 1816, Nunes Garcia was chosen to conduct the mass in
thanksgiving for the event, just because he was a Brazilian native. The
mass was celebrated in the church of St. Francis of Paula, at the Largo da Sé Velha, now Largo de São Francisco. It is not known what music was performed during the ceremony. This year Nunes Garcia composed the Moteto para a Ordenação do Ilustre Bispo da Real Capela -
Motet for the Ordination of the Illustrious Bishop of the Royal Chapel;
the ceremony occurred only on March 15, 1816. Coincidentally, on March
20, 1816, came the deaths of the Portuguese Queen, Maria I,
and of Vitória Maria da Cruz, Nunes Garcia's mother. The
Queen's death was mourned by the whole city. The funeral carriage
passed through many streets to the tomb at the Convent of Ajuda, and it
was followed by the people in silence. A month later, on April 22, her
funeral mass was celebrated solemnly at the Royal Chapel, with a
Requiem Mass and a Funeral Office, both composed and conducted by
Marcos Portugal. To promote their own funeral ceremony, the Thirds of
the Carmel commissioned to Nunes Garcia a whole new Missa de Mortos (CPM 185), a requiem which was clearly influenced by Mozart's famous work, and an Ofício de Defuntos (CPM 186) - a Funeral Office, both considered to be his two masterpieces. On July 4, 1816, a third master of music, Fortunato Mazziotti, was admitted at the Royal Chapel. Shortly after, on July 10th, he conducted David Perez's Mattutino dei Morti in a second ceremony in memoriam of the Queen. The
prince regent, in a gesture of reconciliation with France, and
concerned about the development of culture and arts in Brazil,
sponsored the travel to Rio of a French artistic mission, with
specialists in painting, sculpture, architecture, and historiography. The Missão Artística Francesa arrived in Rio de Janeiro on March 26, 1816. Led by the historiographer Henri Lebreton, the group consisted of Jean-Baptiste Debret (painter),
Grandjean de Montigny (architect), Zepherin Ferrez (sculptor), and
Nicholas Antoine Taunay (painter and historiographer), among many
others. As soon as Taunay heard the music of Nunes Garcia, he passed to
call him "le grand mulâtre". Some weeks later, integrating the commitive of the Duke of Luxembourg, the Austrian composer Sigismund Neukomm (Salzburg, 1778; Paris 1858) disembarked in Rio. When in Salzburg, Neukomm had been pupil of Joseph and Michael Haydn.
In his whole career, he composed about 1,800 works. Despite
his skills, Neukomm was not admitted to the Royal Chapel. Instead, he
was appointed Music Teacher to their Royal Highnesses, a position he
held until 1821, when he travelled back to Europe. He was severely
critical of the operatic style prevalent in sacred music at the time,
and of the 45 works he composed in Brazil, only one was performed in
the Royal Chapel: the Missa Pro Acclamationis Joannis VI,
which he had composed for the acclamation of the prince regent king
John VI of Portugal, in 1817. He held Nunes Garcia in high esteem,
although most of what he said was reported by Manuel de Araújo
Porto Alegre, who claimed to have met him in Paris in 1853. Neukomm was also responsible for the first presentation in Brazil of Mozart's Requiem (K 626), in the church of the Recolhimento do Parto, with the musicians of the brotherhood of St. Cecilia conducted by Nunes Garcia. In December 1819, Neukomm wrote a Libera Me based
in some of its themes, which was presented in sequence, and an article
about the performance was published in 1820 in the newspaper Allgemeines Musikalisches Zeitung of Vienna, in which he affirmed it "was in nothing behind any european presentation". That
was his unique first hand opinion about Nunes Garcia. The writings of
Porto Alegre which claim that he regarded the Brazilian composer as
"one of the greatest improvisers of the world", or that "he admired his
self-education in music" are suspicious, because he is not even
mentioned in Neukomm's autobiography. In 1817, prince Dom Pedro married archduchess Maria Leopoldina Josepha Carolina, daughter of the Emperor of Austria.
The archduchess, who had a thorough religious and musical education,
brought with her an ensemble of 16 musicians. She arrived in Rio on
November 5th. The excellence of the musicians made the people gather at Largo de São Jorge, near Nunes Garcia's house, to hear the rehearsals. The priest composed for this ensemble a series of 12 Divertimenti,
received with enthusiasm, whose original scores were taken with them
and are now lost. Meanwhile Marcos Portugal had another stroke, which
left his right arm paralyzed. Soon later, by request of the prince
regent, Nunes Garcia composed the opera Le Due Gemelle,
the first work of its kind to be presented in Brazil. The score would
later be destroyed in the fire of the Royal Theatre of São
João in 1825. Only one work of his survives from the year 1817: the Trezena of St. Francis of Paula (CPM 75), composed for the church of this saint. In February 1818, prince regent John was acclaimed king John VI of Portugal,
Brazil and Algarves. A new palace had been built specially for the
ceremony of acclamation, next to the old one in the Palace Square. The Te Deum had already been composed by Portugal before his stroke. The Mass, as mentioned above, was composed by Neukomm. In the year 1818, Nunes Garcia's production proceeded. He composed, to the Thirds of the Carmel, the Novena (CPM 67) and the Mass for the Feast of Our lady of Carmel (CPM 110), which he conducted with the musicians of the Royal Chapel. He composed also a Qui Sedes and Quoniam (CPM 163), for his pupil Cândido Inácio da Silva. To the Royal Farm of Santa Cruz, he wrote three motets: Moteto dos Apóstolos, - Motet of the Apostles, Moteto das Virgens (CPM 58), - Motet for the Virgins, and a Moteto para a Festa de Degolação de S. João Baptista (CPM 60), - Motet for the feast of the beheading of St John the Baptist. And in this year he composed also the Missa Para a Festa da Degolação de S. João Baptista (CPM 120), - Mass for the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, which he completed in 20 days at the Royal Farm. In 1819, the first daughter of prince Dom Pedro and the archduchess Leopoldina was born. She was baptized princess Maria da Glória, and later she would be Queen Maria II of Portugal. The Senate nominated Nunes Garcia to conduct the thanksgiving mass, celebrated in the church of St. Francis of Paula. From the writings of 1820, there is a small number of Nunes Garcia's surviving works: one Creed in D Major (CPM 127) for voices and organ, the orchestration of the psalm Laudate Pueri Dominum (CPM 77), that he wrote in 1813, and the Missa Mimosa (CPM 111) - Gorgeous Mass. Probably at this time he composed the Matinas da Conceição de Nossa Senhora (CPM 174) - Matins of the Conception of Our Lady. The
year 1820 was marked by intense political activity in Portugal, as the
people were demanding the immediate return of the royal family, which
lead to the Liberal Revolution of 1820.
The Portuguese aristocrats in Rio were also showing signs of
dissatisfaction, as there were no longer any reasons to stay away from
their own country. In April 1821, King John VI decided
to return to Portugal. The political situation in his kingdom demanded
the immediate return of the royal family, because the throne was at
risk of being lost to his dynasty of Braganza. He left his son Pedro as
regent of Brazil, to whom he said: "Pedro, if Brazil becomes
independent, it must be for you, rather than for one of these
adventurers, because I know you will respect me", and left Rio
concerned about the future. Brazil was for him a new kingdom, of his
own creation. It
was a sad day for Nunes Garcia. Despite the treatment he received from
the Portuguese aristocracy, he regarded the King as an appreciator of
his music. He received as a reward for his 13 year service to the court
a tobacco box decorated with gold and precious gems, with the portrait
of the King in ivory. Marcos Portugal stayed,
or was left, in Brazil, not because of his own will, but probably
because of his poor health, and in order to continue teaching music to
the prince regent Pedro. Sigismund Neukomm had departed for France a
week before the King's trip to Portugal. Besides his own compositions
while he was in Brazil, he made an important contribution to the
history of Brazilian music, by putting onto paper some modinhas composed
by Joaquim Manoel da Câmera, a popular singer and guitar player
of that time. According to his witness at Porto Alegre, when he left
Rio, Nunes Garcia was preparing a presentation of Haydn's The Creation which
did not happen. Instead, he composed two psalms arranged upon themes of
this work. In this year 1821, Nunes Garcia also composed a Laudamus that recalls the music of Rossini, whose operas were beginning to make success in the theatres of Rio de Janeiro. The
departure of the Portuguese court was a disaster for the country's
public finances. The Portuguese aristocracy carried with them all they
could, leaving the Bank of Brazil bankrupt. The financial difficulties
forced the prince to cut the extra benefits that were conceded to the
court musicians, including Nunes Garcia, keeping only their full wages. The
priest wrote a letter to the prince, requesting to be restored the
extra benefit conceded by King John VI, justifying it as a payment for
his public music teaching. Having his request denied, he decided to
cease the public music classes he had given for 28 years. The
financial disorder set the Brazilians against the Portuguese merchants
based in Rio, who were organized in a party to keep their own
privileges. The Portuguese aristocracy in Lisbon was also pressing the
king to sign an act that would retrieve from Brazil the status of
United Kingdom. The prince regent Pedro, facing local upheavals, and in
order to avoid the country being split into smaller republics, such as
had happened in the Spanish Americas, on his way to the province of
São Paulo, decided to declare the Brazilian independence of
Portugal on September 7, 1822. On December 1st, he was crowned Emperor Pedro I of Brazil. From this crucial year, Nunes Garcia's sole surviving work is the Novena do Santíssimo Sacramento (CPM
75) - Novena of the Holy Sacrament. There are records that the village
of Pindamonhangaba commissioned a Te Deum from him, which was presented
to the prince regent in the thanksgiving mass for his passage by the
village. Portugal
declared war on Brazil. The southern provinces were loyal to the
Emperor, but Portugal still controlled the north. On 21 March 1823, the
young Emperor decided to attack them with the Brazilian fleet commanded
by the English admiral Lord Cochrane,
who, mostly by bluff, managed to capture the greatest part of the
vessels of the Portuguese fleet. There is only one known work by Nunes
Garcia dating from 1823: the Missa Abreviada (CPM 113) - Abbreviated Mass. In this same year, the Royal Chapel was renamed the 'Imperial Chapel'. In 1825, a fire in the Royal Theatre turned the score of Le Due Gemelle into ashes. In
1826, as comproved by recent researchs, King John VI was assassinated
with poison. The news of his death caused great sorrow in Rio,
especially for Nunes Garcia. This
year, two of his pupils, on behalf of the brotherhood of St.
Cecília, commissioned from him a new mass with grand orchestra.
The St. Cecilia Mass (CPM 113) was presented in November, and would be
his last work. It is a monumental piece of music (some 276 pages long),
and the score was later donated by his son Dr. José Mauricio
Nunes Garcia as an admission fee to join the Brazilian Historical and
Geographical Institute. From
1826 until his death in 1830, Nunes Garcia dedicated himself to
reviewing the orchestration of his greatest mass, and writing a
Treatise of Harmony and Counterpoint, now lost. In
1828, he resigned to the title of Knight of the Habit of Christ, on
behalf of his "nephew" José, the only one he recognized to be
his son. In
the beginning of 1830, he was living in a small house at Rua do
Núncio (nowadays República do Líbano street). In
February 1830 Marcos Portugal died, and was buried in the Convent of
St. Anthony. Nunes Garcia, perhaps guessing it was his own turn, made
his bed to be put in the first floor of his house, so as "not to bother
anyone". On April 18, his son and a slave being present with him, he
died, whispering an anthem to Our Lady. The brotherhood of St.
Cecília was responsible for the funeral mass, and he was buried
in the church of São Pedro dos Clérigos. At the ceremony,
a small orchestra performed his Funeral Symphony (CPM 230), composed 40
years earlier. The
chapel master was not forgotten by his pupils - they continued copying
his works. The St. Cecilia Mass (CPM 113) was performed one second time
in 1830. In
1831, Emperor Pedro I abdicated from the Brazilian throne on behalf of
his son Pedro, then five years old. He embarked to England, to assemble
a fleet to fight against his brother Miguel, who threatened to usurp
the Portuguese throne of his daughter Maria da Glória. A
regency government was established in Brazil until the child's
adulthood. Among its first acts was one that dissolved the Orchestra of
the Imperial Chapel. Some of the dismissed musicians survived as music
teachers, some as music copyists. But poverty was the fate for most of
them. In
1840 prince Pedro, at 14, was crowned Emperor Pedro II. In 1842 he made
the first steps to restore the musical activity at the Imperial Chapel,
nominating Francisco Manuel da Silva, a former pupil of Nunes Garcia,
as the Chapel Master. The repertory of the late Chapel Master was
presented again, but reworked, in order to "be his music modernized".
Da
Silva composed the music of the Brazilian national anthem, inspired by
a recurrent motif in some of Nunes Garcia's sacred anthems. He also
founded the Conservatório Imperial de Música, now the School of Music of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. In
Campinas, São Paulo, Manuel José Gomes, the father of
composer Carlos Gomes, gathered 14 of Nunes Garcia's compositions in a
file. Other important cities where Mauritian works were preserved are in the state of Minas Gerais. In São João D'El Rey, The Lira Sanjoanense Musical Society founded
in 1776, has many copies, some of them unique, from various works of
Nunes Garcia. And some copies of other works belong to Ribeiro Bastos Orchestra, in the same city. In Ouro Preto, the Museu da Inconfidência is
the present owner of the score collection gathered by the German
musicologist Francisco Curt Lange, which includes the authograph score
of the Abbreviated Mass (CPM 112), written in 1823. But
the preservation of the greatest part of Nunes Garcia's remaining works
has been done by Bento das Mercês, an archivist of the Imperial
Chapel. He made precise copies of many of his works, creating a
personal file that was later acquired from their heirs by the Brazilian
government, and is now in the School of Music of the Federal University
of Rio de Janeiro. There
are kept two more collections of scores: the one from the Royal Farm of
Santa Cruz, and the other from Francisco Manuel da Silva. The
first of the School's directors, Leopoldo Miguez, and composer Alberto
Nepomuceno (1864 – 1920) studied and edited many of Nunes Garcia's scores. Another of his admirers was Alfred D'Escragnolle, Viscount of Taunay, a grandson of Nicholas Antoine Taunay, member of the French Artistic Mission.
Taunay wrote many articles and texts about the composer, and after he
was elected to the house of the representatives in 1881, he presented
in 1882 an act intended to trace all of Nunes Garcia's works, which was
not approved. His son Alfonse gathered his father's texts, which published in 1930 in the book A great glory from Brazil: José Mauricio Nunes Garcia. After Nepomuceno's death in 1920, live presentations of Nunes Garcia's works became rare. In 1930 his Requiem (CPM 185) was presented at the Candelária Church, conducted by composer Francisco Braga. This same work was performed in 1948, in the funeral mass of composer Lorenzo Fernandez. In
1941, the researcher, musicologist and conductor Mrs. Cleofe Person de
Mattos (1913 – 2002), professor at the School of Music of the Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro, founded the Coro Pró-Arte, later
Association of Choral Singing, a non-profit institution, whose goal was
- and still is today - to perform Brazilian music, especially that of
Nunes Garcia. Mattos wrote and had it published by the Federal Council of Culture, in 1970, a Thematic Catalogue of
Nunes Garcia's works, where she analyses in detail all of his remaining
scores. In the decade of 1980, she helped publish, by
Fundação Nacional de Arte (FUNARTE), a number of them.
And finally in 1997, she published the book José Mauricio Nunes Garcia - Biografia,
in which, despite her emotional treatment of the hardships the composer
passed through, many events of his life, before obscure, have been made
clear. In
2005, the music files of the Metropolitan Chapter of Rio de Janeiro,
containing the scores of 55 works of Nunes Garcia and a number of works
of other composers, was digitized and is now available on the web.
Along with the scores, there were a number of administrative books,
chiefly with payrolls and balance sheets of the finances of the Royal
Chapel. In two of these payrolls there are records of paybills to Nunes
Garcia, up to the annual sum of 625$000 (six hundred twenty-five
thousand réis) - about USD 20,000 in present money - that was
his income from 1822 to 1830. The reported extreme poverty he faced in
his last days is therefore just a hoax. The School of Music of the
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro also made part of their music
files available on the internet. |