Modernist Crossings in Brazilian Music, 1918–1954

During the first half of the twentieth century, Brazilian music was an object of scrutiny in Brazil and elsewhere. The disputes that swirled around the meanings of Brazilian music formed part of the process of emancipation from the nation’s colonial and imperial pasts, as musicians and intellectuals built the country’s cultural foundation. They addressed, among other things, the citizenship of composers and performers, the styles and genres derived from vernacular music of the territory, and the racial, gendered, and ethnic constructs of its population. My dissertation examines this process through a transnational lens, exploring how Brazilian music was recurrently negotiated in the context of transatlantic travels by following the routes of travelers who listened, performed, recorded, and wrote about music and sounds. By examining border crossings from multiple perspectives—those of Brazilians traveling elsewhere as well as Europeans and North Americans visiting Brazil—I intervene critically in current discussions of travel, cultural circulations, and transnational flow. I focus on a period that includes tumultuous geopolitical situations both in Brazil and abroad, such as the Estado Novo and World War II. This was also a time of an accelerated development of mobility and sound technologies, and of the emergence of transnational networks of academic institutions. All of these affected the knowledge produced on music and on nation. I draw on extensive archival research as a practice of what I call “writing from the border,” a strategy aimed at disrupting colonial and national hegemonic systems of narrating history. Furthermore, I contribute to the literature decentering music history from the nations, allowing for the emergence of narratives which have been less considered from hegemonical perspectives.