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| Choro | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | |
| Cultural origins | Late 19th century,Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
Choro (Portuguese pronunciation:[ˈʃoɾu], "cry" or "lament"), also popularly calledchorinho ("little cry" or "little lament"), is an instrumentalBrazilian popular music genre which originated in 19th centuryRio de Janeiro. Despite itsname, the music often has a fast and happy rhythm. It is characterized by virtuosity, improvisation and subtlemodulations, and is full ofsyncopation andcounterpoint. Choro is considered the first characteristically Brazilian genre of urban popular music. Theserenaders who play choros are known aschorões.[1]
Originallychoro was played by a trio offlute,guitar andcavaquinho (a smallchordophone with four strings). Other instruments commonly played in choro are themandolin,clarinet,saxophone,trumpet andtrombone. These melody instruments are backed by a rhythm section composed of 6-string guitar,seven-string guitar (playing bass lines) and light percussion, such as apandeiro. The cavaquinho appears sometimes as a melody instrument, other times as part of the rhythm.
Structurally, achoro composition usually has three parts, played in arondo form: AABBACCA, with each section typically in a different key (usually the tonal sequence is: principal key->relative mode->sub-dominant key[2]). There are a variety of choros in both major and minor keys.
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In the 19th century, choro resulted from the style of playing several musical genres (polka,schottische,waltz,mazurka andhabanera) bycarioca musicians, who were already strongly influenced by Afro-Brazilian rhythms, principally thelundu and thebatuque. The term “choro” was used informally at first to refer to the style of playing, or a particular instrumental ensemble, (e.g. in the 1870s flutistJoaquim Antônio da Silva Calado formed an ensemble called "Choro Carioca", with flute, two guitars and cavaquinho),[3][4] and later the term referred to the music genre of these ensembles. The accompanying music of theMaxixe (dance) (also called "tango brasileiro") was played by these choro ensembles. Various genres were incorporated as subgenres of choro such as "choro-polca", "choro-lundu", "choro-xote" (from schottische), "choro-mazurca", "choro-valsa" (waltz), "choro-maxixe", "samba-choro", "chorobaião".[5]
Just likeragtime in the United States,tango in Argentina andhabanera in Cuba, choro springs up as a result of influences of musical styles and rhythms coming from Europe and Africa.
In the beginning (by the 1880s to 1920s), the success of choro came from informal groups of friends (principally composed of workers from the postal, railway and telegraphic services)[6] which played at parties, pubs (botecos), streets and home balls (forrobodós). The mainstay of the repertoire was made of the big hits ofErnesto Nazareth,Chiquinha Gonzaga and other pianists, whose musical scores were published by print houses.[4] By the 1910s, many of the first Brazilian phonograph records were choros.
Much of the mainstream success (by the 1930s to 1940s) of this style of music came from the early days of radio, when bands performed live on the air. By the 1950s and 1960s, it was replaced with urban samba on the radio, but it was still alive in amateur circles called "rodas de choro" (choro gatherings in residences andbotecos), the most famous ones being the roda de choro in the house of composer and musicianJacob do Bandolim, in theJacarepaguá neighborhood in Rio; and the "roda de choro" in the pub "Suvaco de Cobra" (Snake's Armpit) in thePenha neighborhood in the same town.
In the late 1970s there was a successful effort to revitalize the genre in the mainstream, through TV-sponsored nationwide festivals in 1977 and 1978, which attracted a new, younger generation of professional musicians and listeners. Thanks in great part to these efforts, choro music remains strong in Brazil. More recently, choro has attracted the attention of musicians in the United States, such asAnat Cohen,Mike Marshall andMaurita Murphy Mead, who have brought this kind of music to a new audience.
Most Brazilian classical composers recognize the sophistication of choro and its major importance in Brazilian instrumental music.Radamés Gnattali said it was the most sophisticated instrumental popular music in the world.Heitor Villa-Lobos defined choro as the true incarnation of Brazilian soul.Notably, both composers had some of their music inspired by choro, dressing it with classical tradition.[7] The French composerDarius Milhaud was enchanted by choro when he lived in Brazil (in 1917) and he composed the balletLe Bœuf sur le toit, in which he quotes close to 30 Brazilian tunes.[8]
According to Aquiles Rique Reis (a Brazilian singer), ”Choro is classical music played with bare feet and callus on the hands”[9]
