Per Musi (Sep 2019)
... And will lie in flowered garden: preliminary study on topical uses in the representation of mariology in the music of José Maurício Nunes Garcia
Abstract
José Maurício Nunes Garcia's music is a sophisticated manifestation of galant aesthetics in colonial Brazil, especially as it relates to understanding musical composition as a specific form of oratory. Consisting of pre-compositional expressive fields (musical topics), worked in a modular way through the tropifications of its parameters, and having in contrast as expressive game its driving force, its music was in harmony with that of coeval European masters of singular form. Aiming at the exposition of ideas and images by musical metaphors, the composer organized his writing as discourse. The purpose of this text is to present a discursive hypothesis of José Maurício: the marian devotion expressed in a Mariology. Within a society forged on the idea of faith, Mariology has become one of the long-lasting forces of more penetration in the formation of the colonial capital of Western society. In the Portuguese colonies, this devotion became a mediator of mentalities ranging from the justification of patriarchalism to the perspective of freedom of the slave population, through the redemption of oppressive judgment in death. The purpose of this text is to introduce the discussion on the Marian platforms that the musical discourse of José Maurício is inserted. The way of seeking this manifestation would be revealed here by the expressive space that the musical tradition connoted to the representation of Mary: the pastoral. Thus, seeking to observe from the treatment of affections, the topical uses, and their tropifications, as well as contrast strategies, try to justify what could be a manifestation of Mariology, as a conscious discourse of devotion and use of its symbols within a rhetorical articulation for his assertion.
Keywords
