Felicidade

If we bear in mind that soccer is a sport of English origin and coffee is a drink native to Africa, it follows then that music is the main export of Brazil. Brazilian music began to win over the world in the XX Century due to its colorfulness, rhythmic richness, harmonic sophistication and variety of styles. Furthermore, the guitar, with not only its physical but also social nature, as well as its ability to give voice to an entire range of disparate dialects —from urban and “classical” to rural and popular— belonging to that all-encompassing language, became the musical instrument that best translates the musical identity of Brazil. The presence of Vinícius de Moraes is especially reinforced by the participation of his friend and artistic partner, Toquinho, whose training included classical guitar classes with the Uruguayan Isaías Sávio, a pedagogue of fundamental importance to the school of Brazilian guitar. Of the same generation as Toquinho, and also internationally renowned, Ivan Lins performs one of his greatest hits on this album: “Começar de Novo” (Starting Over), written with Vitor Martins for the 1979 TV series Malu Mujer. Because of the television program’s theme, as well as the intrinsic powerfulness of the song, it ended up becoming emblematic of the discussion of feminism in Brazil. If the examples of Villa-Lobos and Nazareth already announced tenuous frontiers between popular and erudite in Brazilian music at the onset of the XX Century, one hundred years later these boundaries got to a point of near dissolution, as indicated by three of the artists chosen by Berta Rojas for her recording –its music defies labels and classifications. ​ Berta Rojas also included in the repertoire a composer who seems to synthesize the spirit of musical collaboration among the three nations. Demetrio Ortíz (1916-1975), is a Paraguayan musician who also performed in Brazil and Argentina. While Toquinho lends his voice to the idyllic Recuerdos de Ypacaraí (Memories of Ypacaraí), Mis noches sin ti (My Nights without You), the piece which Ortíz composed for his mother, includes the participation of Gilberto Gil, a superstar of Brazilian music. Here we also have the participation of the violoncello and perhaps it’s not unreasonable to see in the dialogue with Berta Rojas’ guitar, homage to Villa- Lobos. Guitar and violoncello were after all the two instruments the Brazilian musician played, and the rich collaboration between them, beyond geographic or stylistic borders, seems to realize the undertaking of performing music that reflects the creative vigor of the Americas in full. Felicidade!