Fortepiano and chamber music composed between 1790 and 1820 in the Collection Theresa Christina Maria: an approach according to practices related to the period

Abstract

This project considers revisiting the musical practice in Imperial Brazil (1822 -1889), through the documentation on European music - for chamber and for fortepiano solo - possibly performed in this country. This inquiry on our rich musical heritage, with an approach focused in performance practice, meets the urgent necessity to point out the musical inheritance coming from European sources. The Collection Theresa Christina Maria housed, today, in the National Library of Rio de Janeiro will be the main research source for a thematic catalog of works that possibly had been performed here. Such collection of musical scores is the result of the union of the collections of Empresses Leopoldina and Theresa Christina Maria. We know that works of important European composers sounded between the walls of Brazil court. For being part of the Brazilian musical archive patrimony, I believe to be of extreme importance the catalog and spreading of this rare collection of music for chamber and solo piano, and the consequent register of the most representative works. In this way we will be able to present the interesting repertoire that, if it was not performed in Brazil, at least is housed here; we will be able, also, to recreate public performances and to carry through sonorous archives of selected works. In order to achieve this goal, I will use an approach according to the historically informed performance practices, using the instruments of the period; contend, also, one brief organological introduction. (AU)