Creator of Brazilian Choro

Composers who find themselves in a certain place at a certain period of time in a given set of circumstances often create some amazing works of art. One such example is one of my very favorite, under the radar composers, that is not necessarily too widely known. I'm hoping that will change. Francesca Chiquinha Gonzaga was born in 1847 in Rio. A colorful life story, to put it mildly.

Her mother, Rosa Maria Neves de Lima. was a mestizo slave in Brazil and her father, José Basileu Gonzaga, was actually a relatively high-ranking military officer. He decided to claim Chiquinha as his daughter, marry Rose, and therefore Chiquinha was set on a pathway where she was, as the child of a military officer, going to apparently receive quite a good education, including piano study.

Chiquinha composed her first piece at the age of eleven, apparently for a Christmastime celebration in their local church and she never looked back.

Rio de Janeiro in the nineteenth century had become a financial and in many ways a cultural capital of the Portuguese Empire. As such it was a relatively cosmopolitan place and was growing in terms of population, financial capacity. Therefore they were able to begin to fully support, bring in, but then also foster, Brazilian musical and other artistic talents.

And so that became a movement, but at this time still, given all of these factors, roles for women in Brazilian society were pretty severely limited. Chiquinha ended up eventually getting married to a naval officer. Perhaps no surprise there given her family history. After having had three children, while also trying to continue a lot of her musical pursuits, Chiquinha's husband gave her an ultimatum.

“Either it's me or it's music, but you really can't have both.”

Of course, she ended up causing quite a scandal by divorcing her husband and at the same time, as a result of her decision to divorce, her father disowned her as well. But a wonderful thing then occurred. The entire arts community in Rio embraced Chiquinha and gave her lots of support artistically as well.

Chiquinha was the first Brazilian woman on a conductor's podium. She was such a significant composer of various styles, which I think is just amazing. First and foremost, perhaps is Brazilian Choro, an absolutely brilliant blend of a sort of fusion of different elements. African-derived motives, rhythms, energy, Portuguese influences, and a little bit more, slightly Western European. So, you put those two together, and you get this wonderful Choro style. Cecchini was the first Choro pianist, and really defined that particular genre.

In addition to Choro, Chiquinha also composed polkas, sambas, zillion tango, marches, some salsa music. She was very much at home in multiple genres and was very accomplished. She ended up writing a total of two hundred works.

One more significant composition triumph for Chiquinha was her operatic writing and it was really so smart and absolutely wonderful of her to further define Brazilian musical styles. The operatic nut had not really been cracked terribly well and what Chiquinha decided to do in her operettas such as Roboto and Juriti.

*Bust of Chiquinha Gonzaga at Parque Passeio Público*

All of these were wildly popular. Very, very successful. Perhaps the main reason was that Chiquinha incorporated Brazilian cultural elements and themes into these operettas and their larger stage work, orchestral work, but constantly incorporating these clearly Brazilian influences. The populace just ate it up and Chiquinha really was, I think, very adept at helping to champion and further define what Brazilian music has come to be, which is just such a brilliantly conceived collection of different styles that are very much in sync with each other and share freely from one to the other. So it's just, just a great, great story.

There is a sculpture of Chiquinha at the Passeio Público in Rio. It's a wonderful honoring of the art and life of Chiquinha Gonzaga by the Brazilian authorities. I would certainly invite you to check out more of Chiquinha's music. It's so much fun and it is so life affirming. She was a brilliant musician and composer.

—Rick Ferguson

In the following video I perform two solo piano pieces to illustrate her work: "Bionne" and "Sospiro" which represent Brazilian Choro and Tango respectively.