Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Afonso, Daniel Rufino

Titel

The a cappella works for mixed chorus of Esther Scliar (1926–1978)

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2003

Link zum Volltext

• ProQuest

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Esther Scliar (1926–1978) holds a special place among the most important and influential Brazilian musicians of the twentieth century. Although she had extensive training as both pianist and composer, it was as a teacher that she became better known. Her contribution to the musical education of many composers, performers, and music teachers was so significant and extensive that she is sometimes referred to as the “Brazilian Nadia Boulanger.” Scliar studied with Hans Joachim Koellreuter in Rio de Janeiro and Hermann Scherchen in Venice. Her interest in the study of diversified compositional techniques and musical forms, with an emphasis on contemporary music, made her an enthusiastic advocate of new music. Ironically, it was her incessant and somewhat obsessive need for a detailed understanding of the creative process (combined with a severe self-criticism) that soon became an obstacle to her full development as a composer. This intellectual conflict limited her creative output to some ninety compositions. Of this group, a vast majority are vocal pieces, mostly choral works. Obviously, choral music was the focal point of her small musical production. Thus, in order to understand Scliar as a composer and to evaluate her contribution to the evolution of Brazilian music, one needs to examine her choral works. This body of work clearly exemplifies an important segment of the composer's musical legacy. While Scliar has always been acknowledged and respected as a remarkable and very influential educator, she has long been overlooked as a composer—perhaps due to her relatively small group of surviving works. Five of Scliar's choral works have been published, but only four remain currently in print. The main purpose of this thesis is to make a significant part of Scliar's choral compositions (seventeen works for mixed chorus and two works for women's chorus) available to performers and scholars in scores that are accessible, practical, and that reflect the composer's intentions as faithfully as possible. This will broaden our understanding of Scliar's musical intelligence and creative process and will make an important part of the twentieth-century Brazilian choral repertoire available for the first time to scholars and performers.