Ernesto Nazareth
Ernesto Júlio de Nazareth (20 March 1863 – 1 February 1934) was a Brazilian composer and pianist. He wrote almost entirely for the piano, drawing on the waltzes and polkas of Rio de Janeiro's salons, carnival music, the playing of chorões and pianeiros, and the European repertory he had studied, especially Chopin. His piano writing adapted figures from the guitar, cavaquinho and flute as syncopated accompaniment, lyrical melody and inner counterpoint.
Nazareth composed about ninety tangos, forty waltzes and twenty polkas, as well as mazurkas, schottisches, marches and sambas. He rejected the name maxixe for his tangos, although they shared its syncopated rhythms. His scores circulated as salon music through cafés, music shops and cinemas, in rodas de choro and on the concert stage.
Pieces such as Brejeiro, Odeon, Apanhei-te, cavaquinho and Ameno Resedá passed from sheet music to bands, recordings, choro groups and concert pianists. His works have been recorded thousands of times, in settings that run from solo piano to chamber groups and orchestras. The Brazilian Academy of Music named him patron of chair no. 28.
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