Carnival Brazil

Among the more significant events in the music of Brazil is the annual Carnival celebrated for four days and nights in early February. Its major element, the samba, was brought to Brazil from Africa via the slave trade. Some or other version of Carnival is celebrated throughout the world, such as in Germany, Venice and the Mardis Gras (Fat Tuesday) in New Orleans. Marlene Hufferd traces the roots of Carnival to to same Roman holiday at the roots of Christmas, Saturnalia, which Roman historian, Titus Livius (Livy), has beginning sometime in the 5th century BC. Saturn was the god of agriculture. Saturnailia became a weeklong festivity in 133-31 BC. Its connection to Carnival is via the Catholic practice of Lent [BBC / Britannica] officially recognized and placed into formal practice by the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, two years after Constantine pronounced Christianity to be the official religion of the Roman Empire, ten years after he had legalized it.

Enter "carne vale" which is "farewell to the meat" in Latin [MMOS / Kevin Roche]. Taken across the Atlantic by the Portuguese, the first known reference to Carnival in Brazil is traced to Rio de Janeiro (native residents known as Cariocas) as early as 1723 when costume and masquerade consisted of the poor donning the clothing of the higher class (royalty) while the latter exchanged their apparel for rags. Such developed into an event called the Entrudo, which was three days in which one might go outside and get hit with wax balls about the size of a lime or orange filled with water, perfume, urine or flour, the latter if you were black. It was a manner of practical joking or marking whom one liked, or whom one didn't, which caused enough fighting to eventually get the celebration outlawed.

The first known Carnival masquerade ball was held by the aristocracy in 1840 where the price of attendance precluded trading garments with riffraff. It is said that circa 1848 that a shoemaker named Jose Nogueira de Azevedo began marching the streets on Carnival Monday in Portugal with a drum, tambourine and whistle, inviting who would to join him, including slaves (slavery abolished in Portugal in 1861, in Brazil in 1888). That account originates with José Vieira Fazenda in a publication of 1904. Legend (murky, various and disputable) has this introducing the traditional folk parade called Zé Pereira [Wikipedia] to make its way to Rio with Azevedo. Howsoever true or not, the aristocracy followed suit with another exclusive event in the parade of the Grand Societies (Grandes Sociedades) in 1855 during which some 80 costumed and masked participants promenaded the streets with the Emperor of Portugal in attendance.

Until the much later introduction of samba the music of Carnival consisted of such as was popular among the Carioca elite ranging from tangos, marches, mazurkas, polkas and waltzes to the fado and the maxixe. The first title written specifically for Carnival was a march (marcha) composed in 1899 by Chiquinha Gonzaga: 'O Abre Alas' ('Out of the Way'). Come the major spectacle that is the Carnival float in 1907 upon the invention of the automobile.

Sambas likely got recorded during the first decade of the 20th century in Rio, but remain unidentified. Geisa Fernandes has 'At Bahia' recorded in 1913, 'The Viola Is Hurt' in 1914, neither real popular. The first successful samba recording is considered to be 'Pelo Telefone' in 1916 on Odeon 121313, composed by Donga (Ernesto Maria dos Santos) and recorded by Banda Odeon. That was quickly followed in 1917 with a version by Bahiano (Manuel Pedro dos Santos).

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Documentaries:

National Geographic (2007)

The Sambadrome Marquês de Sapucaí (1984):

Arch Daily   Rio   Sambadrome   Wikipedia

Samba Schools: Encyclopedia   Wikipedia

Samba Schools History:

Wu Mingren

Museum Hack

Carole Raddato

Matt Salusbury

Nikola Simonovski

Wikipedia

Further Reading:

Vitor Padilha Mattos (Carnival and its founding myth / Universite do Minho / 2023)

Vitor Padilha Mattos (From Minho pilgrimages to Brazilian carnival: the trajectory of Zé Pereira in Rio de Janeiro (1850 – 1910) / Universite do Minho / 2023):

Bibliography:

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