Ary Barroso and "Aquarela do Brasil"

When the rest of the world hums a Brazilian melody, it is very often one written by Ary Barroso. His 1939 samba "Aquarela do Brasil" — known internationally simply as "Brazil" — trades the intimate, syncopated chatter of street samba for a sweeping orchestral surge, and on that grand scale it became the most famous Brazilian song of the twentieth century and the founding work of an entire patriotic samba style.^[1] Recorded and re-recorded around the world ever since, it ranks among the most-covered songs in history and remains the tune through which much of the planet first hears — and dances to — Brazil.

A composer of the radio age

A native of Ubá in Minas Gerais, Barroso (1903–1964) first mined the memory of his mineiro roots for poetic material before his songs broadened to take in the everyday life of the whole country. He rose to prominence in the golden age of Brazilian radio and recording — working not only as a composer and pianist but as a soccer commentator and talent-show host on radio and, later, television — and became one of the most successful and prolific popular songwriters his country has produced, with a catalogue running to more than two hundred songs.^[1] The most influential composer of the pre–bossa nova era, he supplied much of Carmen Miranda's repertoire and saw his songs taken up by performers from Miranda to João Gilberto; his melodic gift and harmonic sophistication helped lift Brazilian popular music to new levels of craft.^[2]

"Aquarela do Brasil"

Barroso's masterpiece came in early 1939. By the familiar account, he wrote "Aquarela do Brasil" one rainy night when a storm kept him indoors; the title — a reference to watercolor painting — evokes that downpour even as the lyric brushes a sweeping, idealized portrait of the nation.^[1] The song was recorded by the singer Francisco Alves, arranged by Radamés Gnattali and his orchestra, and released by Odeon Records in August 1939.^[1]

In sound and sentiment it was something new. Where the classic samba of the morros was intimate, witty, and rooted in the daily life of Rio, Barroso's song was grand, orchestral, and overtly patriotic, hymning Brazil in lush, exalting terms. In doing so it effectively founded a new subgenre — the samba-exaltação ("exaltation samba"), a music of sweeping national celebration.^[1]

The timing was charged. "Aquarela do Brasil" appeared during the Estado Novo, the authoritarian government of Getúlio Vargas, a regime keenly interested in promoting symbols of national identity — a coincidence that has fed lasting debate over the relationship between the monumental samba-exaltação and official nationalism. Whatever the politics, the song outlived the regime that formed its backdrop.^[1]

"Brazil" goes global

"Aquarela do Brasil" became one of the first Brazilian songs to win genuine worldwide fame, and its reach was amplified enormously by Hollywood and Walt Disney: the melody anchored a segment of Disney's 1942 film Saludos Amigos, carrying it to mass audiences across North America and Europe under the title "Brazil."^[1] From there it entered the permanent repertoire of film and pop, resurfacing as the leitmotif of Terry Gilliam's dystopian 1985 film Brazil and as the sampled hook of the Vengaboys' 1997 eurodance hit "To Brazil!" — confirmation that Barroso's watercolor had become musical shorthand for the country itself.

Beyond "Aquarela"

Barroso's reach extended well past his single most famous song. "Na Baixa do Sapateiro" ("In the Shoemaker's Hollow"), named for a Salvador street in Bahia where cobblers once worked, was first released in 1938 and first recorded by Carmen Miranda with the Odeon orchestra; Disney again carried it abroad, reworking it as "Baía" for the 1944 feature The Three Caballeros. Decades later John Coltrane took the same melody as raw material for modal-jazz improvisation — a measure of how far Barroso's tunes could travel beyond their samba origins. His music for the film Brazil earned an Academy Award nomination in 1945 and a special Merit Award from the Academy, and in 1955 he was honored with the National Order of Merit.

Why he matters

Ary Barroso matters as the composer who gave samba a monumental, outward-facing voice. Alongside the intimate, conversational samba of figures like Noel Rosa, he proved that the genre could also carry grand orchestral ambition and project an entire nation's self-image onto the world stage.^[2] "Aquarela do Brasil" remains his monument — a watercolor of a country that became, paradoxically, one of its most enduring frames, the song through which much of the world first imagined, and danced to, Brazil.