Guiomar Novaes

Guiomar Novaës (Novahes), born in Brazil in 1895 rather than the 1896 date retained in certain biographies, and Claudio Arrau, born in Chile in 1903, stood as the foremost pianists to emerge from South America around the turn of the century. No South American-born artist had achieved comparable international stature since Teresa Carreño, born in Venezuela in 1853 and deceased in 1917 after lessons with Gottschalk. Shortly after Novaës’s birth the family left its provincial village for São Paulo, where her gifts surfaced at age four; at seven she began lessons with Luigi Chiafarelli, a pupil of Busoni, who instilled the tonal shading, legato, and pedaling technique that secured her a Brazilian government grant for study in Paris. In 1909 she ranked first among 388 applicants (some accounts cite 398) to the Conservatoire, with Fauré, Moritz Moszkowski, and Debussy among the examiners. Assigned to Isidor Philipp (1863–1958), a former student of Saint-Saëns, she completed the course in two years and received a First Prize. That same year she made her formal debut with Gabriel Pierné conducting the Châtelet Orchestra and continued touring Western Europe until the outbreak of World War I. Upon returning to São Paulo she received an invitation to the United States, making her North American debut at Aeolian Hall in New York City on 11 November 1915 and appearing there regularly for the next fifty-seven years; her final U.S. concert took place at Hunter College in 1972. Even after physical power declined, her tone stayed mellifluous, her touch varied, her pedaling remarkable, and her legato distinctive. In 1922 she married Brazilian architect and composer Octavio Pinto (1890–1950), another Philipp pupil; he wrote Scenas Infantis for their two children, a work she often performed as a recital encore, while Villa-Lobos composed the suite Prole do bebê for the same Pinto children. Novaës performed with every major American orchestra and appeared internationally as well. In England, Queen Elizabeth asked her to open the new London hall named after the monarch on 30 April 1967 with a program devoted to her favored composers Mozart and Chopin, together with Beethoven and Debussy. Her recording career began with the Victor Company from 1919 to 1927, continued with Duo-Art piano rolls in the 1920s, and extended to Columbia (now Sony) until 1948. After the Second World War she taped eleven concertos for Vox in Vienna and Bamberg, including two versions each of the Beethoven Fourth and the Schumann A minor, the first with Klemperer and the second with Hans Swarowsky. Additional discs for London featured Liszt, Chopin, and Debussy; Vanguard issued Chopin and Beethoven (the Op. 111 sonata recorded for the first time); and Fermata released works by several Brazilian composers. International Piano Archives brought out a live Hunter College performance of Gottschalk’s Grand Fantasy on the Brazilian National Anthem taped in 1970, one year after Vox/Turnabout had issued the same piece from a Pan-American Union concert honoring the centenary of Gottschalk’s death. Novaës died in Brazil at eighty-four, seven years after retiring.