Biography
A classical composer, Hekel Tavares developed a body of work that fused elements of popular song with the structures of concert music. Defying his father’s insistence on an accounting career, he began his musical training under the guidance of an aunt. He reached Rio in 1921 and took lessons in orchestration from J. Otaviano. Among the more than one hundred pieces he eventually produced, the earliest commercial success arrived with “Sussuarana,” written with lyricist Luís Peixoto, in 1927. Subsequent popular numbers included “Casa de Caboclo,” his most successful song, again with Peixoto and recorded by Gastão Formenti in 1928; “Guacira,” written with Joraci Camargo; “Leilão,” also with Camargo and recorded by Jorge Fernandes in 1933; “Favela,” another collaboration with Camargo; “Chove!...Chuva!...” with Ascenso Ferreira; “Bahia” with Álvaro Moreira; “Banzo” with Murilo Araújo; “Na Minha Terra Tem” and “Felicidade,” both with Peixoto; “Minha Terra”; a second setting of “Leilão”; “O Que eu Queria Dizer ao Teu Ouvido,” lyrics by Mendonça Júnior and recorded by Jorge Fernandes in 1933; and “Caboclo Bom,” written with Raul Pederneiras and recorded by Jorge Fernandes in 1942.
The 1922 Semana de Arte Moderna shaped Tavares’s determination to reconcile the refinement of classical technique with Brazilian vernacular traditions. He first earned his living writing for the revue theater, supplying the score for Goulart de Andrade’s Stá na Hora in 1926. That same year he led the orchestra at the Teatro Glória for the production Plus-ultra. In 1927 he composed the music for the inaugural production at the Teatro de Brinquedo and remained there as pianist. Patrício Teixeira committed “Eu Ri da Lagartixa” to disc in 1928. Tavares’s initial venture into concert music was the symphonic poem André de Leão eo Demônio de Cabelo Encarnado, drawn from a text by Cassiano Ricardo and subsequently recorded.
Between 1949 and 1953 he traveled through several Brazilian regions collecting folk materials. These investigations surfaced in such concert works as the symphonic piece O Anhangüera, scored for orchestra, choir, and soloists and incorporating Tucuna Indian cultural elements, as well as Alto Solimões, which employed the same people’s percussion instruments and melodic motifs for Oração do Guerreiro. Additional orchestral scores from this period comprise Concerto for piano and orchestra, Concerto em Formas Brasileiras for violin and orchestra, O Sapo Domado, and A Lenda do Gaúcho. In 1996 Fernando de Bortoli published the monograph Hekel Tavares -- O Mais Lindo Concerto Para Piano e Orquestra in São Paulo.
The 1922 Semana de Arte Moderna shaped Tavares’s determination to reconcile the refinement of classical technique with Brazilian vernacular traditions. He first earned his living writing for the revue theater, supplying the score for Goulart de Andrade’s Stá na Hora in 1926. That same year he led the orchestra at the Teatro Glória for the production Plus-ultra. In 1927 he composed the music for the inaugural production at the Teatro de Brinquedo and remained there as pianist. Patrício Teixeira committed “Eu Ri da Lagartixa” to disc in 1928. Tavares’s initial venture into concert music was the symphonic poem André de Leão eo Demônio de Cabelo Encarnado, drawn from a text by Cassiano Ricardo and subsequently recorded.
Between 1949 and 1953 he traveled through several Brazilian regions collecting folk materials. These investigations surfaced in such concert works as the symphonic piece O Anhangüera, scored for orchestra, choir, and soloists and incorporating Tucuna Indian cultural elements, as well as Alto Solimões, which employed the same people’s percussion instruments and melodic motifs for Oração do Guerreiro. Additional orchestral scores from this period comprise Concerto for piano and orchestra, Concerto em Formas Brasileiras for violin and orchestra, O Sapo Domado, and A Lenda do Gaúcho. In 1996 Fernando de Bortoli published the monograph Hekel Tavares -- O Mais Lindo Concerto Para Piano e Orquestra in São Paulo.