At the beginning of this series, I said that the music of Brazil was the result of a fusion of the Indian, African and European cultures. I would now like to describe a little of how this occurred.

In 1500 Alvares Cabral landed on the coast of what is now known as Brazil and thereby started the colonization of that country by the Portuguese. The terrain was difficult and the early settlements were made down the coast rather than inland. The authority that took charge of the colonization was the church and, in particular, the Jesuits. They organized the camps and fortresses, kept records, were responsible for the growing and collecting of food and later led expeditions into the interior of the country. The camps they formed grew into the towns and cities of modern Brazil.

They were also charged with the task of making contact with the Indians and one of the means they used was to add Portuguese plainsong texts to the music that they heard the Indians making. The success they found in relating to the Indians through their music caused them to compose musical plays using music from Portugal and Spain with texts in the Portuguese language and these they taught to the Indian children and had them perform them. The Jesuits were so aware of the value of linking the idea (in the form of text) with the physical movements and feelings of the growing child that even in the smallest of encampments in the remotest areas it was not uncommon to find music schools in which music was used as a means of modifying ways of life and of converting the Indians to Christian customs and faith.

This aspect through music is, however, only one scheme among the many recorded in the histories of the Latin Americas whereby it was attempted to impose dramatic changes in the ways of life of the native peoples and even the most casual glance at the reports reveals details of atrocities committed to natives who were refusing or were unable to accept these impositions. The result, in Brazil, was that the Indians, under such pressures from the Europeans, became more fearful, less co-operative and gradually withdrew from the encampments leaving the European without manual labour that could survive tropical climates.

The importation of the black African as slave appeared as the solution to the problem and with him came his culture, which eventually became the most important element in the evolution of a music that was to be identifiably Brazilian. From the last quarter of the 16th century until 1850, thousands of Africans were transported to Brazil to work cane sugar, mines, cotton, cocoa and tobacco. They arrived and with them, naturally, their expressions in rhythm and drama. These traditions, musical and religious, were too deeply rooted to be diffused by relocation and external teaching and historically the hardships and sufferings of those slaves reinforced their traditions and formed the ground base in which the seeds from the European cultures would take their roots. At the beginning of the 19th century, the armies of Napoleon were moving through Spain and the Portuguese monarchy, anticipating that they would very soon continue their invasion into Portugal, decided to retreat to Brazil and, for the time being, govern its territories from there. It was in January, 1808, therefore, that the king Dom Joao VI led his court into Rio de Janeiro from where he ruled until his return to Portugal in 1821. Overnight Rio de Janeiro was transformed from a small colonial port into the centre of an empire. Because the king himself composed and performed music the court played its role as patron of the arts in general and of music in particular. A director of music, Padre José Mauricio Nunes Garcia (to name but one!) was appointed to the court and thereby became Brazil's first officially recognised composer. Funds were available for the building of theatres and halls, both religious and secular music were encouraged and musicians were invited from Europe for residences and concerts. For a brief period of thirteen years, to be a musician in Rio de Janeiro was to be part of a tremendous expansion in the musical life in Brazil.

Even though the Portuguese court returned to Europe in 1821, the musical interest that it had created continued and by the time of the official abolition of slavery in 1850 there were appearing evidences of a music that could be identified as Brazilian and which would eventually be heard internationally in the works of Villa Lobos.

The evolution of music in Brazil has been slower than that of other Latin American music, which been being born out of Spanish dominated lands crystallised itself much earlier. As a general outline of the Brazilian musical inheritance, the tonalities, meter, instruments and literature came from Portugal; the dance forms of bolero, fandango, seguidillas, habanera and tango from Spain; in the 18th century, opera from Italy; songs from France; dances from Austria, Poland and even Scotland. Lately, there has been a strong jazz influence from the United States.

It is quite interesting to compare the modulations and developments of the African element mixed with the Mediterranean European in the Latin Americas with that same element mixed with the Northern European in the United States of America. This has been a brief sketch of one thread in the history of Brazil.