- Music, Music and Politics, Philosophy of Music, Piano, Brazilian Music, Pianists and Piano Literature, and 29 moreCollaborative Piano, Nationalism, National Identity, Social Sciences, Sociology, Literature, Education, Languages, Contemporary Music, Opera, Sound Art, Brazilian Literature, Portuguese Literature, Voice (Music), Colonial Brazil, Brazilian Studies, Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), 1920s, Musical Exoticism, Brazilian modernism, Paul Ricoeur, Narrative and Identity, Social Ontology, Philosophy of perception, Anthropology, Computer Science, Psychology, Physics, and Historyedit
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In Brazil, from 1932 to 1945, Heitor Villa-Lobos participated in the authoritarian regime of Getúlio Vargas as music educator and what could be construed as an indoctrinator of the regime’s ideologies. Villa-Lobos implemented a program of... more
In Brazil, from 1932 to 1945, Heitor Villa-Lobos participated in the authoritarian regime of Getúlio Vargas as music educator and what could be construed as an indoctrinator of the regime’s ideologies. Villa-Lobos implemented a program of music education in schools that sought to promote discipline among children while socializing them in the school environment and educating them about aspects of the ethnic and socio-cultural formation of Brazilian people. Villa-Lobos had sketched his program of music education in the 1920s with ostensibly purely educational intentions, but Vargas appropriated Villa-Lobos’s program and used it as a tool to homogenize the government’s nationalistic ideologies among children (and consequently their families). The program was first mandatory in Rio de Janeiro and later was implemented throughout Brazil. Consequently, Villa-Lobos was accused of collaborating with the authoritarian government, but despite having admitted that music could be used as a tool for political propaganda, he regularly excused himself from personal interest in the regime, asserting that all he wanted was discipline and love for music. While scholars have mostly speculated whether Villa-Lobos used Vargas to promote his career or Vargas used Villa-Lobos to disseminate the government’s ideologies, they tend to overlook the indoctrinating aspects
of music education.
My research demonstrates that, despite Villa-Lobos’s original educational intentions, he increasingly aligned the directives of his program of music education with the nationalistic politics of the government and consciously instilled Vargas’s ideologies in the minds of children. Through the analysis of the extensive archival materials, most of which remain unpublished and unexamined, this paper reevaluates the directives of Villa-Lobos’s program and argues that he became an important agent of indoctrination for the government of Vargas. Drawing upon the concept of “indexation” from Thomas Turino’s theory of music semiotics and Benedict Anderson’s concept of “imagined communities,” I demonstrate that, through music, Villa-Lobos rooted nationalistic and patriotic values and the senses of discipline and civic duty in children’s identities, forming a community that “imagined” itself united through
these shared ideals.
of music education.
My research demonstrates that, despite Villa-Lobos’s original educational intentions, he increasingly aligned the directives of his program of music education with the nationalistic politics of the government and consciously instilled Vargas’s ideologies in the minds of children. Through the analysis of the extensive archival materials, most of which remain unpublished and unexamined, this paper reevaluates the directives of Villa-Lobos’s program and argues that he became an important agent of indoctrination for the government of Vargas. Drawing upon the concept of “indexation” from Thomas Turino’s theory of music semiotics and Benedict Anderson’s concept of “imagined communities,” I demonstrate that, through music, Villa-Lobos rooted nationalistic and patriotic values and the senses of discipline and civic duty in children’s identities, forming a community that “imagined” itself united through
these shared ideals.
