A paisagem sonora de Vila Rica e a música barroca das Minas Gerais (1711-1822)

Abstract

The objective of this work is to approach the soundscape of the 18th century Vila Rica and compare it with the music written there at the time. Starting from the Canadian composer R. Murray Schafers idea (2001) of music as the best permanent register of sounds from the past, constituting itself a kind of ideal soundscape that recreates in imagination something similar to the soundscape that we find in the period in which that music was written, we intend to evaluate in which way the music composed in Vila Rica, in the 18th century, idealizes the soundscape of which such music is constituent. In the first two chapters we describe the sounds heard in public spaces of Vila Rica and the worship calendar of the parish of Pilar, which is taken as a parameter of time measurement at the Vila. In the two last chapters, the soundscape of Vila Rica is analyzed and compared with two contemporary musical pieces. The method and sources utilized permitted us to study only the structure of the Vilas soundscape and to recognize a reflection of this structure in the music of this period, which, despite the classical and pre-classical display that it utilizes, may be considered baroque.