Os 17 Estudos Expressivos de Geraldo Ribeiro: uma abordagem com foco no uso de técnicas expandidas e no idiomatismo

Abstract

Recognized in the guitar world for his skill as a performer, Geraldo Ribeiro is also a prolific composer, although his work for solo guitar is much less known than his work as a performer. The 17 Expressive Studies are a representative sample of this work, in addition to presenting technical and writing novelties. Starting from an initial estrangement about the sometimes apparently non-idiomatic characteristics of the writing, especially considering that the composer is an excellent guitarist, we seek to understand the use of unusual technical resources in a context of constant challenges to the physical and technical limits of the instrument and the player. This work aims to investigate the compositional particularities of Geraldo Ribeiro (1939) and technical innovations present in the 17 Expressive Studies. Starting from an initial estrangement about the sometimes non-idiomatic characteristics of writing, especially considering that the composer is an excellent guitarist, we seek to understand the use of unusual technical resources in a context of constant challenge to the physical and technical limits of both the instrument and the performer. This work is divided into three parts. The first consists of an overview of the composer's artistic life, covering his education and the main contacts that contributed to his productions. The second is divided into three: 1) Traditional and expanded technical resources, based on guitar methods and authors who deal with the expanded technique theme; 2) A discussion of the concept of idiomatic writing and its categories, after which we present a list of idiomatic resources identified in Ribeiro‘s works; 3) The performer-composer interaction, highlighting the levels of this relationship and the procedures that we used. The third and last part of the work is the categorization – divided into expanded traditional techniques and new expanded techniques - and analysis of selected works. We found that some of the composer's works reflect his technical skills, which, despite being unusual and highly challenging, were routine for the guitarist. His contact with Theodoro Nogueira also contributed to some nationalist characteristics and a style of instrumental writing that, at times, is not very ―guitaristic‖. Fingering suggestions in interaction with the composer served as a solution for problematic passages.