Whence
Choro (music)
Music & dance

Where does Choro (music) come from?

Choro comes from Rio de Janeiro, where it grew in the 19th century out of the way local musicians played imported dance music. Considered the first characteristically Brazilian genre of urban popular music, it is mostly instrumental and, despite its name, often fast and cheerful.

A way of playing

In the 19th century the ballrooms of Rio danced to European salon dances, above all the polka, popular in Brazil since 1844, along with the schottische and the mazurka. The city's popular musicians, steeped in Afro-Brazilian rhythms such as the lundu, played these tunes with a syncopated, plaintive feel. According to the historian José Ramos Tinhorão, choro first appeared around 1870 not as a genre but as a 'way of playing'. Only later did the word come to name the music itself.

Callado's Choro Carioca

The oldest accounts name the flautist Joaquim Callado, a flute teacher at the Imperial Conservatory, as the organiser of the first groups. In the 1870s he led one called Choro Carioca, with flute, two guitars and the cavaquinho, a small four-string instrument. Many early chorões were modest clerks in the post, telegraph and railway services, playing at parties, bars and home dances. The pianists Chiquinha Gonzaga and Ernesto Nazareth wrote much of the repertoire, and by the 1910s many of Brazil's first records were choros.

Pixinguinha and the roda

The flautist and saxophonist Pixinguinha became the genre's greatest composer; his 'Carinhoso' later gained words and became a hit. Radio spread choro widely in the 1930s and 1940s. When urban samba took over the airwaves in the 1950s and 1960s, it lived on in rodas de choro, informal gatherings in homes and bars. Brazil celebrates National Choro Day on 23 April, Pixinguinha's birthday, and in February 2024 its heritage institute, Iphan, recognised choro as part of the country's cultural heritage.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org ↗ · pt.wikipedia.org ↗ · diariodepernambuco.com.br ↗

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