Rio de Janeiro’s Music Scene in the Musical Iconography of the Portuguese Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (1875–1877)

The general aim of this communication is to identify how the musical scene in the capital of Brazil was observed by Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro - who is considered to be the greatest Portuguese caricaturist of the 19th century. The caricatures that will be analysed were produced for the periodical “O Mosquito” during the first years in which he worked in the country, between 1875 and 1877. This paper is part of studies on iconography, with Erwin Panofsky as a general reference and Tilman Seebass as a specific reference, as a study on musical iconography. This paper shows that the musical scene of the city of Rio de Janeiro has a significant presence in the works produced by Bordalo in Brazil, highlighting the importance of European “Great Music” in the Brazilian musical scene of the city of Rio de Janeiro in the 1870s, the development of a Brazilian national “Great Music” and the presence of popular music of black origin in this scene, in the context of the Brazilian Empire.