Priest José Maurício Nunes Garcia. Music and sociability under the protection of the Rosary and the Scapular: Trajectories, power and social mobility in Rio de Janeiro between 1791 – 1821.
Social ascension, native clergy, Royal Chapel, Arrival of the Portuguese court, José Maurício Nunes Garcia.
Our Thesis aims to analyze important questions about the life and work of the composer José Maurício Nunes Garcia between the years 1808 to 1821. With this research, we seek a historiographical evaluation on social ascension and bonds of sociability through music. To demonstrate from the trajectory of this character as a son of black-liners of humble origin he managed to aspire to an ecclesiastical position in the 18th century. We aim, therefore, to propose in discussions to deal with the artistic and cultural transformations that occurred with the arrival of the Portuguese court in the tropics. Among such subjects we approach the adaptation of the artistic panorama and the music made in Rio de Janeiro to the molds of the court of d. João VI. We undertake to analyze José Maurício Nunes Garcia's relations and his representativeness at court, his communication and relationship with native and European musicians. The mechanisms and difficulties in reaching his training as a musician, priestly ordination and title of the habit of Christ. The influences and domains that bequeathed his artistic production in Rio de Janeiro from his time. We will strive to show the means that made it possible, through his efforts, to overcome his social condition for the exercise of his position as master of the royal chapel.