AThe scores that enrich Frevendo no Recife – research on frevo written by musician Leonardo Vilaça Saldanha – are barely legible and should be printed in larger format. This was one of the few reservations made by the examining board to the doctoral thesis defended by Saldanha on January 28, at the Institute of Arts (IA) at Unicamp, under the guidance of professor Claudiney Rodrigues Carrasco.

For the rest, the panel was unanimous in recommending the publication of the work, in the expectation that it will become a reference in the literature of this urban popular music from Recife. The centenary of the genre was celebrated last year, although the expressions frevo-de-rua, frevo-canção and frevo-de-bloco only became widespread in the 1930s.

“The focus of the research is on the radio era, which had its peak between the 1930s and 1950s. And mainly on Rádio Clube de Pernambuco – called that to this day, for men, because it was an amateur radio club – and which was the great means of diffusing frevo from Recife to Brazil”, explains the author of the thesis.

“First, I look back at the civil and military bands of the late 19th century, when the pace of the polka-march and dodoudo accelerated. Then elements like maxixe would come,” he adds.

The name frevo comes from the way the less favored classes pronounced the verb “ferver”, referring to the “freveção” that took place on the streets of the capital of Pernambuco. It has to do with the effervescence that reigned when rival bands crossed paths, fighting duels through instruments, on the gogó and on the fretboard.

“There were real fights, sometimes ending in death. Before the figure of the passista appeared, the capoeira player was the one in the lead. The umbrella helped with dancing, but it served mainly as a weapon. The colorful umbrella only came after the frevo was 'civilized', becoming part of the social context”, says the researcher.

Leonardo Saldanha has been at the center of the “frevedouro” for a long time. As an undergraduate, he was a student of maestro Clóvis Pereira, one of the still living frevo masters. He chose maestro Duda as the character for his master's thesis, having played in his orchestra for two carnivals, alongside musicians like Sivuca. Among other exponents of the genre who illuminated his path, he still works with maestro Edson Rodrigues, father of frevo-de-salão.

Now in his doctorate, Saldanha rescues the trajectories of composers Nelson Ferreira and Capiba, considered to be the great propagandists of frevo. “They both played at night, in orchestras and in silent movie theaters. Nelson Ferreira was artistic director of Rádio Clube de Pernambuco and took all his colleagues there, forming a true Brazilian big band at that time”.

Capiba, in turn, was an employee of Banco do Brasil and was never a radio man. But he composed great frevo-canção hits, being an illustrious and frequent guest of Rádio Clube's carnival revues. “It is good to remember that shortwave radio was not only heard locally, but across the country. Nelson Ferreira and Capiba were the composers most recorded by carnival performers”.

Marchinhas – Regarding the recordings, Leonardo Saldanha observes that the carnival genres at the time were frevo, marchinha carioca and samba. According to him, there are great hits by singers such as Carlos Galhardo, Lamartine Babo, Aracy de Almeida and Carmem Miranda identified by the music industry as carioca marchinhas, but which are actually frevos.

“An example is Mulata, by the Valença brothers, which Lamartine transformed, recorded and released as 'motivos donorthern', with the title of Your Hair Doesn't Deny. Another transformed frevo that the older generation knows and that has been played all over Brazil is Evocation, by Nelson Ferreira, recorded by the Coral do Bloco Batutas de São José and the maestro's own orchestra”, notes the author.

Contributing to this distortion was the fact that the frevos had to be recorded in Rio de Janeiro, then the federal capital and where Casa Edison, Continental and RCA Victor were based. “It got to a point where record companies started to naturally adopt arrangements that were geared more towards carioca marchinhas than frevos”.

Saldanha recalls that composers from Recife then decided to send maestro Zuzinha, also considered the father of instrumental frevo, to Rio de Janeiro. “Zuzinha was the one who composed Divisor de Águas, showing the transition from polka-march to frevo. They asked him to take charge of directing the recordings.”

The measure, however, proved to be only palliative. Not even Nelson Ferreira's first recording – which, incidentally, was RCA Victor's first carnival release – escaped this fate. “The frevo Borboleta não é ave, from 1923, was recorded by Baiano, a singer at Casa Edison, also in marchinha format. Later, Claudionor Germano and Ferreira’s own orchestra recorded the music corrected to the frevo format.”

Evolution - The two recordings are on a CD that accompanies Leonardo Saldanha's thesis. The album ranges from period compositions to current ones, helping to understand the transformation and evolution of frevo over these 100 years. “Frevo is a living genre. Although many think he doesn't change, I show the opposite. Suffice it to say that until the 50s and 60s, the pulse rate was 120 beats per minute and today it is 180”.

Much more than telling the story of frevo, the author carries out a melodic, rhythmic, harmonic and instrumental analysis of its genres and subgenres, in a detailed mapping. To do this, he uses dense material to support the text, such as photographs of people and places, printed and phonographic documents, as well as scores that were rescued in archives, libraries and museums, or that did not exist.

In relation to frevo genres, the author explains that frevo-de-rua is only instrumental, derived from polka-march and dodo; frevo-canção has an orchestral introduction and is then sung with satirical lyrics; and the frevo-de-bloco, inspired by pastoral, also sung, has a moderate tempo and nostalgic lyrics. From them a range of subgenres opens up.

Saldanha informs that this classification emerged in the 30s, due to the radio and the recording industry, as the media needed to better identify the product. “In the period after the Second World War, musicians began to be influenced by North American big bands, adopting the same instrumentation and other elements in the frevo orchestration and resorting to improvisation”.

Stuff, coconut tree and wind

The street frevo has three subtypes, depending on the compositional style. The one that arose from conflicts on the streets of Recife, involving rival bands, is called frevo-de-abafo. “The spirit is to mock and drown out the sound of the band coming in the opposite direction, playing a loud frevo, with longer notes than traditional and therefore less difficult to play”, explains Leonardo Saldanha.

Another subgenre of frevo-de-rua is frevo-coqueiro, with fast but sharp notes, played in high regions. “We can roughly say that it is busier than frevo-de-abafo, because of the quick subdivisions. The name obviously comes from the coconut tree, which is tall and shakes its leaves when the wind blows.”

Frevo-ventania, according to the author of the doctoral thesis, lives up to its name, with fast subdivision notes, normally with semi-quavers and fusas. “It is a very difficult frevo to play and its main instruments are not brass but reeds, like saxophones. It is closer to the current frevo, which uses this element a lot.”

Saldanha states that ventania is a frevo more appropriate for indoor environments, due to its lower sound compared to previous subgenres, such as a jazzy improvisation with saxophone, guitar or piano. “There are also mixtures of subtypes, which are abafo-ventania and abafo-coqueiro. Nowadays, it’s difficult to hear a frevo that has just one characteristic.”

The author recalls another subdivision of frevo-de-rua, classified by maestro Edson Rodrigues, his co-worker and author of Roda e advert, a song in honor of Chacrinha. “He defined the frevo-de-salão style, which mixes all the other subgenres and which stands out above all for its jazz style of execution. It is a synonym for rejuvenated, modern and very improvised frevo, made more for listening than for dancing.”

Leonardo Saldanha himself defined a final subtype. “In the absence of an ideal nomenclature, I started calling concert hall frevo the one performed by academically trained musicians. It is suitable for symphony orchestras and other non-band formations, and often conforms to the strict parameters of European concert music. It’s a frevo that shows the maturity of the genre.”