The academician Pilar Bayer pays tribute to the great architect of bossa nova with a piano recital
Pilar Bayer, professor emeritus of the University of Barcelona and full academician of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED), starred on November 29 the piano concert “Una velada con la música de Antônio Carlos Jobim” (An evening with the music of Antônio Carlos Jobim), organized by the Royal Academy with the collaboration of the Royal Artistic Circle of Barcelona, which hosted the session. Before the recital, Josep Pla i Carrera, also professor emeritus of the University of Barcelona and supernumerary academician of the RAED, gave the talk “Gotas de matemática egipcia y mesopotámica a través de los textos” (Drops of Egyptian and Mesopotamian mathematics through the texts), based on the mathematical content of Egyptian papyri and of Mesopotamian tablets.
The program was composed of an introduction, theme, interlude and ending, including compositions by Erroll Garner, Tom Jobim, Tchaikovsky and Paul Desmond. The central part of the audition was dedicated to the Brazilian music of the 1950s and 1960s in which the derivation of the popular samba took place towards the more jazzy and sophisticated style of bossa nova. Briefly, Pilar Bayer also explained the meaning of the texts of the different interpreted themes, due to the Brazilian poets Vinícius de Moraes, Astrud Gilberto, Newton Mendonça and Aloysio de Oliveira. Out of the program she played the piano “Alone”, the central theme of a 1935 film that the public had to identify.
Antônio Carlos Jobim, popularly known as Tom Jobim, was a composer, arranger, singer, guitarist and pianist of bossa nova, Brazilian popular music and classical music. He is considered one of the great exponents of the music of his country and the great creator of developing and internationalizing the bossa nova, which fused with jazz to create a new style of great popular success. His compositions are as well-known as “Águas de março” or “Garota de Ipanema”. Jobim died in New York in 1994 leaving behind an internationally recognized musical legacy.
