from Africa and such and such, uh, Rio, being a more cosmopolitan place, would incorporate all influences and create different styles.

 

Rio de Janeiro was very different to Bahia. It was then a rapidly expanding city of some half a million with a large white population boosted by new immigrants not just from Portugal, but from Germany, Italy and Spain. They looked to white Europe and certainly not Africa as the model for their lifestyle and culture. But then this South American port had once been declared a European capital.

 

In 1808, the entire Portuguese Court had moved to Rio from Lisbon, fearing for their lives after Napolean invaded Portugal. For the next 13 years while the Court remained, Rio became the capital, not just of Brazil, but of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire. The courtiers, who moved to Rio, brought with them Portuguese musical styles like the modinha.

 

Modinha is so near the heart of Brazilian music. And it’s a song; it’s a kind of song. It was developed in the Portuguese Court by a mad monk, an intensely erotic priest who wanted to use song to seduce young girls. So he adapted folk forms and court poetry to a kind of fusion in which you could express very, very tender sentiments. It became so popular in the cities like Salvador and Rio that every night / the young men out serenading, you could just hear the sounds everywhere in the street.