The rise of popular music genres for piano in the Carioca belle époque

Abstract

The symbols of the new popular music that arose, starting in the 1870's in the city of Rio de Janeiro are unmistakable. The piano, representing status and power for the dominant class and an emblem of its very romanticism, was, little by little, incorporated in the living rooms of the popular classes, where it occupied a very special place in the "choro" group, the mark of popular music in the belle époque. At the same time, the flourishing of new popular musical genres, among them the Brazilian tango, that dominated at this very moment the musical production for piano, brought as protagonists the so-called "pianeiros".