The still limited access to scores and concerts of the vast Brazilian music repertoire from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and its stereotyped instrumentation (almost always sacred vocal music with orchestral accompaniment) are obstacles for the inclusion of this repertory in the country's instrumental music curricula and its appreciation by a wider audience. An alternative for this situation is the transcription of works and change of their instrumentation to fit smaller chamber formations, including those without singing. Moreover, these transcriptions could also allow the contact and experimentation with the so-called Historically Informed Performance (HIP), departing either from the adaptation of (aural and textual) references already consolidated in the interpretation of the European repertoire or from the analysis of historical and formal elements and rhetorical figures. This article addresses these questions in Recitativo e Aria from the academic cantata Heroe, egregio, douto, peregrino (anonymous, Salvador, 1759) for soprano, two violins and basso continuo, transcribed for a solo orchestral string instrument (violin, viola, violoncello or double bass) and harpsichord.
Historically Informed performance; Brazilian colonial music; Cantata Heroe, egregio; music transcription; orchestral strings, harpsichord
