Nova Ars Subtilior

Flo Menezes is today regarded as the most prominent representative of Brazilian contemporary music. The work of this composer, born in 1962, has been shaped by his exposure to syncretic ways of thinking and perceiving the world, which he experienced from an early age in the everyday life of his hometown, São Paulo. Indeed, the assimilation, interweaving, and further development of diverse music-historical and philosophical concepts constitute a defining feature of his work, whose genre spectrum ranges from solo pieces and chamber music to large-scale orchestral works, and from electroacoustic compositions to oratorio and ballet. Through a productive engagement with, among others, the music of Berio, Boulez, Pousseur, and Stockhausen, the linguistics of Jakobson, and the literature of Joyce, Menezes elucidates the compositional strategies of some of his major works in the essays of this volume. Furthermore, he unfolds his original concept of musical “maximalism”: the goal is music that, on the one hand, exhibits the highest degree of complexity in terms of compositional texture and its music-historical referentiality, while at the same time radiating the greatest possible beauty, fascination, and expressiveness. The concluding interview offers not only biographical highlights of a life spent between Brazil and Europe and insights into the composer’s creative process, but also critical reflections on the relationship between music and politics as well as on current trends in European composition.

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