Musical Creation in the era of radio:

conductors and arrangers, between tradition and modernity

Abstract

This article is the result of the master's research of one of the authors and intends to point out the conductor and the arrangers of radios and record companies as key pieces in the phonographic production of the mid-twentieth century, in Brazil. This work remarks Radamés Gnatalli's almost omnipresence in the scene of that time but also highlights names such as Guerra-Peixe, Lyrio Panicalli, Leo Peracchi, Nicolino Coppia, and Osvaldo Borba, relating them to the creation of an aesthetic taste, part of the process of composing songs and artistic performances. Here, we present data based on the productivity of these music professionals and their relationship with the singers’ performances. To find these results, we collected radio Rádio Nacional and Rádio Record song catalogs – their “hit parades”, record sleeves, magazines and newspapers. The conclusion is that there is an aesthetic-mediatic soundscape due to work of the conductors and arrangers.