Samba-enredo, also known as samba de enredo, is a sub-genre of modern

samba Samba () is a broad term for many of the rhythms that compose the better known Brazilian music genres that originated in the Afro-Brazilians, Afro Brazilian communities of Bahia in the late 19th century and early 20th century, It is a name or ...

made specifically by a

samba school A samba school () is a dancing, marching, and drumming (Samba Enredo) club. They practice and often perform in a huge square-Compound (enclosure), compounds ("quadras de samba") and are devoted to practicing and exhibiting samba, an Afro-Brazili ...

for the festivities of

Brazilian Carnival The Carnival of Brazil (, ) is an annual festival held the Friday afternoon before Ash Wednesday at noon, which marks the beginning of Lent, the forty-day period before Easter. During Lent, Roman Catholics and some other Christians traditionally ...

. It is a samba style that consists of a

lyric Lyric may refer to: * Lyrics, the words, often in verse form, which are sung, usually to a melody, and constitute the semantic content of a song * Lyric poetry is a form of poetry that expresses a subjective, personal point of view * Lyric, from t ...

and a

melody A melody (), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of Pitch (music), pitch and rhythm, while more figurativel ...

created from a summary of the theme chosen as the plot of a samba school. The first sambas sung by the samba schools in their carnival presentations were freely created and generally were about of the samba itself or the reality of the samba musicians. The institution of contests between the

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

samba school from the

1930s File:1930s decade montage.png, From left, clockwise: Dorothea Lange's photo of the homeless Florence Owens Thompson, Florence Thompson shows the effects of the Great Depression; due to extreme drought conditions, farms across the south-central Uni ...

onwards compelled them to commit themselves to presented themes, which began to narrate mainly episodes and exalt characters from the official Brazilian historiography.

Background

"Samba-enredo" translates literally in Portuguese a samba-theme, which is thematically bonded to the selected special theme (''enredo'') of its samba school and narrates the story, which it told by the samba schools, in a lyrical form. Each samba school performs one song in the Carnaval parade. A new song must be written each year for each school; they must be on Brazilian topics. The Carnaval parade is among other things a samba competition, with judges, who rank the new sambas according to their perceived merit. Being by definition topical, sambas-enredo are seldom performed outside of the Carnaval environment. It is important to note that the samba-enredo is one of the criteria used by the Judging committee to decide who is the winner of the Carnaval parade competition. The samba-enredo must be well sung by the samba school's puxador (or singer) or the school will lose points. While the "puxador" (the samba-enredo singer) sings, everyone marching in the Carnaval parade sings the samba-enredo along with him, and harmony is another judging criterion. For each samba school, choosing the following year's samba-enredo is a long process. Well in advance of the Carnaval parade, each samba school holds a contest for writing the song. The song is written by samba composers from within the school itself ("Ala dos Compositores"), or sometimes from outside composers, normally in "parcerias" (partnerships). Each school receives many—sometimes hundreds—songs, sometimes hundreds of them, each hoping to be the next samba-enredo for that year. The samba-enredo is written by these numerous composers mentioned above only after the Carnival Art Director, or "Carnavalesco", officially publishes the samba school's parade theme synopsis for the year. After a careful explanation of the parade-theme, many times done by the Carnival Art Director himself, composers may ask questions in order to clarify the synopsis, so they can start writing the samba-enredos.

References

Sources

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Samba-enredo Brazilian styles of music