NAZARETH - Brejeiro

In my conservatory years in Brazil we always had to play a Brazilian piece paired with an international one. So Nazareth was very requested by my teacher, and I was always very uncomfortable with his writing which sounded so cliche, popular and boring to me. I listened to several recordings of his music and they all sounded the same. Until I watched a movie of Francisco Mignone telling when he met Nazareth. He promptly played Brejeiro in a very moving way, and Nazareth replied "this piece is not mine. My piece is like this". He would play it slowly, cantabile, very articulated. Once I started playing this way, I discovered his charming, colorful piano writting, and every piece of him developed into a unique special sonority.