The viola caipira at the festa de santo reis in a city in the south of minas gerais

Abstract

This paper provides a brief overview of the use of “viola caipira” at the Feast of the “Santo Reis” held in the city of Alfenas, south of Minas Gerais. The presence of the “viola caipira” in the instrumentation of the “Companhias de Reis” reflects the strong link that revelers of these traditional groups have with the so-called traditional “caipira” music and “sertaneja” music, which shows an interesting overlap of musical styles and practices even when the “viola caipira” is It used exclusively to meet sacred and magical-religious purposes of the feast. So, the Feast of the “Santo Reis” in the studied city has as one of its features a constant dialogue between regionalism of secular dimension, represented by the “caipira” and “sertaneja” music, and the universalism of the sacred and magical-religious rustic Catholicism dimension, represented by the hymns that worship the “Santo Reis”. Although this dialogue between different musical practices is driven by a set of instruments, the “viola caipira” is presented as the instrument that streamlines both, those speeches representing regional and secular dimension, linked to “caipira” music, and those speeches which represent the sacred universalism of Feast of the “Santo Reis”, then having an important catalytic role and unifying these different musical practices.