ABSTRACT
Musical instruments and styles – clear public indicators of ‘cultural capital’ – are often closely linked to status positions, and in Brazil, musical symbols have constituted strong markers of class and racial affiliation. References to the viola prototype begin to emerge in the thirteenth century, and these documents suggest that the instrument was used primarily by troubadours. The continuous encounter between socially and ethnically diverse sectors during the colonial era produced a highly hybrid cultural environment, but it was perhaps until the late eighteenth century that particular music and dance forms began to be identified as distinctly colonial inventions. The tensions between syncretism and segregation came to a head in the early twentieth century, when an avant-garde intelligentsia linked to the nationalist-oriented modernist movement embarked upon the project of defining the symbols of national identity.
