ABSTRACT
The creators of bossa nova, principally the composer Antonio Carlos (Tom) Jobim, the guitarist/singer Joao Gilberto, and the poet and former diplomat Vinícius de Moraes, worked within the middle-class intelligentsia of Rio's affluent South Side. Artists felt the traditional samba was not up to the task of expressing the new situation of rapidly modernizing, metropolitan Brazil. A suave musical beauty was constructed against the seedy and dangerous side of Rio's chaotically expanding urban landscape and the risk of political and social turbulence, both of which existed cheek by jowl with the privileged enclaves of personal and economic security enjoyed by the circle of Jobim and his collaborators. Appropriation is a strategy for expressive continuation through creative revoicing. Although Jobim's modelling on Chopin's melody and harmony is close, he immediately makes significant changes. David Treece has described ‘Insensatez’ as ‘the search for stability’ which ‘seems to struggle against the forces of entropy and loss’.
