Carlos Lyra, formidable melodist, goes down in history as one of Brazil’s greatest composers

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When he died at the age of 90, the artist from Rio left behind a songbook associated with bossa nova, but his work went beyond the movement that made him famous in the 1950s and 1960s. ♪ OBITUARY – Qualify Carlos Eduardo Lyra Barbosa (May 11, 1933 – December 16, 2023) as one of the great names in Brazilian music – an extraordinary composer, creator of beautiful melodies that border on the sublime – is an inevitable cliché. The death of the artist from Rio in the early hours of this Saturday, the 16th, at the age of 90, takes away from the scene a fundamental name in bossa nova, but one who sought to transcend this bossa, as explained in the title of the excellent album of new songs he released in 2019, Além da bossa. Just listen to the six most famous partnerships between the composer and the poet Vinicius de Moraes (1913 – 1980) – Coisa mais beautiful (1961), Você e eu (1961), Ash Wednesday March (1963), Minha girlfriend (1964 ), Primavera (1964) and Sabe Você (1964) – to make it clear that Carlos Lyra truly lived up to the superlative praise of none other than Antonio Carlos Jobim (1927 – 1994). The sovereign maestro always made a point of praising Lyra’s melodies. Composer of the first generation of bossa nova, Lyra wrote his first song in 1954, Quando Chegares, and two years later he was publicly revealed as a composer in the voice of Sylvia Telles (1935 – 1966), a singer who recorded Menino on an album released in 1956. Three Years later, in 1959, Lyra would be prematurely consecrated by João Gilberto (1931 – 2019), the pope of bossa. João included two of Lyra’s songs in the repertoire of the bossa creator’s first album, Chega de saudade (1959). João Gilberto recorded Maria nobody and Lobo bobo, the most popular title from Lyra’s partnership with Ronaldo Bôscoli (1928 – 1994), generating standards such as Saudade faz um samba (1989), Canção que die no ar (1960) and Se é late me forgive (1960). Carlos Lyra gained respect as a composer in the world of bossa nova, but he knew how to go beyond the canons of the movement. In the samba Influence of jazz (1962), the composer spoke with fine irony about how much jazz there could be in Brazilian bossa. As early as 1960, Lyra sought to engage bossa, touching on social issues. He became almost a dissident of the movement when he composed the soundtrack for the play A MAIS VALIA WILL FIND, YOUR EDGAR (1960), text by the politicized playwright and director from São Paulo Oduvaldo Vianna Filho (1936 – 1974), Vianinha. As a singer, Lyra released her first album in 1959, entitled Bossa Nova. He made other important albums in Brazil and, when bossa lost momentum in the era of festivals and in the reign of Jovem Guarda, the artist left for Mexico, where he lived from 1968 to 1971. Upon returning to Brazil, Carlos Lyra opened partnerships with Chico Buarque and Ruy Guerra, renewing his authorial repertoire on albums such as …And however it is necessary to sing (1971), Eu & elas… (1972) and Hérói do medo (1975). But he never reissued the success of the 1950s and 1960s. From the 1980s onwards, to survive in the market, the artist joined the periodic revivals of the bossa nova songbook on albums and shows, but also opened more partnerships – with names like Joyce Moreno and Paulo César Pinheiro – and released occasional albums of new songs such as Carioca de algema (1994) and the aforementioned Além da bossa (2019). However, the singer, composer and musician was never dissociated from bossa nova due to the strength of his unbeatable initial repertoire, created with the mark of a truly formidable composer, as Tom Jobim emphasized.

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