Brasília, Sinfonia da Alvorada

In the beginning was the wilderness
There were ancient solitudes without sorrow
The high plateau, the infinite open plain
In the beginning was the wild:
The blue sky, the poignant red earth
And the sad green of the cerrado
There were ancient solitudes bathed
In gentle innocent rivers
Among the cut forests
There was no one. The solitude
Seemed more like a non-existent people
Saying things about nothing
Yes, the soulless fields
Seemed to speak, and the voice that came
From the vast expanses, from the twilight depths
No longer seemed to hear the steps
Of the old bandeirantes, the rough pioneers
Who, in search of gold and diamonds,
Echoing the valleys with the shots of their guns,
The sadness of their cries and the clamor
Of their violence against the indigenous people, extended
The borders of the homeland far beyond the treaty limits.
- Fernão Dias, Anhanguera, Borba Gato,
You were the heroes of the first marches to the west,
Of the conquest of the wild
And the great introspective plain!
But you passed. And from the confluence
Of the three great basins
Of the three ancient giants:
Amazon, São Francisco, Rio de la Plata;
From the new roof of the world, the illuminated plateau
The old battered tribes also departed
And the terrified beasts.
And only the solitudes without sorrow remained
The endless, infinite open plain
Where, in the general fields at the end of the day
The cry of the partridge was heard
To which the melancholic chirp of the jaó
In the stretches of forest along the rivers
Responded
And night came. In the celestial meadows
The stars shone closer
And the Southern Cross resplendent
Seemed destined
To be planted in Brazilian soil:
The Great Cross raised
Over the nocturnal cerrado forest
To bless the new bandeirante
The bold pioneer
The conquering being
The Man!

II / THE MAN

Yes, it was the Man,
It was finally, and definitively, the Man.
He had in his eyes
The strength of a purpose: to stay, to overcome the solitudes
And horizons, to explore and create, to found
And raise. His hands
No longer carried other weapons
Than those of peaceful work. Yes,
It was finally the Man: the Founder. He had on his face
The ancient determination of the bandeirantes,
But gold and diamonds were no longer
The object of his greed. He looked calmly at the crepuscular sun
Illuminating in its flight towards the night
The somber monsters and beasts of the west.
Then he looked at the stars, shining
In the immense suspended vault
By the invisible columns of darkness.
Yes, he was the Man...
He came from afar, through many solitudes,
Slowly, painfully. He still suffered from the scarcity
Of roads, the languor of deserts,
The fatigue of entangled forests
Devouring each other in the underground struggle
Of their gigantic roots and in the unison embrace
Of their branches. But now
He had come to stay. His feet planted
In the red earth of the plateau. His gaze
Unveiled the great solitudes without sorrow
In the infinite circle of the horizon. His chest
Filled with the pure air of the cerrado. Yes, he would plant
In the desert a city very white and very pure...

Quote by Oscar Niemeyer

- '... like a flower in that wild and lonely land...'
- A city built in the solitude of the open plain.
Niemeyer
- '... like a permanent message of grace and poetry...'
- A city that in the sun would wear a wedding dress
Niemeyer
- '... in which the architecture stood out white, as if floating in the immense darkness of the plateau...'
- A city that worked joyfully during the day
Niemeyer
- '... in an atmosphere of dignified monumentality...'
- And at night, in the hours of languor and longing
Niemeyer
- '... in a feeric and dramatic lighting...'
- Would sleep in a Palace of Dawn!
Niemeyer
- '... a city of happy men, men who feel life in all its fullness, in all its fragility; men who understand the value of pure things...'
- And that it was like the image of the Southern Cross
In the heart of the spilled homeland.

Quote by Lucio Costa

- '... born from the primary gesture of someone marking a place or taking possession of it: two axes that intersect at right angles, that is, the very sign of the cross.'

III / THE ARRIVAL OF THE CANDANGOS

Now it was a matter of building: and building a new rhythm.

To do so, it was necessary to summon all the living forces of the Nation, all the men who, with a will to work and confidence in the future, could raise, in a new time, a new Time.
And, to the great call that summoned the people to the gigantic task, workers began to arrive from all corners of the immense homeland: the simple and quiet men, with root feet, leather faces, and stone hands, who, on foot, in ox carts, on donkey backs, on makeshift buses, in all possible and imaginable ways, began to arrive from all sides of the immense homeland, especially from the North; they came from the Great North, the Middle North, and the Northeast, in their simple and rough sweetness; they arrived in large groups from the Great East, the Zona da Mata, the Midwest, and the Great South; they arrived in their mute hope, often leaving behind wives and children waiting for their promises of better days; they arrived from so many villages, so many cities whose names seemed to sing longing to their ears, within the ancient rhythms of the immense homeland...

Two alternating announcers

- Bon Voyage! Boca do Acre! Água Branca! Vargem Alta! Amargosa! Xique-Xique! Cruz das Almas! Areia Branca! Limoeiro! Afogados! Morenos! Angelim! Tamboril! Palmares! Taperoá! Triunfo! Aurora! Campanário! Águas Belas! Passagem Franca! Bom Conselho! Brumado! Pedra Azul! Diamantina! Capelinha! Capão Bonito! Campinas! Canoinhas! Porto Belo! Passo Fundo!
Announcer no 1
- Cruz Alta...
Announcer no 2
- Who were arriving from all sides of the immense homeland...
Announcer no 1
- To build a white and pure city...
Announcer no 2
- A city of happy men...

IV / WORK AND CONSTRUCTION

- It took much more than ingenuity, tenacity, and invention. It took 1 million cubic meters of concrete, and it took 100 thousand tons of round iron, and it took thousands and thousands of bags of cement, and 500 thousand cubic meters of sand, and 2 thousand kilometers of wires.
- And 1 million cubic meters of crushed stone were needed, and four hundred kilometers of rolled steel, and tons and tons of wood were needed. And 60 thousand workers! 60 thousand workers were needed from all corners of the immense homeland, especially from the North! 60 thousand 'candangos' were needed to clear, dig, stake, cut, saw, nail, weld, push, cement, level, polish, raise the white walls...
- Ah, the white walls! -
- Like white feathers...
- Ah, the great structures!
- So light, so pure...
As if they had been gently deposited by angel hands in the poignant red earth of the plateau, amidst the inflexible music, the piercing music, the mathematical music of human work in progression...
The human work that announces that fate is cast and action is irreversible.

Chant

And at dusk, after the day's work, with rough empty hands and eyes full of endless horizons, the workers set off for rest, in the longing for their homes so far away and their women so absent. The song with which they further sadden the dying soul-sun in the ancient solitudes seems to call the companions who stayed behind, waiting for better days; who stayed in the frame of a door, where they must still remain, hands full of love and eyes full of endless horizons. Who stayed many lands beyond, many mountains beyond, hoping that one day, beside their men, they could also participate in the life of the city being born in communion with the stars. Who saw, one morning, their companions leave in search of work to give them a little happiness they do not possess, a small nothing with which to see the future shine in the eyes of their children. This same work that now, after the day's work, leads the workers in a flock to the great and fundamental solitude of the night falling over the plateau...

'From this central plateau, from this solitude that will soon be transformed into the brain of high national decisions, I cast my eyes once again on the tomorrow of my country and foresee this dawn with unshakable faith and limitless confidence in its great destiny.'
(Brasília, October 2, 1956)
President Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira

V / CHORUS

I II III
Chorus Chorus Chorus
Male Male Mixed
Brasília Brasília Brasília
Brasília Brasília Brasília
Brasília Brasília Brasília
Brasília Brasília Brasília
Brasília Brasília Brasília
BRAZIL! BRAZIL! BRAZIL!

VI

Land of sun
Land of light
Land that keeps in the sky
Shining the sign of a cross
Land of light
Land-hope, promise
Of a world of peace and love
Land of brothers
O Brazilian soul ...
... Brazilian soul ...
Land-poetry of songs and forgiveness
Land that one day found its heart

Brazil! Brazil!
Ah... Ah... Ah...
B r a s í 1 i a!
Dlem! Dlem!
Ô ... ô... ô... ô