Menininha Lobo
Arthur Rubinstein, in his memoirs, recalls that in São Paulo, after World War I, he met “two brilliant pianists, Antonietta Rudge (1885-1974) and Guiomar Novaes (1895-1979)” and that both were pupils of Luigi Chiaffarelli (1856-1923), “a great piano teacher whose fame attracted even pupils from abroad [and who] was considered the equal of Isidor Philipp or Busoni,” Menininha Lobo did not come from abroad, but from nearby Campinas to study with the important master. Chiaffarelli called her “the pupil of my musical eyes.”
Granddaughter of the composer Elias Lobo and the youngest of nine children, Guilhermina de Freitas Lobo was born on September 9, 1904 in Campinas. She was tiny and frail, and was nicknamed Menininha which, in Portuguese, means “little girl.”
She started her piano studies with her sister Anna Esméria and then studied with Alfredo Oswald (son of composer Henrique Oswald), Luigi Chiaffarelli, and his assistants Antonietta Rudge and Maria Edul Tapajós. Suffering from cramps in her right arm, she went to Germany for treatment and there studied with Frau Posener, an assistant of Schnabel’s, who had overcome the same problem. Upon her return to Brazil, she became an assistant to Magda Tagliaferro.
Menininha Lobo’s technique is limpid and flexible, making the music seem to spring from her fingers. Her tone is crystal clear, her legato perfect, her pedaling, subtle. Playing in an orchestral manner with several levels of sonority, she brings out the melody, inner lines, and bass line. Her awareness of the harmonic motion makes the music sound improvised and the flow of the musical line is maintained by her impeccable rhythm. She is a romantic pianist without the mannerisms of the romantic school. Her phrasing is natural. Her interpretations are narrative, spontaneous, personal, yet highly organized; they are intense, but of a disarming simplicity, full of sentiment without sentimentality. Her repertoire includes works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Franck, Fauré, Debussy, and Poulenc.