Estudo ex-tudo eis tudo pois!

Written in 1997 and dedicated to the memory of the Portuguese composer Jorge Peixinho, Estudo ex-tudo, eis tudo pois! belongs to the final creative period of Mendes’s career. The enigmatic title — literally “Étude ex-all, here is all then!” — reflects the composer’s characteristic wit and penchant for wordplay. Aesthetically, the piece represents what the publisher’s programme note describes as “a successful attempt to reconcile the tonal and atonal worlds.” Following his radical experiments in the 1960s (aleatory music, collage techniques) and a minimalist phase during the 1980s, Mendes here seeks to synthesise his influences within a personal language that neither avoids nor denies tonality.

Estudo ex-tudo is a substantial étude, approximately twelve minutes in duration, in which Mendes freely integrates tonal harmonies within a broadly atonal framework. The work juxtaposes sharply contrasting sections: highly consonant, almost neo-Romantic episodes alternate with dissonant, rhythmically incisive passages. Mendes demands considerable virtuosity from the performer, with passages of massive chords, rapid scalar runs, and hammered rhythmic motifs following in quick succession.

Developmental procedures include the use of generative motifs subjected to transformations (inversions, transpositions) similar to those in Estudo Magno, but here serving a more explicitly integrative purpose — the “everything” (tudo) of the title refers to a synthesis of all available musical materials. The ending appears to resolve this journey by returning to a tonal centre, offering a sense of harmonic closure after structural wandering: a gesture of regained totality, lending the work a quasi-philosophical reflection on the history of musical languages.

Praised for its skilfully handled eclecticism, Estudo ex-tudo has been described as one of Mendes’s mature masterpieces. Critics have highlighted the sincerity of its musical discourse, which avoids academic detachment despite its use of sophisticated compositional techniques. The work has been recorded by Beatriz Alessio alongside other études by Mendes, attesting to the growing interest it generates among younger Brazilian pianists. Its premiere most likely took place at the Festival Música Nova, founded by Mendes himself, although precise details remain undocumented. Through its fusion of tonal lyricism and modernist gesture, Estudo ex-tudo stands as a representative example of postmodern musical aesthetics in Latin America at the turn of the 21st century.