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The Company

Establishing partnership with Brazilian music, since 1923.

In the early days, the composer was, above all, an idealist and a dreamer. He created wonders, but he was not always ready to manage them. It was the dawn of the radio days. The first records were being produced. The pioneering talent of artists such as Pixinguinha were just starting to come out in the market. It was in this context that the first musical publishers started to work in Brazil.

Composing relies on imagination, talent, and technical competence. But, once ready, the song goes beyond the limits of being a work of art, becoming also property. And what guarantees its material existence, is the publishing of its score and the registration made by a competent authority.

Founded in São Paulo in 1923, Irmãos Vitale has acted for more than 90 years as a partner of excellence for some of the biggest names in our musical history. In its collection has now, more than 25 thousand songs, from a total of 9 thousand authors or heirs. Founded by the brothers Emílio, Vicente, Affonso, José and João Vitale, the company is now managed by the family’s second generation, the brothers Fernando, Sérgio and Luiz, both in the São Paulo headquarters and in the Rio de Janeiro branch office, which was founded more than 60 years ago. What does the Company do? Registers the music and publishes the score, promotes each work and commercially manages the respective copyrights generated by means of recordings, inclusion in movies and advertisements and sales of scores, among many other forms of use of the work in Brazil and abroad, both in physical and digital media, via the Internet.

Vitale, however, wrote some of its most beautiful stories as a music publisher, being a pioneer in the task of performance rights collecting in Brazil. It was the founder of authors’ societies such as Sbacem, Sadembra and Socinpro, as well as publishing entities like Abem and Ubem.

In all these years, Irmãos Vitale is proud to have earned the trust of composers (and their heirs) such as Pixinguinha, Cartola, Ary Barroso, Herivelto Martins, Adoniran Barbosa, Dorival Caymmi, David Nasser, Synval Silva, Mário Lago, Lamartine Babo, Noel Rosa, Assis Valente, Lupicínio Rodrigues, Milton de Oliveira, Ataulpho Alves, Paulinho da Viola, Ernesto Nazareth, Chiquinha Gonzaga, Sílvio Caldas, Wilson Batista, Sivuca, Zequinha Abreu, Dolores Duran, Billy Blanco, Benito di Paula, Tom Jobim , Roberto Menescal, Carlos Lyra, Ronaldo Bôscoli, Vinicius de Moraes, Baden Powell, Durval Ferreira, Silvio César, Silas de Oliveira, Paulo Cesar Pinheiro, Luiz Bonfá, João Roberto Kelly, Nássara, Manuel Ferreira, Luiz Vieira, Antônio Maria, Jorge Benjor, Waldick Soriano, Marcos and Paulo Sérgio Valle, Luiz Gonzaga, João Nogueira, Edu Lobo, Sá & Guarabyra, Zé Rodrix, Taiguara, Martinho da Vila, Sidney Miller, Alvarenga e Ranchinho, Roberto and Erasmo Carlos, Nelson Ned, Hermínio Bello Carvalho, Eduardo Dussek, Rolando Boldrin, Fernando Lobo, Tião Carreiro e Carreirinho, Sérgio Reis, among many others. And to have participated as a booster for the local and international success of songs such as Lamento, Aquarela do Brasil, Tico-tico no fubá, Noites cariocas, Na Baixa do Sapateiro, Atraente, Brejeiro, Upa neguinho, Camisa amarela, Brasil pandeiro, Ave-Maria no morro, Foi um rio que passou em minha vida, among thousands of others. This trust is also reflected in the number of foreign works sub-published in Brazil by Vitale, among them the classics Aquellos ojos verdes, Besame mucho, Georgia on my mind, Fascination and Uno. In the field of classical music, Irmãos Vitale also has a prestigious collection and manages the creation of composers such as Villa-Lobos (48 works, including the Bachianas No. 4 and 5), Lorenzo Fernandez (32 works, including Ponteio and the First Brazilian suite), Guerra-Peixe (46 works, including the nine Tropical preludes, Frevo and Sonatina no. 2) and Marlos Nobre (19 pieces, among them Cantiga de cego and Samba matuto), and others such as Francisco Mignone, Camargo Guarnieri, Radamés Gnattali and Souza Lima who, for years, played the role of coordinator and reviewer of the publisher’s catalogue of classical music.

Since the 1960s, Vitale has also taken the lead in the edition of songbooks in Brazil, such as the 10 volumes of the collection The Best of Popular Brazilian Music, by Mário Mascarenhas. Vitale’s collection of songbooks features more than 50 names of Brazilian composers and artists and has provided musicians and scholars with easy access to the works of Pixinguinha, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque, Tom Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes, João Bosco, Carlos Lyra, Djavan, Gonzaguinha, Cartola, Roberto Carlos, Aldir Blanc, Legião Urbana, Elis Regina, Barão Vermelho, Herivelto Martins, Toquinho, Roberto Menescal, Luiz Gonzaga, Adoniran Barbosa, Carmen Miranda, Johnny Alf, Tim Maia, Nana Caymmi, among many others.

In addition, Vitale publishes methods of music teaching, written by renowned teachers and/or musicians such as Mário Mascarenhas and Alencar Terra (piano and accordion teachers), Antonio Adolfo, Luciano Alves and Cristine Prado (keyboardists), Celso Woltzenlogel (flutist), Adriano Giffoni (bassist), Carlos Lyra and Almir Chediak (acoustic guitarists), Rui Motta (drummer), Nelson Faria and Gaetano Kay Galifi (electric guitarists), Amadeu Russo (saxophonist), Garoto and Armandinho (cavaquinho players).

In the recording industry, Vitale has also left its mark. Through the prestigious Copacabana label, created in 1960, it launched a great selection of Brazilian artists, such as Elizeth Cardoso, Ângela Maria, Luiz Vieira, Agnaldo Rayol, Wanderley Cardoso, Benito di Paula, Nelson Ned, Alceu Valença, Altamiro Carrilho, Martinha, Alvarenga e Ranchinho, Waldick Soriano, Dolores Duran, among many others.

As you can see, Vitale has built up a tradition, but continues to move forward with the times. It deals with great energy and enthusiasm with an ever-changing market that knows very well right from the start. And if Pixinguinha and Ary Barroso trusted in it with some of their masterpieces, that means they knew exactly what they were doing.