Mário de Andrade's prolific and diverse activity in the press is one of the most recursive features of his life and work. Focusing on the modernist leader's role as a music critic in the press, this article argues that the idea of "sacrifice", inseparable from the fulfillment of an intellectual destiny, is central to articulate the different dimensions of his trajectory and work. It also contends that the question of "sacrifice" is what puts the duality between permanence and transience of his work into perspective. Finally, this article emphasizes that the sociological relevance of this idea is tied to the absence, in the Brazilian modernist context, of an autonomous intellectual field in which the different actors' positions, as well as in its internal and external relationships, were exclusively regulated by a particular habitus.
Mário de Andrade; Sacrifice; Intellectual Destiny; Press; Music Criticism; Brazilian Modernism