Radamés Gnattali was born in Porto Alegre (the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state of Brazil) on 27 January 1906.

[2] In the following years, he also learned the guitar and cavaquinho and started playing these instruments in a successful group called Os Exagerados, as well as at silent films and dances.

[1][4] He then moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he gave a series of successful piano recitals, while also studying at the National Music Institute.

[5] Back in Porto Alegre due to lack of money, Gnattali founded the Quarteto Henrique Oswald, in which he played first as a pianist and then as a violinist.

[1] A 1929 performance as soloist in Tchaikovsky's B-flat piano concerto, played with the orchestra of the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, was praised in the press but did not lead to a long-term career as a concert pianist.

His arrangements of samba pieces, involving strings, woodwind and brass (rather than the traditional accompaniments with two guitars, cavaquinho, accordion, tamborin and flute) exposed him to lifelong critical attacks from Brazilian musical traditionalists who resented the "jazzing up" of the genre.