Brazil's Marx Brothers

Their father, Wilhelm Marx, a distant relative of Karl, emigrated in 1895 from Germany and established a large tannery in Brazil. Mother Cecilia Burle Marx was a cultivated Brazilian who made the family home in Rio de Janeiro a citadel of culture where Enrico Caruso came to call. It was an ideal climate for budding genius, and three sons emerged as the most amazing and talented brother act in Brazil.

Only a week or so ago, Composer Walter Burle Marx, 64, was at the Municipal Theater directing the first performance of his Third Symphony. Haroldo Burle Marx, 55, is the wealthy manufacturer of Brazil's most exquisite jewelry. And Roberto Burle Marx, 57, is a Renaissance virtuoso: tapestry designer, tile glazer, chef, noted amateur baritone--and Latin America's most eminent landscape designer. For good measure, Roberto was displaying his recent paintings at a Rio gallery.

Tourmalines & Topazes. The common esthetic principle that guides all three brothers is a love of Brazil, particularly the lush tropical flora of their native land, its vast resources and colorful peoples. Walter, who conducted the first performances in the U.S. of the work of his countryman Heitor Villa-Lobos, based his own Third Symphony on native macumba (witchcraft) themes. Haroldo glows over the beauty of his native tourmalines, topazes, rubies and garnets, shapes each gem in amoeba forms that follow the structure of the stone. Roberto is infatuated with the dense Brazilian foliage, with its leaves that can be mottled, snowy, blue, asymmetrical, metallic or blood-veined, textured or wildly iridescent.

Roberto has made other Brazilians appreciate them too. As a boy, he saw the wealthy cariocas fill their gardens with English rosebushes. Sent to Berlin for medical treatment in 1928, he was astonished to discover that botanical gardens in Berlin treasured their greenhouse supplies of Brazilian flora. He returned to Rio, attracted the attention of Le Corbusier, co-architect of the revolutionary Ministry of Education building. Roberto landscaped its gardens with all-Brazilian plants, flowers and grasses. Subsequently he laid out the gardens for most of the major parks in Brazil. The "Monumental Axis" in Brasilia and the immense Flamengo waterfront in Rio are alike adorned with the extravagant splendor of rain-forest verdure--all manicured no more than is strictly necessary to conform to the severity of Roberto's designs.

Bamboo & Bromelia. Currently, Roberto is busy landscaping grounds for the Dorado Hilton in Puerto Rico, but he is happiest in the gardens of his mountain country estate 30 miles east of Rio. There he strolls among more than 300 varieties of philodendrons (one of them named by botanists the Philodendron burle marx) and specimens of bromelia. "It is obvious," he says, "that the concept of a garden goes beyond an esthetic composition. It also signifies the necessity of men to live intimately with nature."

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