(Port. Lisboa).
Capital city of Portugal.
In 1147 Afonso Henriques regained Lisbon from the Moors and made it his capital. Gilbert of Hastings (Bishop of Lisbon 1147–66) introduced features of Sarum Use, which prevailed locally until 1536, and started the building of Lisbon Cathedral in 1149. Diniz, who ruled from 1261 to 1325, founded the royal chapel in the Alcáçova Palace in 1299. Afonso IV (1325–57) increased to ten the number of chaplains obliged to sing Mass daily in the royal chapel. In his Leal Conselheiro, a collection of moral essays finished about 1438, King Duarte records that three-part singing was then normal in the royal chapel (alto, tenor and contratenor), and classifies the music sung as either composed (canto feito) or improvised (descanto); six was the minimum number of singing boys, and it was the duty of the mestre de capela to rehearse the vocal music, choosing music appropriate to the church year. Duarte’s mestre de capela Gil Lourenço came from Aragon, as did Tristão da Silva, who served under Duarte’s son Afonso V (1432–81).
Still influenced by Sarum Use, Afonso V sent his mestre de capela Alvaro Afonso to England about 1454 to obtain a copy of the regulations used in Henry VI’s chapel; the superb manuscript supplied by Dean William Say survives (P-EVp, CV/1–36d). Alvaro Afonso also composed the Vesperae, matutinum, & laudes cum antiphonis, & figuris musicis to celebrate Afonso’s victory over the Moors at Arzila in 1471; this is lost, however, as are the works of his successors João de Lisboa (fl 1476), Matheus de Fonte (1516), Fernão Rodrigues (1521), João de Vilhacastim (1548) and Bartholomeu Trosylho (1551). The native mestres da Capela Real before 1700 whose works survive are António Carreira, Filipe de Magalhães, Filipe da Cruz and António Marques Lésbio. New royal chapel statutes of 1592 increased the ensemble to 24 adult singers, 22 boys (four of whom sang polyphony), two baixões (curtals), a cornettist and two organists in addition to the mestre de capela.
During the reign of Manuel I (1495–1521) Lisbon city waits were contracted in Flanders; their number was fixed at five (a shawm quartet and a sackbut) in 1628. A century later blacks had so pre-empted processional music that an ordinance was passed in 1717 restricting their number among municipal musicians.
By 1649 the royal music library, which was lost in the earthquake of 1755, was considered the best at any European court. Through a papal bull of 1716 the royal chapel was raised to a patriarchal chapel, and from 1719 to 1728 Domenico Scarlatti was associated with the chapel. In 1754, a year before the disastrous earthquake, the personnel included four organists and 74 singers of whom 34 were well-paid Italians, the highest paid being the castratos; the first four violinists were also Italians. The large number of singers was partly a result of the unification of the patriarchate and archbishopric in 1740 (which continued until the restoration of the archbishopric in 1834). Marcos Portugal became both royal mestre de capela and maestro of the Teatro de S Carlos in 1800. With the Napoleonic wars and the departure of the royal family for Rio de Janeiro in 1808 (whither Marcos Portugal followed them in 1810) three rich centuries of court musical life came to a close.
The three most prolific directors of Lisbon Cathedral’s music in the 17th century were Duarte Lobo (1594–1643), João Álvares Frouvo (1647–82) and Francisco da Costa e Silva. Of the three 19th-century mestres, João Jordani (1793–1860), born in Lisbon of Italian parents, Joaquim Casimiro Júnior and Domingos Benavente (1825–76), only Casimiro brought distinction to the post (1860–62). The first cathedral organist known by name is António Fernandes (1540); João de Burgumão (d 1571) was engaged as organist of the royal chapel in 1544. The parish church of S Nicolau had an organ as early as 1374, played by an organist named Garcia. Philip II complained that Lisbon lacked any organist to equal Hernando de Cabezón in 1581; as a result the Spanish organists Estacio de la Serna, S. Martínez Verdugo and Diego de Alvarado were imported to Lisbon during his reign. However, the only Lisbon organist to publish his collected works during the Spanish regime (1580–1640) was Manuel Rodrigues Coelho, whose Flores de musica was published in 1620 by Pedro Craesbeeck, who emigrated from Antwerp to Lisbon in 1592. The Catalan immigrant Jayme de la Tê y Sagau ran a Lisbon printing establishment and during the 1720s published 77 of his solo cantatas with continuo and 12 Cantadas humanas a solo by Emanuele d’Astorga (1726). More significant for Portuguese music were the modinhas (popular songs) published between 1792 and 1795 by P.A. Maréchal and François Milcent in the Jornal de modinhas.
The Conservatório Nacional, created by a royal decree of 5 May 1835, absorbed the faculty of the Seminário da Patriarcal founded by João V in 1713. It was directed from 1835 to 1842 by J.D. Bomtempo, founder of the Sociedade Filarmónica (1822), which organized the first Portuguese public concert series. The conservatory counted among its more notable teachers in the later 19th century the bassoonist Augusto Neuparth (1862–87) and the cellist Ernesto Wagner (1878–99).
The Portuguese court developed a passion for opera during the reigns of João V (1706–50) and José I (1750–77). Castratos took the women’s parts. The first operas by a Portuguese composer were F.A. de Almeida’s La pazienza di Socrate and La Spinalba (for carnivals of 1733 and 1739 respectively), and both were mounted in the Royal Palace Theatre. Operas given at the Academia da Trindade, a public theatre opened in 1735, and its successor, the Teatro de Rua dos Condes, included works by Schiassi and Leo. The Casa da Opera, which opened on 31 March 1755 with David Perez’s Alessandro nell’Indie, was destroyed by the earthquake of 1 November of the same year (see illustration). Luisa Todi began her meteoric career at the Teatro do Bairro Alto in 1771 and after touring Europe spent the last 24 years of her life in Lisbon (from 1796). Marcos Portugal’s early stage works were presented at the newly opened Teatro do Salitre between 1785 and 1792 and between 1800 and 1807 he composed 13 opere serie for S Carlos, a new theatre inaugurated on 30 June 1793 with Cimarosa’s La ballerina amante.
The Irmandade de S Cecília dos Músicos de Lisboa, the first Portuguese musicians’ protective and benevolent association, was founded at Lisbon in 1603, with Pedro Thalesio as a prime mover. Twice reorganized (in 1755 by P.A. Avondano and in 1838 by J.A.R. Costa), it continued to collect dues for the relief of indigent members or for the souls of the departed, examined postulants for membership and acted as a restrictive union to prevent non-members from obtaining paid musical engagements. At its height (during the reign of João V) it sponsored important annual St Cecilia celebrations; the librettos of the villancicos sung between 1719 and 1723 show that these festivals then bordered on opera.
The new impetus in concert life in the last decades of the 19th century is particularly associated with institutions such as the Orquestra 24 de Junho (1870), conducted by, among others, Francisco Barbieri, Edouard Colonne and Ruddorf; the Sociedade de Concertos de Lisboa (1875); and the Real Academia dos Amadores de Música (1884), whose orchestra was directed by the German conductor Victor Hussla, and whose music school offered an alternative to the Conservatório Nacional. While the Recreios Wyttoyne (1875), the Real Coliseu de Lisboa (1887) and the Avenida (1888) theatres specialized in comic operas and zarzuelas, the Coliseu dos Recreios, built in 1890, presented both symphonic concerts and opera performances at reduced prices. Well-known orchestras visited Lisbon, including the Berlin PO under Nikisch in 1901 and again under Richard Strauss in 1908, the Colonne Orchestra in 1903 and the Lamoureux Orchestra in 1905. In 1917 the pianist José Vianna da Motta became director of the Conservatório Nacional. In the early 20th century several orchestras were founded, some of which were short-lived, such as the Portuguese SO (Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa), under Pedro Blanch (1911–28), the Lisbon SO (Orquestra Sinfónica de Lisboa), under David de Sousa and later José Vianna da Motta (1913), the Filarmonia de Lisboa, under Francisco de Lacerda (1923), the Orquestra dos Concertos Sinfónicos de Lisboa, under Pedro de Freitas Branco (1928–31), the Portuguese RSO (Orquestra Sinfónica da Emissora Nacional, 1934) and the Orquestra Filarmónica de Lisboa (1937). Choral societies were also created, such as the Sociedade Coral Duarte Lobo, directed by Ivo Cruz (1931) and the Sociedade Coral de Lisboa, directed by Frederico de Freitas (1940). Concert societies founded in the first half of the 20th century included the Sociedade de Concertos (1917), the Sociedade Nacional de Música de Cámara (1919), Divulgação Musical (1925), the Círculo de Cultura Musical (1934), ‘Sonata’ (1942) and the Juventude Musical Portuguesa (1948). The Círculo de Cultura Musical, in particular, introduced to Lisbon composers such as Prokofiev, Casella, Poulenc, Honegger and Hindemith.
The Teatro de S Carlos, which had been closed since 1927, reopened in 1940 as part of the celebrations commemorating 800 years of Portuguese independence. After 1946 it was directly managed by the state. During the 1950s and 60s many international stars appeared at the theatre, although its repertory remained largely conservative. In 1963 the Fundação Nacional para a Alegria no Trabalho created a Portuguese opera company based at the Teatro da Trindade. This company was disbanded in 1975 and most of its singers were integrated in the Teatro de S Carlos. In the early 1980s the theatre had its own permanent orchestra and the nucleus of a resident opera company, but by the mid-1990s only the chorus survived.
Created in 1956, the Gulbenkian Foundationbrought significant changes to the musical life of Lisbon. In 1962 the Gulbenkian Chamber Orchestra was established (renamed the Gulbenkian Orchestra in 1971), followed in 1964 by the Gulbenkian Choir and in 1965 the Ballet Gulbenkian. Since 1977 the foundation has organized the annual Encontros Gulbenkian de Música Contemporânea, featuring the music of major foreign and national contemporary composers, and since 1980 it has promoted the annual early music festival, Jornadas de Música Antiga. It also continues to promote regular concerts in its own auditoriums and elsewhere in Lisbon.
The central role of Lisbon in the music life of Portugal was, if anything, reinforced during the 20th century. Most of the country's leading composers lived and worked in the capital, including Luís de Freitas Branco, Armando José Fernandes, Frederico de Freitas, Fernando Lopes Graça and Joly Braga Santos, Constança Capdeville and Jorge Peixinho. In recent decades new orchestras have been created (Nova Filarmonia Portuguesa, Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa in 1992), and new concert halls have been built, such as those at the Centro Cultural de Belém. Independent music groups in the city include the Grupo de Música Contemporânea de Lisboa, founded in 1970 by Jorge Peixinho, and the early music group Segréis de Lisboa. In 1980 a musicology department was created at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and in 1983 an Escola Superior de Música was opened in the city.
F. da Fonseca Benevides: O Real Theatro de São Carlos (Lisbon, 1883/R)
F. da Fonseca Benavides: O Real Theatro de S. Carlos de Lisboa: memorias, 1883–1902 (Lisbon,1902/R)
F.M. de Sousa Viterbo: ‘Os mestres da capella real nos reinados de D. João III e D. Sebastião’,Archivo historico portuguez, iv (1906), 461–73; v (1907), 43–59
F.M. de Sousa Viterbo: ‘Mestres da capela real desde o dominio filipino (inclusivé) até D. José I’, Archivo historico portuguez, v (1907), 426–31, 452–61
J.J. Marques: Cronologia da ópera em Portugal (Lisbon, 1947)
M.A. Machado Santos, ed.: Biblioteca da Ajuda: Catálogo de música manuscrita (Lisbon, 1958–68)
A. Sibertin-Blanc: ‘The Newly Installed Organ in Lisbon Cathedral’, The Organ, xlvi (1966–7), 119–22
C.P. Leça: ‘História dum Festival (o Festival Gulbenkian de Música, de 1957 a 1970)’, Colóquio-Artes, vii (1972), 40–51
R. Stevenson: ‘Liszt at Madrid and Lisbon: 1844–45’, MQ, lxv (1979), 493–512
M.I. Cruz: O Teatro Nacional de S. Carlos (Oporto, 1992)
M.V. Carvalho: Pensar é morrer, ou O Teatro de São Carlos: na mundança de sistemas sociocomunicativos desde fins do séc. XVIII aos nossos dias (Lisbon, 1993)
M.J. de La Fuente: ‘João Domingos Bomtempo e o Conservatório de Lisboa’, João Domingos Bomtempo, 1775–1842, Instituto da Biblioteca Nacional e do Livro, 1993 (Lisbon, 1993), 11–55 [exhibition catalogue]
For further bibliography see Portugal.
ROBERT STEVENSON/MANUEL CARLOS DE BRITO (1), MANUEL CARLOS DE BRITO (2)