Preparation of Critical Editions of the Music of Marcos Portugal, including a Thematic Catalogue

Preparation of Critical Editions of the Music of Marcos Portugal including a Thematic Catalogue.

( Project financed by the FCT: ref. POCTI/EAT/40220/2001)

Summary

The music of the composer Marcos Portugal (1762-1830), in particular his operas, was widely performed throughout Europe and Brazil within his own lifetime. Indeed no Portuguese composer before or since has achieved such international fame. None the less, with very few exceptions, his music has not been available to performers and scholars except in manuscripts of the period, scattered in innumerable libraries in Portugal , the rest of Europe and Brazil . This project aims to prepare critical editions of a selection from the broad range of works that make up the composer's output, as well as to produce a thematic catalogue. In this way and through conferences and published texts his life and work will become better known.

Biography of the composer

Project objectives

To make Marcos Portugal 's music available to performers and musicologists, through:

1. Editions of a representative selection of his works, with the respective critical commentary and an introductory study giving the historical and musical context of the work in question;

2. Preparation of a thematic catalogue of all the composer's works, in order to facilitate comparison and identification of works and extracts only partially identified in the source.

Research team

Project founder: Mário Vieira de Carvalho

Researcher responsible: Manuel Pedro Ferreira

Coordinating consultant: David Cranmer E-mail: cranmer@netcabo.pt

Researchers: António Jorge Marques, Bárbara Villa-Lobos

Research scholar : Rejane Paiva

Consultant : Michael Robinson

Critical editions already prepared within the framework of the project

  
Marcos Portugal: Modinhas para uma ou duas vozes com instrumento de tecla . Edição de Rejane Paiva e David Cranmer. Partituras Portugal Som. Lisboa: Instituto das Artes, 2007.

• La Zaira. (1804) Ed. Bárbara Villalobos

• Licença Pastoril (1788). Ed. Bárbara Villalobos

• Sinfonia para 6 órgãos ([1807]). Ed. Rejane Paiva & David Cranmer

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• Overtures:

Adrasto rè d'Egitto (1800). Ed. David Cranmer

Fernando nel Messico (1801). Ed. David Cranmer

La morte di Semiramide (1801). Ed. Rejane Paiva

La Zaira (1802/04). Ed. Bárbara Villalobos

Material for performance available: cesem@fcsh.unl.pt

Other editions prepared under the supervision of David Cranmer

• Missa Festiva (1817), arranjo da época para coro masculino e 4 órgãos Ed. José Lourenço.

• As Damas Trocadas ( Le donne cambiate , 1797/1804): Prepared in collaboration with Musicoteca, within the framework of Lisbon European Cultural Capital 1994 (Lisboa 94)

• O Disfarce venturoso ( farça, sem data/undated) & ária de/from Os Viajantes ditosos (1790), Ed. D. C., in Música Teatral do reinado de D. Maria I , Lisboa, Fundação Gulbenkian (Portugaliae Musica), no prelo.

Other editions in preparation:

• La pazza giornata ovvero Il matrimonio di Figaro (1799) . Ed. Bárbara Villalobos & Rejane Paiva

• La morte di Semiramide (1801). Ed. Rejane Paiva

• Missa Grande ( c . 1790). Ed. António Jorge Marques

• Te Deum (1802). Ed. António Jorge Marques

• Pequeno Drama (1788). Ed. Alberto Pacheco

• Elogio (1801). Ed. Alberto Pacheco ( as part of the post-doctoral project “The repertoire of occasional dramatical-musical works in Portugal and in Brazil between 1707 and 1834” . Ref. SFRH/BPD/34804/2007)

Thematic catalogue

The thematic catalogue for sacred music is currently being prepared as the central part of the doctoral project of António Jorge Marques: conclusion expected 2008.

Example of an entry:

Project activities

1. Conferences

2005 (11/11) International colloquium “Marcos Portugal”

FCSH-Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon

Papers presented:

Michael F. Robinson ( University of Cardiff ): The thematic catalogue of the music of Giovanni Paisiello: a model for a new catalogue of the works of Marcos Portugal ?

António Jorge Marques (FCSH-UNL): Marcos Portugal : description and problems inherent in the thematic catalogue of sacred music

Rejane Paiva (FCSH-UNL): Colecção de Modinhas de Marcos Portugal: uma síntese do género em finais do século XVIII

Bárbara Villalobos (FSCH-UNL): Proximidade e distância: o dueto de La Zaira , «Empia, mi guardi in volto»

David Cranmer (FCSH-UNL): Marcos Portugal and the Teatro do Salitre

With the support of The British Council

2006 (13-14 Outubro / October)

International colloquium “Mozart, Marcos Portugal and their time”

Salão Nobre, Teatro Nacional de S. Carlos, Lisbon

Papers presented : 

David Cranmer (FCSH-UNL): Mozart, Marcos Portugal and their time – a Portuguese perspective

Luísa Cymbron (FCSH-UNL): «Esta sempre maçadora opera»: Don Giovanni e o Teatro de S. Carlos no século XIX

Ângelo Martingo (FCSH-UNL): Um olhar sobre o génio: O “efeito Mozart” e a recepção musical

Michael Collins ( University of Texas at Denton ): Mozart's La clemenza di Tito (1791) and Marcos Portugal 's Tito Vespasiano (1807): their musical relationship

Paula Gomes Ribeiro (Instituto Piaget/FCSH-UNL): No Laboratório dos Sentimentos: Cosi fan tutte entre o ser-como-máquina do Iluminismo e o ser-digital do séc. XXI

Bárbara Villalobos (FCSH-UNL): Identidade e alteridade: o sultão Orosmane em La Zaira de Marcos Portugal

Rejane Ferreira de Paiva (FCSH-UNL): A Vingança da Cigana : o diálogo do repertório lírico com o imaginário do teatro de cordel

David Black ( University of Cambridge ): Mozart and Viennese sacred music: some new discoveries

António Jorge Marques (FCSH-UNL): The sacred music of Marcos Portugal : its influence and dissemination

Alberto Pacheco (Universidade Estadual de Campinas – Unicamp): The solo voice in the sacred works of Marcos Portugal and José Maurício Nunes Garcia: a comparative analysis

Rachel Cowgill ( University of Leeds ): Of science and nature: Mozart versus the modern bel canto in early nineteenth-century London

Jorge Matta (UNL-FCSH): A forma sonata na música orquestral portuguesa da segunda metade do séc. XVIII

Vanda Anastácio: Alcipe and Music

In collaboration with the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos

With the support of: The British Council, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Fundação Luso-Americana, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

Performances of works edited :

La Zaira

( Gulbenkian foundation, concert performance programmed for May/June 2007; postponed owing to indisposition of maestro Cláudio Scimone; rescheduled for 2008-09 )

- ária «Frenar vorrei le lagrime»

(Teatro Nacional de S. Carlos, included in the programme “A arte do bel canto ”, September 2007 )

O Disfarce venturoso

- ária «É coisa mui gostosa»

(Teatro Nacional de S. Carlos, included in the programme “D. João VI e Napoleão: Música em Tempo de Guerra”, November 2007)

Projected performances :

As Damas Trocadas (Rio de Janeiro, May 2008)

La pazza giornata ovvero Il matrimonio di Figaro ( Portugal and United Kingdom, 2009)

Useful materials

The article « Marcos e José Maurício. Catalogo de suas composições musicaes», by M. A. Porto-Alegre, in Revista Trimensal do Instituto Historico Geographico e Ethnographico do Brasil , vol. XXII, 1859, pp. 487-506, includes a transcription of the autograph catalogue of Marcos Portugal 's works, prepared by the composer in 1809 and updated until 1816. The list published by Ernesto Vieira in his Diccionario Biographico dos Musicos Portugueses ( Porto , 1900) was copied from this source.

M. P. P. A. Carvalhaes, Marcos Portugal na sua musica dramatica , Lisboa, Typographia Castro Irmão, 1910; supplemento, 1916

Links to digitalised scores and libretti in libraries

Sources in the National Library, Lisbon:

1. obras de Marcos Portugal

http://purl.pt/index/music/aut/PT/49679_P1.html

2. obras do libretista Giuseppe Caravita

http://purl.pt/index/music/aut/PT/98980.html

Sources at the Biblioteca Alberto Nepomuceno, Escola de Música, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro:

http://www.docpro.com.br/escolademusica/bibliotecadigital.html