The Portuguese Symphonic Poem (1884–1909)
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The Portuguese Symphonic Poem (1884–1909) Rui Magno Pinto Universidade Nova de Lisboa 1 Introduction By the 1870’s, a considerable fraction of Lisbon’s audiences seemed to have be- come dissatisfied with the dominant trends in concert programming. In spite of a few prior attempts to introduce what was by then called “philosophical” or “classi- cal” music, the programming at the musical venues still tended to favor opera, virtu- osity—in works that consisted mainly on excerpts, variations, fantasias and potpour- ris for soloist, consort, orchestra and band, withdrawn from the established and new Italian and French operas or set on original themes—, solo character pieces and social dances—such as waltz suites, polkas, mazurkas, and other dances. This dis- contentment was part of an acute awareness of a certain decadence in Portuguese life in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. A range of agendas that aspired to develop the social, political, aesthetic and cultural institutions issued forth from an intelligentsia known as the Generation of 1870, led by the poet-philosopher Ante- ro de Quental, and constituted by Ramalho Ortigão, Guerra Junqueiro, Oliveira Martins, Téofilo Braga, Eça de Queirós, Jaime Batalha Reis and Guilherme de Azevedo, among others. With regard to music, the demand for a more elevated taste in musical listening and the favoring of the musical classics within concert pro- gramming (what William Weber has called “musical idealism”) found as its promot- ers a generation of amateurs and professional musicians that, due to their ontological and historical musical knowledge and to their wealth, were bestowed with the au- thority and means to establish and maintain specialized musical periodicals from 1873 onwards, an endeavor which had been attempted and failed ever since the 1850s. In the wake of the discourses that promoted “musical idealism”, professional and amateur musicians brought about the foundation of two important institutions— the Society of Classical Concerts in 1879 and the Royal Academy of Music Amateurs in 1884. In the years to come, with the aid of foreign conductors, they were to pro- mote the introduction of repertoires from among the German classics and contempo- rary French and Russian composers, leaving aside the long-dominant tradition of works related to operatic genres and salon music. In the first decades of the twenti- eth century, the invitation of well-known conductors and orchestras to Lisbon and Rui Magno Pinto the creation of professional orchestras contributed significantly to the gradual estab- lishment of “classical music” in Lisbon’s concert life. The establishment of “musical idealism”, the rise of a “symphonic culture” and the dynamic enterprise of Lisbon’s musicians, musical firms and musical institutions in the import of musical works by renowned foreign composers that led gradually to the transformation of concert programming seems also to have promoted a change in the favored genres for orchestra. Another contribution to this ulterior transformation was the gradual investment of composers in search of a better and more updated training, that lead several of them to proceed on their musical improvement in France and Germany. The course and characteristics of this alteration in the field of Portuguese musical composition was thus resumed by Ferreira de Castro (Nery & Castro, 1991, p. 157): Meanwhile, under the combined influence of French and German examples, the axis of the musical creation in Portugal moved slowly from the operatic field to that of symphony and chamber music (to the point that from the 1920’s the balance between the two components can be considered totally reversed). Concerning orchestral music, since the 1880’s the composition of overtures (fol- lowing the Italian model) declined (virtually to the point of disappearing), due to composers’ fostering of other genres, such as the symphonic poem, the paraphrase, the rhapsody, the symphony, the minuet, the character piece, among others. 2 The Portuguese “symphonic poem” This study focuses mainly on those Portuguese orchestral works in which a literary paratext is used as, and/or assigned a programmatic content. I have chosen to gather them together roughly as “symphonic poems”, since they are, following Hugh Mac- Donald’s definition (2001, p. 802), “orchestral forms in which a poem or program provides a narrative or illustrative basis”. Within the scope of the Portuguese musi- cal composition of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the pro- duction of programmatic works for orchestra seems to have exclusively recurred, in the period between 1884 and 1909, to the use of the literary output of Portuguese writers as an inspirational source (table 1). This corpus of orchestral works compris- es the symphonic suite A Hunt at the Court (1884), by Alfredo Keil; the Ouverture D. Ignez de Castro (1886), by José Viana da Mota; the symphonic ode Sintra’s Mountain (circa 1893), by Carlos Adolfo Sauvinet; the “short symphonic poem” Inês (1907), by David de Sousa and Luís de Freitas Branco’s symphonic poems After a reading of Antero de Quental (1907–1908; revised in 1910), After a Reading of Júlio Dinis (1908–1909) (unfortunately lost) and After a Reading of Guerra Jun- queiro (1909, revised in circa 1916). Apart from Sintra’s Mountain by Sauvinet, the symphonic poems composed be- tween 1884 and 1909 share as common characteristic the exclusive use, as paratext, 2 The Portuguese Symphonic Poem (1884–1909) of Portuguese literary works, written by Luís Vaz de Camões (c. 1524–1580), Júlio Dinis (1839–1871), Antero de Quental (1842–1891), Casimiro Dantas (1850–1904), and Abílio Manuel Guerra Junqueiro (1850–1923). Aside from the most renown ancient Portuguese writer, Camões, author of the epic poem The Lusiads (1556; 1572) are some of the recognized writers of the second half of the nineteenth centu- ry: Dinis, Quental and Guerra Junqueiro; Dantas seems to have been a less known writer, but he must have had some local appreciation, since he was a prolific feuille- tonist in Lisbon’s specialized literary and artistic press in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, the contemporaneity of both writers and composers is elusive: only Dantas and Guerra Junqueiro were alive during the production and première of the musical works set to their literary output, although it is not certain that the latter was aware of the Fantasia by Freitas Branco or of the symphonic poem Babilónia, composed by Sousa in 1917. Notwithstanding, it is safe to argue that the program of Sintra’s Mountain was idealized by Sauvinet, since he must have been the author of the notes that were delivered at the première, which reads: “This descriptive composition reproduces the impressions of a tourist in a visit made to Sintra and to its enchanting mountain, and aims to clarify the listener to his impressions.” By the detailed description we became aware that the program is, in fact, idealized by the composer from reality, from Sintra’s landscape and monuments, from its historical events (occurred in the Composer Musical work Literary source Year Alfredo Keil Uma Caçada na Corte Casimiro Augusto Vanez 1884 (1850-1907) Dantas (1850-1904), Contos do Outono [excerpts] José Viana da Ouverture D. Ignez de Luís Vaz de Camões Berlin, Mota Castro (ca.1524-1580), 1886 (1868-1948) Os Lusíadas, Canto III, stanzas 118-130 Carlos Adolfo Ode Sinfónica A Serra [Carlos Adolfo Sauvinet (?)] c. 1893 Sauvinet de Cintra [Sintra] (1836-1905) David de Sousa Poemeto sinfónico Ignez, Luís Vaz de Camões, Leipzig, (1880-1918) op. 16 Os Lusíadas, C. III, st. 118- 1907 130 Luís de Freitas Depois de uma leitura de Antero de Quental (1842- 1907- Branco Antero de Quental 1891), 1908 (1890-1955) /Antero de Quental Sonetos (1861-1886) rev. 1910 Depois de uma leitura de Júlio Dinis (1839-1871), 1908- Júlio Dinis [Poesias (?) (1873)] 1909 Depois de uma leitura de Guerra Junqueiro (1850- 1909 Guerra Junqueiro 1923), rev. A Morte de D. João c.1916 Table 1 – Portuguese symphonic works with programmatic content (1884- 1909). 3 Rui Magno Pinto Royal Palace, in the Moorish Castle and in the Pena Castle and Palace) and other episodes of Portuguese history. Camões’s epic poem is used in several ways: the tragic episode regarding the death of Inês de Castro, referred in Canto III, stanzas 118 to 130 of The Lusiads serves as paratext to the Ouverture by Viana da Mota and to the “short symphonic poem” by David de Sousa, both of them composed in Germany during the compos- ers’ learning period abroad; excerpts of Cantos I, III and IX of The Lusiads are used in the printed edition of Sintra’s Mountain by Sauvinet as “poetic fragments quoted in relation to the themes addressed in this Ode”. The appropriation of Luís Vaz de Camões and The Lusiads as identifiable marks of the Portuguese Nation-State— especially after the celebrations of the three centuries of the death of the author in 1880—seems to have been understood by Portuguese composers as one of the pos- sible means apt for the upgrowth of Portuguese musical nationalism. Nonetheless, the use of the epic poem, and notably of the same episode, is made abroad, in Ger- many, what certifies the pretensions of Mota and Sousa of their identification as Portuguese composers or their knowledge of the nationalistic discussions in Portugal and their willingness to offer some contributions on that cultural movement. An important dichotomy emerges from this intermedial corpus: while the musi- cal use of The Lusiads remits to the construction of national identity based on the importance given to the collective memory of Portuguese history, namely of the Discoveries and of the ancient Portuguese empire, acquiring the form of eulogy, the shared musical appropriation of Guerra Junqueiro’s “The Death of Dom João” re- ports the coeval decadence of the Portuguese fin-de-siècle society, politics and cul- ture, perpetuating the same criticism that emerged around the decade of 1870.