I-Tunes:
Helena Marinho - pianoforte
Pedro Couto Soares - flute
Rui Taveira - voice
Composers:
José Maria Ribas (1796-1861)
José Francisco Leal (1841-1894)
Joaquim Manuel da Câmara
Sigismond Neukomm (1778-1858)
Domingos Bomtempo (1775-1842)
Gabriel Fernandes da Trindade (1790-1854)
José Maria da Silva
Details:
In the beginning of the 19th-Century, an important part of musical output was destined for amateur musicians or performance in aristocratic or bourgeois salons. The musical life that developed in these contexts, as well as in public concerts, is also connected to the dissemination, through pedagogical means, of instrumental practice. The growing facility in the acquisition of musical instruments, namely the piano in its domestic version, the square piano, contributed to increased music making and the expanded publication of instrumental and vocal works destined for amateurs. It was a body of music which bore clear influence from erudite genres and Italian opera.
Reports by foreigner travelers visiting Portugal in the end of the 18th or the beginning of the 19th-Century allow us to glimpse the existence of a varied musical life, distributed among different events and locations, which accommodated a number of public genres. The repertoire now commonly designated as salon music was born from these wealthy social environments. Although, from the end of the 18th-Century, this activity begins to reveal the growing importance of opera theaters, where Italian productions dominated. The instrumental repertoire and the accompanied song, in particular popular song settings (modinhas), continued to contribute in a relevant way to the preservation of a musical life with a more intimate character and environment. Developing in parallel was a repertoire with a virtuosic aspect, frequently composed by the performers themselves, that served as a promotional vehicle, whether in events related to the aristocratic or bourgeois salons, or in public concert.
Musical activity and the development of genres are also connected, in the Portuguese case, to certain historical events, such as: the deterioration of D. Maria I’s mental health at the end of the 18th-Century and consequent restrictions to musical life in the capital; or the peninsular wars, which led the Royal Family to relocate to Brazil between 1807 and 1821, taking a major part of Portuguese musical activity and its protagonists with it.
The salon music cultivated in this historical context privileged the chamber and instrumental repertoire, namely works for piano or piano accompaniment destined for female performers of a marrying age. For these, there were also the modinhas, simple songs on sentimental, satirical or provocative texts. The influence of opera, the genre which had gained primacy in the aristocratic and bourgeois public’s taste, was as common in vocal as in instrumental works.
The diary of William Beckford describes, in 1787, a modinha as “an original type of music, different from all that I have heard, the most seductive, the most voluptuous that one can imagine, the most calculated to make a saint loose his head and to inspire profane delirium.” Frequently cited as one of the genres which contributed to Fado, the modinha resulted from the fusion of characteristics from the erudite vocal repertoire (namely opera) with elements of Brazilian and African popular music, assuming a unique identity in the panorama of the accompanied song.
The literal influence of opera is obvious in the modinha “Nasce Amor da Sympathia” (Love born from compassion), which reproduces the opening melody of the duet “Ah! Con tè” from Bellini’s Norma, but with a Portuguese text by an anonymous poet. The sentimental character of the text is a prominent characteristic of this repertoire, equally visible in another modinha, also anonymous, “Foi por mim, foi pela sorte” (It was for me, it was by chance), or in “A Melancolia”, (Melancholy) by Joaquim Manuel da Câmara (poem by Caldas Barbosa). The importance of Manuel da Câmara, a cavaquinho (soprano guitar) virtuoso, for the genre, seems to have been decisive for Sigismond Neukomm (his Fantasia for flute is included on this CD). Neukomm‘s interest in Brazilian modinhas led him to publish, in Paris, a collection with 20 melodies by Manuel da Câmara (with piano accompaniment provided by Neukomm). The repertoire of modinhas also included a sub-genre of the lundum, inspired in the syncopated rhythm of the eponymous Angolan dance, which was prohibited due to its lascivious character. “Graças aos Ceos” (Thank Heaven), by Gabriel Fernandes da Trindade, a violinist who was part of the Imperial Chapel in Brazil from 1823 - 1846, and “Esta Noite” (This Night) by João Francisco Leal, a famous tenor from Rio de Janeiro, provide examples of this type of modinha.
The piano repertoire is well-cultivated in the beginning of the 19th-Century, due to a growing interest for the instrument, which eventually makes the harpsichord obsolete; this is also due to the importance of square pianos - especially English ones. Invented in England in the second half of the 18th-Century by Johann Zumpe, the English square piano was mass-produced, making it a relatively accessible instrument.
The main figure of the Portuguese musical panorama at the beginning of the 19th-Century was certainly João Domingos Bomtempo (1775-1842). A composer and pianist with an international career, Bomtempo was the director of the Lisbon Conservatory. He enjoyed Clementi’s support, the latter publishing his Variations for piano (which are included on this CD), and gained recognition as a performer and a composer in Paris and London, where he resided. Five Variations and Fantasie upon Paisiello´s Favorite Air on Hope Told a Flatt’ring Tale”, were composed between 1814-1815, and are based on the theme “Nel cor più non mi sento” from the opera La Molinara by Giovanni Paisiello. This theme was used as a motto in variations by many composers, among them Beethoven. Bontempo’s Variations were destined for amateur or professional pianists with developed technical facility. This characteristic is absent in salon music, which favored simplicity and technical accessibility. The exposition of the theme, already rather ornamented in relation to the original, is preceded by an introduction in an improvisatory style, and followed by five variations which present contrasting characters and technical resources. The work ends with a four-part fantasia, which, although in different tempi (Largo-Allegretto-Allegro-Plus vite), is always based on the original theme as it explores effects of great pianistic virtuosity.
In the 19th-Century the flute enjoyed a great popularity in amateur circles, being, for gentlemen, the social equivalent of the ladies’ piano. It is not surprising that in one of the chronicles about Portuguese musical life, published in the German journal Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, an August 1821 entry reads: “Here, the flute is the instrument most studied: counting only amateurs, I know of about a dozen who play very well.” The three works for flute on this CD are by composers who were in Portugal or Rio de Janeiro around this time.
José Maria da Silva entered the Patriarchal Seminary of Lisbon, in 1798, at the age of 9. It was the only establishment of teaching with the goal of professional musical training, which, according to estimates from that time, administered teaching of a high quality, but too removed from contemporary taste. After serving as a musician of the Royal Chapel in Rio de Janeiro, where the court had sought refuge from the French invasions, José Maria da Silva returned to Lisbon where he was Mestre de capela at the Monastery of Jerónimos in Belém. In 1826 he published seven variations on the hymn that D. Pedro IV had composed for independent Brazil. As the career of José Maria da Silva exemplifies, many of the musicians at the service of the court were also at the service of the Church. Hence, the liturgical repertoire was intimately linked to the secular. It is not surprising, therefore, that a clergyman would have composed a sonata for pianoforte and obbligato flute.
During the Classic period, in the sonata for keyboard instrument with violin or flute accompaniment, the piano occupied the primary role and the violin or flute, many times indicated as optional, furnished reinforcement or accompaniment. The flute had practically no material, as the common indication ad libitum implied, but its inclusion provided a supplementary market for the music. The sonority of the recently-introduced pianoforte was far from the forcefulness of the modern piano and benefitted from reinforcement in its weakest registers. The accompanimental function of the melodic instrument was merely textural. It enriched the harmony, filling out chords, especially in the long notes, which decay rapidly on the pianoforte. It colored the melody, doubling or sustaining it harmonically, following along in parallel thirds or sixths.
In the Sonata by José Maria da Silva, the idiom is markedly classical, but, in spite of many of these characteristics, the flute has a more clearly soloistic role, implicit in the adjective “obbligato”. The piano presents thematic material, but when the flute retakes this material, the piano assumes an accompanimental function. The second movement, Cantabile, has a melody with a genuinely Portuguese character, apparently from the modinha. In the previously cited journal, Allgemeine Zeitung, modinhas are described as having “a rather insignificant aspect: however, due to their unique and often passionate style of interpretation, they become rather interesting.” As mentioned earlier, these songs of a sentimental character, originally imported from Brazil, are not all together unrelated to the birth of Fado, as can be heard in this movement. The final movement is a Rondo in which the flute always repeats the material exposed by the piano.
From the Sonata composed by a friar, we pass to a fantasia by a flutist who, through his amorous adventures (no doubt indiscreet) fell into disgrace with the Clergy of Porto. Upon seeing his name affixed to the Church doors where he lived, he emigrated to England - where he enjoyed a notable career. José Maria Ribas (Burgos, 1796 – Porto, 1861), with his younger brother, João António, accompanied his father, master of military music, playing piccolo in the band which was part of the Spanish division that Napoleon ordered to join his army. The same French invasions which led the Portuguese court to seek refuge in Brazil and employ José Maria da Silva, also brought the Ribas family to Porto. In this city lived an esteemed flutist, João Parado, with whom José Maria perfected his flute playing. João António became the director of the orchestra of the Teatro São João (St. John’s Theater), and his sons, all musicians, constituted the second generation of the Ribas family to flourish in Porto. José Maria had no descendants. In London, beginning in 1826, he came to occupy the position of principal flutist in the orchestra of the Royal Theater at Covent Garden, where he succeeded the greatest English flutist of his time, Charles Nicholson. He returned to Porto in 1853, where he resided until his death on July 1, 1861. During this final stay in Portugal, he gave various concerts at the theaters of São João (St. John) and São Carlos (St. Charles) in Lisbon and appeared annually in the salon of the Philharmonic Society of Porto. More than through his work as a soloist, it was in the orchestral repertoire where Ribas gained his notoriety, performing some of the best pages written for the flute in the 19th-Century. He was one of the first to play the famous solo from the Scherzo of Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in London. The composer, who conducted, was so impressed with Ribas’s performance during the rehearsal, that he asked Ribas to play the solo three times in a row, surprised and marveled by his execution.
As with the majority of flutists of the time, Ribas also applied his skills in an attempt to improve his instrument. Playing a flute with some innovations, Ribas worked together with the English maker, Scott (the father of the young lady with whom he would return to Portugal and accompany until his death). One of the characteristics of his flute, expanding the diameter of the holes to increase the instrument’s sound, had been introduced by his predecessor at the Royal Theater (the aforementioned Nicholson).
While the sonata of José Maria da Silva survived in a poorly-kept manuscript, the Fantasia of Ribas was published in London: Brilliant Fantasia for the Flute in which is introduced the Favorite Spanish Air La Cachucha with an Accompaniment for the Piano Forte Composed and respectfully dedicated to Sir William Ball Bart. The cachucha was a Spanish dance, and the theme, in the time of a Valce (sic!) is presented after the usual introduction. Five variations of growing complexity follow, and the work closes with a Rondo.
Sigismond Neukomm (Salzburg, 1778 – Paris, 1858) would be an intruder in this program of Portuguese music, were it not for his presence at the Portuguese court in Rio de Janeiro between 1816 and 1821. A favored student of Haydn, Neukomm traveled extensively throughout Europe to attend the premieres of his works or to present them as organist or pianist. He based himself in Paris, where he succeeded Dussek in the position of resident pianist for Prince Talleyrand, minister of foreign affairs of the restored French monarchy. In 1816, Neukomm accompanied the retinue of the Duke of Luxemburg who went to Rio de Janeiro with the mission of reestablishing diplomatic relations between France and Portugal. Neukomm remained for five years, becoming professor of Prince D. Pedro and the princesses.
Neukomm’s Brazilian output contains dozens of works for the most varied formations, including L’Amoureux, fantasia for pianoforte and flute, composed in 1819 and dedicated to the Russian Minister at the Court and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Langsdorff. The latter is one of two students Neukomm mentions in a letter of 1817, in which he complains of the low quality of some local music teachers and the ridiculous prices they charge. In spite of being satisfied with the local fame he enjoyed, he joked that with the little money he was paid, he would never be able to buy his passage back to Europe.
In the Fantasia, after a recitative, he introduces the melody of the modinha “A Melancolia” (Melancholy), by Joaquim Manuel da Câmara, included on this CD. After ornamenting the melody with a short exhibition of the virtuosity so fashionable in the salon music of the time, an Andantino Grazioso an a vigorous Allegro follow. Of the three works for flute and piano, it is in this Fantasia that the two instruments receive the most balanced treatment. It has an ambitious piano part, but without gratuitous virtuosity.
Text by:
Helena Marinho and Pedro Couto Soares
José Maria Ribas (1796-1861)
1. Fantasia em Lá Maior para flauta e piano 08’52’’
José Francisco Leal (1841-1894)
2. Esta Noite (lundum) 01’38’’
Joaquim Manuel da Câmara
3. A Melancolia (modinha) 01’27’’
Sigismond Neukomm (1778-1858)
4. L’Amoureux, fantasia para flauta e piano 09’48’’
Autor anónimo (tema da autoria de Bellini)
5. Nasce Amor da Sympathia (modinha) 01’55’’
Domingos Bomtempo (1775-1842)
6. Fantasia Op. 6, sobre um tema de Paisiello 09’51’’
Gabriel Fernandes da Trindade (1790-1854)
7. Graças aos Ceos (lundum) 02’14’’
Autor anónimo
8. Foi por Mim, Foi pela Sorte (modinha) 02’16’’
José Maria da Silva
Sonata em Sol Maior para flauta e piano
9. Andante moderato – Allegro 08’18’’
10. Cantabile 02’32’’
11. Rondo – Allegro 04’30’’
Tempo total: 53’30’’
Ref.: NUM 1149
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