Marcos Portugal:
sacred music published in the 19th century

Coro de Câmara de Lisboa,
conducted by Teresita Gutierrez Marques

Included works in the CD (world premiere recording):
Mass (MarP 01.17, V1), Te Deum (MarP 04.08, V2), Tantum ergo (MarP 04.04, V1), O quam suavis (MarP 05.11, V1)

Format CD (Compact Disc)
Soloist Voices Margarida Simões (soprano), Ana Ferro (mezzo-soprano), João Rodrigues (tenor), Jorge Martins (baritone)
Instruments Sérgio Silva (organ), Luís André Ferreira (cello)
Notes António Jorge Marques and Sérgio Dias
Booklet Languages Portuguese and English
Publisher Coro de Câmara de Lisboa, 2019
Reference CCL 007
Duration 79 min
EAN 5600618603171
Weight 150 g

In stock.

Marcos Portugal's extensive sacred production (over 160 works) is mostly known in Portugal and Brazil; in mainland Portugal some works (Missa Grande [c. 1782, MarP 01.09*], Te Deum [1802, MarP 04.08*] and Matinas da Conceição [1802, MarP 03.05*]) remained in repertoire until early twentieth century and, in Madeira, the Tantum ergo [MarP 04.04*] survived until the 1950s. In this context, it is remarkable that four of Portugal’s sacred works were published in England and France during the nineteenth century. Their critical editions are, for the first time in modern times, available to performers and musicologists: 1. Mass [MarP 01.17, V1*] (1783-4, published partially in 1822 by Vincent Novello (1781-1861)); 2. Te Deum [MarP 04.08, V2*] (1802, partially edited by Novello in c. 1818 and 1822); 3. Tantum ergo [MarP 04.04, V1*] (published in Paris in 1864 by Pierre-Louis-Philippe Dietsch (1808-1865)); and 4. O quam suavis [MarP 05.11, V1*] (published in London by Richard Butler c. 1840; no copy of the publication was found).

Composed for the baptism of infante Miguel, which took place at the Palace of Queluz on 14 November 1802, the Te Deum [MarP 04.08*] occupies a prominent place in the history of music of Portugal and Brazil and deserves a more detailed explanation. The large number of versions (22) and copies (104) found in 37 collections widespread in 7 countries denounces its paradigmatic character and unusual geographical dissemination. It was a work designed to enhance the elaborate multimedia spectacle (avant la lettre) of the exhibition of royal power, a style Marcos Portugal developed throughout his life in Portugal and, from 1811, in Brazil. The work only ceased being performed during the second decade of the twentieth century. The Novello edition of the duet Te ergo quæsumus gave rise to two more Parisian editions: it was included in an anonymous ecclesiastical author's publication to be used by the confraternities and parishes of the French capital (1837-9); twenty years later (1857), the composer and chapel master of the Église de la Madeleine, Pierre-Louis-Philippe Dietsch, added the voices of tenor and bass, adapted a new text (O salutaris Hostia), and included it in a publication dedicated to the repertoire of the said church. It is, in all probability, the most international sacred work in the history of music in Portugal and Brazil.

* Refers to the entries of the sacred oeuvre thematic catalogue: MarP = Portugal (António Jorge Marques, A obra religiosa de Marcos António Portugal (1762-1830): catálogo temático, crítica de fontes e de texto, proposta de cronologia, Lisboa, Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal/Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical, 2012, pp. 331-688).