António Leal Moreira (1758-1819): Obras e fases estilísticas e sua presença no «cânone» da musicologia portuguesa e luso-brasileira

Abstract

António Leal Moreira (1758-1819) belongs to a generation of Portuguese composers who have only recently caught the attention of musicologists. Moreira played a key role in the court’s musical environment in Lisbon from the time he was a student and later a master at the Patriarchal Seminary. He was the author of sacred works of great importance, and of court serenades. He was also the first musical director of the São Carlos Theatre, which opened in 1793. His works, especially his sacred pieces, were widely disseminated in Luso-Brazilian musical life throughout the nineteenth century. However, it was his entremezes, A saloia enamorada (1793) and A vingança da cigana (1794), composed in collaboration with the Brazilian poet Domingos Caldas Barbosa, that made him more widely known later. This article proposes a general periodization of his work, according to the characteristics of the musical style of each period of his career as a composer. Likewise, it is intended to place Leal Moreira and his production in a broader European and Luso-Brazilian context, as well the participation of his work and trajectory in the forging of a musical canon in Portuguese and Luso-Brazilian musicology.