O Camões da música portuguesa: A produção sinfónica de juventude de Viana da Mota inspirada pela obra do poeta quinhentista

Abstract

Several nineteenth-century Portuguese symphonic and symphonic-choral works were inspired by Camões and his work: the monumental Messe de Requiem de Bomtempo, lesser-known marches by Cossoul, Reinhardt and Jorge Júnior, an overture by Freitas Gazul, and the cantatas by Augusto Machado and Miguel Ângelo Pereira prefaced the production of the young Viana da Mota, who between 1886 and 1894 took some excerpts of Camões’ epic and poetry as paratexts for a dramatic ouverture and a symphony in four movements. This article discusses the contexts that shaped the creation of these various symphonic evocations of Camões, as well as their conformity with nineteenth-century conceptions of the poet, inscribing the mentioned symphonic works by Viana da Mota in this genealogy. An analysis of the ouverture D. Ignez de Castro illustrates the first outcomes of Viana da Mota’s learning period in Berlin, highlighting his adoption of compositional processes that were unprecedented in Portuguese instrumental music at the time. The critical reviews of the Sinfonia «À Pátria», published during the presentation of the work in Lisbon in 1894 and in 1896, shortly before the premiere in Porto, are as well discussed, offering an insight on the reception of Viana da Mota’s contribution to an emerging Portuguese musical nationalism and his early consecration as a Camões of Portuguese music.