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PROFMUS Seminar - Professional Musicians during the 1st Portuguese Republic

Updated: May 17, 2022

Professional Musicians during the 1st Portuguese Republic / Músicos profissionais na 1ª República: dos conservatórios e dos teatros aos clubes e animatógrafos

Luís M. Santos (CESEM, NOVA-FCSH)

Hélder Sá (INET-md, UA)

Colégio Almada Negreiros (room 219), NOVA FCSH

24 March 2022, 3.pm



The musical activity of animatographs and amateur associations in Lisbon in the early years of the Republic

Luís M. Santos (CESEM, NOVA FCSH)


In the 1910s, Lisbon witnessed an unprecedented blossoming of interest in the public symphonic concerts long desired by the elite core of the city’s musical life. At the end of 1911, a series of concerts was established at the Teatro da República by an orchestra conducted by Pedro Blanch, which would maintain its activity in successive annual series until its dissolution in 1928. Also noteworthy was the annual series that took place from 1913 on at the Teatro Politeama, initially directed by David de Sousa. This orchestral movement exerted, for several reasons, a decisive influence on the musical life of the Portuguese capital. Is it interesting to note, for example, the way in which this model was emulated by several of the main animatographs that were then thriving in Lisbon, in the context of an instrumental practice that was a central element of their programming strategy. Furthermore, the model of public symphonic concerts would also be assimilated by the leisure practices developed by a diverse set of amateur associations, from the most prominent bourgeois clubs to the tunas associated with certain socio-professional categories on the border between the petty bourgeoisie and the working classes. The present paper intends to address this situation, taking into account both the context of the development of cultural industries in the urban space of the capital, as well as the intense flowering of the associative movement that took place at this time, with the purpose of knowing the place of instrumental music in the commercial circuits of the capital’s cultural life, as well as the role it assumed in the process of affirmation of civil society that the years of the First Republic witnessed.



Violin in Portugal during the First Republic: Contexts, protagonists and repertoires

Hélder Sá (INET-md, UA)


This research aims to examine the contribution of violinists in the First Portuguese Republic, mapping their performance in the main erudite contexts as well as producing a catalogue of the violin repertoire of this period.

The research relied upon archival work in libraries, museums, music schools, private archives, and collections of composers and performers.

This documentation includes concert programmes, yearbooks, activity reports, scores, agendas, teaching programs, and correspondence. Periodicals were paramount for this investigation, allowing us to understand the reception of these performers in the music scene of the time.

The dissertation shows a wide circulation between erudite contexts, namely in symphony orchestras and chamber music groups, as well as in more informal settings such as salons and casinos where the repertoire was very diverse. Another feature that stands out is the frequent collaboration between professional and amateur musicians.

This study also explores violin teaching in the three leading Portuguese music schools (Lisbon and Porto Conservatoires and the Academia de Amadores de Música) examining the repertoire, the teachers, and the students.

Finally, my work aims to study the typification, circulation, and reception of the repertoire written for violin in Portugal during this period.

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