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The Musical Salon of the Countess of Proença-a-Velha in Lisbon: A Case of Patronage and Activism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 January 2017
Abstract
This article seeks to shed light on the musical activities sponsored in Lisbon by women of high society, and specifically on the organization of the concerts produced by the Countess of Proença-a-Velha (1864–1944) in Lisbon at the turn of the ninteenth and the twentieth centuries. Between 1899 and 1903, the Countess held nine musical soirées and matinées at her home, and organized the first season of the Sociedade Artística de Concertos de Canto (Artistic Singing Concerts Society), which she founded. She also composed and premiered about 30 vocal works with piano accompaniment. Although both the number of events and her catalogue are small in size, they form an important window on turn-of-the-century Portuguese culture. Her decisions to focus on the repertoire of lyrical music and feature performances mainly by women was in stark contrast to the deeply masculine nature of the musical organizations active in Lisbon during the period. This article also explores the ideological dimension of her activities. An examination of the vocal pieces performed at the countess’ concerts shows that she intentionally explored four interrelated concepts of music: modern music, religious music, early music and Portuguese music. Some of her songs took part in the construction of what she considered to be a Portuguese national music inspired by Portuguese national poetry. The programmes the countess devised presented both a social and political dimension, proposing an elitist model for female socialization based upon the idea of the utility of cultural involvement and vindicating the role of tradition and, in particular, national tradition.
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- Research Article
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- © Cambridge University Press 2017
Footnotes
This article is a result of the research projects ‘Musicología aplicada al concierto clásico en España (siglos XVIII–XXI)’ (HAR2014-53143-P) and ‘Euterpe unveiled: Women in Portuguese Musical Creation and Interpretation’ (PTDC/CPC-MMU/3559/2014).
References
1 Born Maria de Melo Furtado Caldeira Giraldes de Bourbon (b. 8 June 1864; d. 29 January 1944), she was Countess of Proença-a-Velha by her marriage to João Filipe Osório Menezes Pita, Count of Proença-a-Velha.
2 Many of the songs composed by the Countess Proença-a-Velha are contained in two volumes: Ecos do passado (Lisbon: n.p., 1904) and Melodias portuguesas (Lisbon: Lit. Alves, 1934).
3 Most of the biographical information in this article, including the information about her illness, has been taken from contemporary newspapers, published memoires of her friends, and two of her own books: Os nossos concertos: Impressões de arte (Lisbon: n.p., 1902) and Alguns séculos de música: impressões de arte (Lisbon: Libânio da Silva, 1930).
4 See Schaunard, ‘Galeria dos nossos. Condessa de Proença-a-Velha’, A Arte Musical 2 (31 January 1899): 16.
5 For an introduction to the importance of these salons in Spanish musical life see Alonso, Celsa, ‘Los salones: un espacio musical para la España del siglo XIX’, Anuario Musical 48 (1993): 165–206 Google Scholar. For a summary of English language literature on salon music, see Yael Bitrán, ‘Absolute Salon: A Look at the Literature on Domestic Music-Making in the Nineteenth Century’, unpublished paper. I thank Yael Britán for sending me a copy of her paper. See also Chimènes, Myriam, Mécènes et musiciens: Du salon au concert à Paris sous la IIIe République (Paris: Fayard, 2004)Google Scholar.
6 The Countess’s mission belongs to a larger feminist context in the period. See Olga Morais Sarmento da Silveira, speech given at Problema feminist, a conference given at the Sala Portugal of the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisbon (Lisbon Geographical Society), on the night of 18 May 1906, marking the anniversary of The Hague Conventions (Lisbon: s. n., 1906). The author and the Countess were friends. On ideology used by the elites to invent a harmonious unity in which difference is erased, see Eagleton, Terry, The Ideology of the Aesthetic (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990)Google Scholar, particularly the third chapter. On the idea of progress associated with the musical activities of the elite, see Pasler, Jann, ‘Paris: Conflicting Notions of Progress’, in The Late Romantic Era. From The Mid-19th Century to World-War I, ed. Jim Samson (London: Macmillan, 1991): 389–416 Google Scholar, and Composing the Citizen: Music as Public Utility in Third Republic France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009). See also Luís Miguel Santos, ‘A ideologia do progresso no discurso de Ernesto Vieira e Júlio Neuparth (1880–1919)’ (MA Thesis, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2010).
7 See Fraser, Nancy, ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy’, Social Text 25/26 (1990): 56–80 Google Scholar. This well-known article revises Jürgen Habermas’s concept, arguing the plurality of stratified ‘public spheres’.
8 See Weber, William, The Great Transformation of Musical Taste: Concert Programming from Haydn to Brahms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.
9 The expression ‘artistic pontificate’ is taken from Olga de Morais Sarmento, Teófilo Braga: notas e comentários (Lisbon: n.p., 1925): 10.
10 See Cascudo, Teresa, ‘Paris en Lisboa: Ecos periodísticos de un salón musical de la Belle Époque’, Revista Temas & Matizes 5, 10 (2006): 15–28 Google Scholar. Available online: http://e-revista.unioeste.br/index.php/temasematizes/article/viewArticle/1486 (accessed 1 October 2014).
11 See Cascudo, Teresa, ‘A década da invenção de Portugal na música erudita (1890–1899)’, Revista Portuguesa de Musicologia 10 (2000): 181–226 Google Scholar.
12 For a general panorama of the urban musical life in Portugal, see Maria José Artiaga, ‘Continuity and Change in Three Decades of Portuguese Musical Life 1870–1900’ (PhD diss., Royal Holloway, University of London, 2007) and João Luís Meireles Santos Leitão da Silva, ‘Music, Theatre and the Nation: The Entertainment Market in Lisbon (1865–1908)’ (PhD diss., University of Newcastle, 2008).
13 The analogies between the activities of Countess Greffulhe and Countess Proença-a-Velha are astonishing. See Pasler, Jann, ‘Countess Greffulhe as Entrepreneur: Negotiating Class, Gender and Nation’, in The Musician as Entrepreneur, 1700–1914, ed. William Weber (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004): 221–247 Google Scholar. I thank William Weber for this reference.
14 See Schaunard, ‘Galeria dos nossos’, p. 16.
15 The history of this family has not been written. I am very grateful to one of its descendants, Mr Diogo Tovar, for providing me relevant information regarding this subject. The best available introduction to the history of the period studied in this article is Rui Ramos, A Segunda Fundação (1890–1926), vol. 6 of História de Portugal, ed. José Mattoso (Lisbon: Editorial Estampa, 1994).
16 My sources are the magazine Arte Musical and the newspapers Novidades and Diário Ilustrado.
17 As far as I know, there is no available bibliography the musical activities of Sarah Motta Vieira Marques.
18 See, for instance, de Lemos, António, Notas d’arte (Porto: Tipografia Universal, 1906)Google Scholar.
19 Afterwards, Elisa de Sousa Pedroso became a prominent figure. Among other activities, she founded in 1934 the very influential Círculo de Cultura Musical (Musical Culture Circle).
20 Cf. Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho, A arte de viver em sociedade (Lisbon: António Maria Pereira, 1897).
21 ‘Concertos’, A Arte Musical 8 (30 April 1899): 66. The séance was finally organized by the piano teacher and performer Rey Colaço at his home. The orator was António Arroio. The pianist ‘publicly’ performed it later at the Conservatory. See ‘Concertos’, A Arte Musical 9 (15 May 1899): 74.
22 Condessa de Proença-a-Velha, Os nossos concertos, Impressões de arte (Lisbon: n.p., 1902): 45.
23 See Olga Morais Sarmento da Silveira, Problema feminista (Lisbon, n.p., 1906): 29–30, and As minhas memórias (tempo passato, tempo amato …) (Lisbon: Portugália Editora, 1948).
24 The newspapers Novidades and Diário Ilustrado included lists of the people of the ‘high society’ who attended the most important social events, including the concerts organized by the Countess. The nature of this social network and the family and social connections involved deserve further study.
25 Her ‘disciples’ sang at her concerts, as reported in the newspapers. See, for instance, ‘A arte de música em Lisboa’, Ocidente. Revista ilustrada (30 June 1903): 1.
26 See Joaquina Labajo, ‘El controvertido significado de la educación musical femenina’, in Music and Women, ed. Marisa Manchado (Madrid: Horas y Horas, 1998): 85–101. On the stir caused by the incorporation of women in professional composition during the same period, see the French example described by Annegret Fauser in ‘La guerre en dentelles: Women and the Prix de Rome in French Cultural Politics’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 51 (1998): 83–129 or Ellis, Katharine, ‘Female Pianists and Their Male Critics in Nineteenth-Century Paris’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 50 (1997): 353–385 Google Scholar.
27 See ‘O concerto de ontem’, A Tarde (12 December 1901): 1. The comment refers to Massenet’s La terre promise programme.
28 Virgínia de Castro e Almeida, a feminist writer from an aristocratic family and regular at the countess’s salon, summarized the limited educational and intellectual expectations reserved for young upper class people in Portugal during the second half of the nineteenth century in A mulher: história de mulher (Lisbon: Livraria Clássica, 1913). For a contextualization of this dual social status as a musician and as a ‘lady of the world’ in Paris, see Myriam Chimènes, Mécènes et musiciens, particularly, the chapter ‘Cours de chant’, 273–88.
29 Documents are compiled in Os nossos concertos.
30 ‘High-Life’, Diário Ilustrado, 7 June 1901, p. 1.
31 ‘Sociedade Artística de Concertos de Canto’, A Arte Musical 59 (15 June 1901).
32 ‘Sociedade Artística de Concertos de Canto’, O Século, 8 November 1901, p.1. The story was also reproduced in ‘Noticiário’, A Arte Musical 69 (15 November 1901): 219.
33 See C. Stuart Torrie, ‘Sociedade Artística de Canto’, Diário Ilustrado, 11 December 1902, p. 3; ‘High-Life’, Diário Ilustrado, 22 March 1903, p. 1; ‘Teatros. Notas’, Época, 8 May 1903, 2.
34 ‘High-Life’, Diário Ilustrado, 15 December 1902, p. 1.
35 Os nossos concertos, 128.
36 See Os nossos concertos, preface, n.p.
37 Mar. Mellus, ‘Crónica musical. Um concerto-conferência’, Jornal do Comércio, 19 December 1899, p. 2. Cristóvão Ayres, who attended some of the concerts, directed this newspaper. All translations are my own.
38 See, for reference, Ellis, Katherine, Interpreting the Musical Past: Early Music in Nineteenth-Century France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)Google Scholar.
39 Quoted in Os nossos concertos, p. 123. The letter was written 6 September 1900, in the village of Penamacor, located in the region of Beira Baixa (Central Portugal).
40 ‘A organização dos concertos’, A Arte Musical 107 (15 June 1903): 147–50.
41 Condessa de Proença-a-Velha, ‘A Arte Nacional’, Novidades, 27 January 1903, p. 1. The text, written by the Countess was also reproduced in ‘Música Portuguesa’ in Melodias Portuguesas, X.
42 Braga, Teófilo, História da poesia popular Portuguesa. As origens, 3rd ed. (Lisbon: Manuel Gomes, 1902): XIIGoogle Scholar.
43 Braga, Teófilo, História da literatura Portuguesa (recapitulação): Os seiscentistas, vol. VIII, 3rd ed. (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 2005): 37 Google Scholar, n. 14.
44 Regarding the positivist origin of Braga’s ideas about music, see de Castro, Paulo Ferreira, ‘Quão musical é a República?’, in Pensar a República, 1910–2010, ed. Ana Paiva Morais (Coimbra: Almedina, 2014): 197–226 Google Scholar.
45 Murata, Margaret, ‘Wo die Zitronen blühn: Re-Versions of Arie antiche’, in Historical Musicology: Sources, Methods Interpretations, ed. Stephen A. Crist and Roberta Montemorra Marvin (Rochester, Rochester University Press: 2004): 332 Google Scholar.
46 Jean-Baptiste Weckerlin, ed., Échos du temps passé (Paris, Durand, n.d.); Malherbe, Charles, ed., J. P. Rameau: Oeuvres Complètes, Tome III (Paris: Durand, 1897)Google Scholar; Luigi Torchi, ed., Eleganti canzoni ed arie italiane del secolo XVII: Saggi antichi ed inediti della musica vocale italiana raccolti, annotati e trascritti per canto e pianoforte (Milan: Ricordi, [1894]).
47 Alessandro Parisotti, ed., Arie antiche, 3 vols. (Milan: Ricordi, 1885–98).
48 Regarding the authors and the literary questions brought up in this section, including the literary meaning of saudade, see Parkinson, Stephen, Pazos Alonso, Cláudia and Earle, T.F., eds., A Companion to Portuguese Literature (Rochester, NY: Tamesis, 2009)Google Scholar. These seven songs were published in Condessa de Proença-a-Velha, Melodias Portuguesas. In this title, it is obvious the link with Weckerlin’s Échos du temps passé, already cited.
49 See Braga, Teófilo, História da Literatura Portuguesa, Os Árcades, vol. 4 (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda e Secretaria Regional de Educação e Cultura, Região Autónoma dos Açores, 1984): 309–311 Google Scholar and Condessa de Proença-a-Velha, ‘Terceira matinée musical’, in Os nossos concertos, 176. Both of them thought that the lyra came from the modinha.
50 The term ‘rococo’ is hers, see Alguns séculos de musica, 90.
51 ‘Galeria Elegante e Desportiva’, Diário Ilustrado, 14 June 1903, p. 1. An animatograph was an early film projector. The reference is presumably to newsreels.