Art Music in Portugal in the Turn of the 21st Century

Abstract

Portuguese art music historiography counts several titles which allow the reader to understand its development in Portugal during the 20th century (Azevedo, 1998; Brito & Cymbron, 1992; Carvalho M. V., 1999; Castelo Branco, Salwa, 2010; Castro, 1991, 2015; Ferreira M. P., 2005). Yet, for lack of historical distance, most of those publications (generally dated from 1991 to 2015) focus on the period before and during the rise of the vanguardist paradigm, which started in the 1970’s. The contributions of composers born in between 1930’s and the 1950’s (like Clotilde Rosa, Cândido Lima, Álvaro Salazar, Jorge Peixinho, Emmanuel Nunes) are scrutinized in quite some detail, while composers of the next generations are only briefly mentioned. Yet, passed the first quarter of the 21st century, the history of art music in Portugal in the last decades of the 20th deserves renovated attention, as at least one generation has already flourished after composers born between 1959 and 1979 reached full maturity. This essay strives to bridge that gap, by putting in perspective the activity, aesthetics and musical languages developed by the latter in the turn of the 21st century.