Joly Braga Santos

José Manuel Joly Braga Santos, ComSE (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒɔˈli ˈbɾaɡɐ ˈsɐ̃tuʃ]; May 14, 1924 – July 18, 1988) was a Portuguese composer and conductor, who was born and died in Lisbon. He wrote six symphonies.

José Manuel Joly Braga Santos was born in Lisbon in 1924 and died in this city in 1988, at the peak of his musical creativity. Having studied violin and composition at the National Conservatoire of Lisbon, he became a disciple of Luís de Freitas Branco (1890–1955), the leading Portuguese composer of the preceding generation.

After the Second World War, he was able to go abroad, having studied conducting with Hermann Scherchen and Antonino Votto, and composition with Virgilio Mortari. He was undoubtedly the leading Portuguese symphonist of the 20th century, and perhaps of all time. Apart from an innate sense of orchestration, his musical language is based on a strong musical architecture as well as drama, with long melodic phrases and a natural instinct for structural development. In his own words, he wanted “to contribute toward a Latin symphonism and to react against the predominant tendency, of the generation that preceded me, to reject monumentalism in music”.

In his first works, the composer showed a modal tendency motivated by the desire to establish a connection between contemporary music and the golden age of Portuguese music: the Renaissance. We also find a melodic outline of the oldest folk songs of his country. Although he was not particularly interested in the Portuguese folklore, studying and composing at the country home of his mentor, in the rural south of Portugal - the Alentejo - he naturally accepted the influence of the very old local folklore that he considered "of mesmerizing originality and grandeur".

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