Music history of Portugal

Being one of the most ancient nation-states in Europe, Portugal is proud of its long music history, which accompanied and strongly contributed to the development of the outstanding music history in Europe. The music history of Portugal first started with Queen Amelia

In the early days of the Catholic Church, several local liturgies developed, such as the Gallican in France, the Sarum in England, the antique Roman in Rome and the Ambrosian rite in Milan. The Visigothic Council of Toledo organized the Hispanic rite (Visigothic or Mozarab are variant terms) in 633.

The main source of the Hispanic rite is the León Antifonary (tenth century), which was most probably copied from an original collected in Beja (now in Alentejo, southern Portugal). The Beja region is home to one of the earliest mentions of a musician, in the activity of Andre Princeps Cantorum (489 - 525). The oldest manuscript (eleventh century) of Portuguese liturgical music in Toledan Hispanic notation is kept at the University of Coimbra General Library. Most other existing documents use Aquitan notation. From the middle of the thirteenth century on, the notation presents typically Portuguese variations; this Portuguese notation was used until the fifteenth century, when modern notation in staves was adopted.

However, the church would start worrying soon about the proliferation of liturgies. From the mixture of the galican liturgy with the antique Roman one would result, traditionally under pope Gregory I (540-604), the modern Roman liturgy, also known as Gregorian liturgy, comprising the Gregorian chant. This would become the official liturgy of the Catholic Church and substituted gradually the local ones. In the Iberian Peninsula, the Council of Burgos decreed the substitution of the Hispanic rite by the modern Roman one in 1080. This measure was eased by the fact that, during the Reconquista, most part of the bishops were French (Gérard, Maurice Bourdin, Jean Péculier, Bernard, Hughes).

In Portugal, an aristocratic poetical-musical genre was cultivated, at least since the independence (1143), whose texts are kept in three main collections (Cancioneiros): Cancioneiro da Ajuda (13th century), Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional (16th, on originais from the 14th), Cancioneiro da Vaticana (16th, on originais from the 14th). The 1680 poems kept in the Cancioneiros are divided in three forms: cantigas de amigo (songs of friend), cantigas de amor (songs of love) and cantigas de escárnio e maldizer (songs of mockery). The intrinsic link to music is well expressed in the Cancioneiro da Ajuda, where the staves have been drawn, but no melodies have been written.

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