SOUNDS FROM THE DISCOVERIES
MUSICAL ASPECTS OF THE PORTUGUESE EXPANSION

The topic, which is also the title of this article, has warranted very little attention up until now on the part of researchers. There are various reasons for this. On the one hand there is the relatively limited development of our musicological history which still finds itself competing alongside the fundamental investigation of musical history within our own urban culture. On the other hand there is the vastness and difficulty of this subject which involves research of an enormous variety of historical documents in search of, what are sometimes only occasional references to music. I still hope that in the next few years as we approach the anniversary of the Portuguese Discoveries, this subject will awaken a greater interest from musicologists both at home and abroad.

In this discussion my intention is both modest and audacious: to look briefly at the different roles music played in the history of the Portuguese discoveries, showing not only the curiosity in which the Portuguese navigators, missionaries, and adventurers observed and reported the music of other peoples for the first time, but also the way they took European music to distant lands, and also the possible influence music from these foreign regions could have had on the Portuguese music.

The Italian navigator in the service of Prince Dom Henrique (son of King Dom João I), Alvise Cadamosto (°1432-†1483) who traveled along the coast of Senegal in 1455, refers to the moolight dances of the local women, and the way the Senegalese admired European bagpipes, which they regarded as a celestial instrument made by God's hands. However, the Senegalese did not like the drums or the sort of two-stringed viol• which was played with a finger). 1 The Portuguese navigators felt the opposite and thought their kettledrums• and drums• were most pleasing and the ivory trumpets• and viols "mui bem afinadas" ("very well tuned"), which they have heard near the end of March 1491, at the funeral of a member of the Congolese royal family. In the very some year organs arrived, no doubt small, portable instruments, in the Congolese capital (Mbanza or Port.: S. Salvador do Congo (lit.: Holly Saviour of the Congo)) as a present of the Portuguese crown. 2

On the 2nd of December 1497, disembarking in Mossel Bay, aproximately two hundred miles east of the Cape of Good Hope, Vasco da Gama was received by around two hundred Hotentotes who brought twelve oxen and four sheep, "[...] & como os nossos forão a terra começarão eles a tãger quatro frautas acordadas a quatro vozes." ("[...] and when we landed ashore, they began to play four flutes• in harmony and sing four-part music."). 3

Luís de Camões, in the Lusiads evokes the setting like this:

"Cantigas pastoris, ou prosa ou rima,

Na sua língua cantam, concertadas

Co doce som das rústicas avenas•

Imitando de Tírito as camenas."

("And pastoral hymns, in prose or versified,

They raise in their own speech, concerted song,

With such sweet sound as rustic pipes may use,

After the mode of Tityrus his muse.")

Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads), Canto V, strophe 58. 4

In Canto I of The Lusiads, Camões also refers to the “anafis• sonorosas” ("melodious Moorish vertical trumpets"•) like those with which the Sultan of Melinde greeted Vasco da Gama three months later, a scene which the poet absorbed similarly in the História do Descobrimento e Conquista da Índia (History of the Discovery and Colonisation of India) by Fernão Lopes de Castanheda. 5

The curiosity of some of the Portuguese travellers for the music and non-European musical instruments that they found is remarkable. For example, the merchant Duarte Lopes, who embarked for the Congo in 1578, left an interesting description of the lute, • or Congolese archlute,• and the way it was played. 6 A silver tray from the second half of the sixteenth century which is kept in the Ajuda palace, in Lisbon, displays the Portuguese coat-of-arms in the middle and around the edges is a depiction of a procession, perhaps of a dignatary of the Congloese king, in which two archlute players and three xylophone• players appear. 7

In a letter to the Brothers and Fathers of the Society of Jesus, in Portugal, sent from Goa in 1562, Fr. André Fernandes gives a description of Tsonga music, probably from the Inhambane region in Mozambique, which also included the first known reference to African xylophones:

"São muito dados aos prazeres de cantar e tocar. Os seus instrumentos são uma cabaças• ligadas com cordas, e um bocado de madeira dobrado em arco, umas maiores outras pais pequenas, na abertura das quais põem trombetas com cera de abelhas bravas para melhorar o tom e têm instrumentos tiples e baixo, [...].

De noite vão fazer serenatas ao rei e a quem quer lhes fez um presente, e aquele que faz mais barulho é considerado o melhor musico.

As suas canções são em geral de louvor àqueles para quem estão a cantar, como por exemplo 'este é bom, deu-nos isto ou aquilo, mas ainda nos há-de dar mais.'"

("They are very gifted in the pleasures of singing and playing. Their instruments are gourds• tied together with cords, and a wooden mouthpiece bent into an arch, some larger, some smaller. In the opening they place trumpets with wild beeswax to improve the tone and they have treble and bass instruments, [...].

At night they play serenades to the king and to whoever wants to give them a present and the one who makes the most noise is considered the best musician. Their songs are generally of praise to those for whom they are singing, as for example, 'he is good, he gave us this or that, but may still give us more.'"). 8

The description of the xylophone and the African quissange,• made by Br. João dos Santos in his book Ethiopia Oriental (Oriental Ethipia) of 1609, is still frequently referred to today in specialised literature because of his attention to detail and scholarship. The Dominican Brother referred to the musicians who served Quiteve, king of Sofala, in Mozambique:

"Quando este rei sai fora de casa, vai rodeado e cercado destes marombes, que lhe vão dizendo estes mesmos louvores, com grandíssimos gritos, ao som de tambores pequenos,• e de ferros• e chocalhos,• que lhe ajudam a fazer mais estrondo e grita.

Serve-se mais o Quiteve de outro género de cafres, grandes musicos e tangedores que não tem outro officio mais que estarem assentados na primeira sala do rei à porta da rua e ao redor das suas casas, tangendo muita diffeença de instrumentos musicos e cantando a elles muita variedade de cantigas e prosas, em louvor do rei, com vozes mui altas e sonoras."

("When the king leaves the house, he is surrounded and encircled by marombes, [ sic ] who carry on singing the same praises, with enormous cries, to the sound of some congos,• triangles•and rattles• which help make more thunderous noise and cries.

Quiteve made greater use than others of excellent kaffir musicians and players who had no other role than to be seated in the king's first hall, the main entrance and around his houses, playing many different musical instruments and singing, with high melodious voices, a wide variety of songs and prose in praise of the king."). 9

And Br. João dos Santos goes on to give detailed descriptions of the xylophone, which he curiously compares to a European organ, and the quissanje or zanza.• However Br. João refers to other instruments less enthusiastically:

"Outros muitos instrumentos tem estes cafres, a que elles chamam musicos, de que usam, mas eu chamo-lhes atroadores de ouvidos, com são umas cornetas grandes• de uns animaes bravos que chamão paraparas• e por razão d'este nome chamão as cornetas parapandas,• as quais têm uma voz mui terrivel e espantosa que soa tanto como uma trombeta bastarda.• Tem muitos tambores• de que usam, ao modo de atabales,• uns grandes e outros pequenos, que temperam e ordenam de maneira, que uns lhe respondem em triple e outros nas demais vozes, ao som dos quaes cantam os mesmos tangedores, com vozes tão altas e desabridas, que atroam toda a terra onde cantam e tangem."

("These kaffirs have other instruments which they play and call musical, but I call them ear tremblers, as like some clarions• for some savage animals which they call paraparas• and which make a very terrible, frightening noise that sounds just like a bombardon. • They have lots of large and small drums which they play like kettledrums• then tune and place together in a way that some play in the treble and others in the remaining pitches. The players sing with such high harsh voices that they make a thunderous noise wherever they sing and play."). 10

A great number of curious references to oriental music, though imprecise on the whole, are found in Ferenão Mendes Pinto's Peregrinação (Peregrination) published in 1614. His degree of truthfulness and historical accuracy is questionable as he wrote many years after the event and even today this is still a complicated and controversial debate. However it is thought to be true that he wandered the Orient for many years and had been an eye-witness to most the events he recalls. On the other hand, the great variety and extensiveness of the geographical areas he refers to, and the extraordinary vivid and colourful descriptive language he uses mark his work apart from other European travel literature. The many seventeenth century translations of his work prove his popularity: seven Spanish, four French, three English, two Dutch and one German.

What makes its musical references particularly fascinating is the way they are constantly incorporated into scenes which are truly cinematographic. His exagerated sense of grandeur is sometimes reminiscent of Hollywood's famous historical productions. But the extraordinary adventure film that Peregrinação turns into also has a soundtrack. On reading it we not only distinctly hear "[...] the commotion and music from the battles, sieges, naval combats, religious and profane processions and temple cerimonies but we also hear highly refined and delicate courtly music."11

References to military instruments are very frequent, along with the horrendous sounds of war as during the combat with the corsair Coja Acém [?] in the China Seas: “[...] because it was not daylight, and the battle raging between the enemy forces and ours was so fierce, and it was accompanied by the noise of drums, gongs [cymbals]• and bells, mixed on both sides with shouts and screams, to say nothing of the frequent bursts of fire from the artillery and the arquebuses, and the echoes rumbling through the hills and valleys, thast it was enough to make the flesh quiver with fear. ”12

However, musical instruments not only served to impress and scare the ennemy, but were also used to defy them, just as the Portuguese did in an expedition against the Turks at Port Onor in Southern Goa with their huge cacophony from the artillery, fifes and drums or just as a Chinese Corsair who the Portuguese encountered in the Mekong Delta did:"[...] the people on board the nau -- who had apparently recognised us as Portuguese, for whom they had no great love -- answered by showing us, from the top of the deckhouse, the naked behind of a kaffir, which was hardly a corteous repply. On top of that, they set up a terrible racket, banging drums, tooting horns, clanging bells, shouting and jeering in what was a general demonstration of scorn and contempt, obviously intended for us. ”13

On other occasions, however, the sounds of war were silenced and one heard sweeter music like that used to seduce the ennemy as happened during the siege of Pegu in Burma: "When the truce came into effect and all was quiet on both sides, those inside the city entered into a mystical form of communicvation with those on the outside. Every morning, during this period of calm, at about two hours before dawn, the sweet sound of music, played by many instruments in their fashion, would be heard coming from the Xemindó's [sic] camp. Attracted by the music, all the people in the city would come out running to the top of the walls to see what was going on. Then those on the outside would stop playing, and one of the priests, who was revered as a saintly man, would be heard proclaiming in a very sad and mournful voice. ”14

Sometimes Oriental ceremonial and religious music sounded as bad as military music to Fernão Mendes Pinto's european ears. This was the way he described the music which welcomed the embassador to the king of Burma in Lhasa, Tibet"[...] with music coming from so many different kinds of barbarous, discordant instruments that it nearly made the flesh quiver, for they consisted manily of bells, gongs [cymbals], drums, timbals [kettledrums], sistra,• cornets• and conch horns [conches]• which, especially since they mingled with the shouts of the crew, made it seem like some sort of incantation, or better yet, music from hell, if there is such a thing down there. ”15

The more pleasant accounts one finds are generally referring to profane music like that which was heard on Upi Island during a banquet given by a bendara of Malacca, by order of Pero de Faria, for the ambassador of the king of Battak.

Entertainment was provided by a band playing on shawms,• trumpets and kettledrums, as well as a choir of fine voices singing Portuguese songs to the accompanniment of an orchestra of harps, • flageolets• and rebecs.• He was so thoroughly impressed by it that he kept putting his finger in his mouth, in a gesture of amazement which is very characteristic of these people. 16

Still the most captivating description is without doubt that of a garden which seems to be at the palace of the "king of Tibet", in Lhasa: "In the middle of this garden there were many lovely, well-dressed young ladies amusing themselves in many different ways, taking part in beautifully arranged ballets and dances, as well as in the playing of a wide variety of soft musical instruments very much like our own, which they played so well together, with such sweet harmony, that there was no one who would not have enjoyed listening to them. Others were seated about, embroidering, sketching or plaiting ropes of gold, others playing games, and still others picking fruit to eat; and all this was taking place in such a charming and orderly fashion, in a peaceful atmosphere of virtuous, dignified, and strict discipline, that all nine of us could hardly believe our eyes. ”17

Further on Fernão Mendes Pinto makes a marvellous description of the musical and theatrical festivities offered by the "king of Tibet" to the ambassador of the Burmese king and presented at the same palace by beautiful women and children, a desciption which is unfortunately too long to be cited here. 18

There are, however, in the two final chapters of Peregrinação two scenes which I would still like to quote at least part of because of their exceptionally vivid portrayal of a meeting between a Portuguese and a Oriental musician. The first is the entertainment that Portuguese traders from the port of Ningbo, south of Shanghai, provided for the corsair António de Faria: "In the prdawn hours of a Sunday [...] they came to serenade him with a beautiful sunrise song, performed by an excellent chorus, to the accompaniment of soft musical instruments [...]. Slightly more than two hours before dawn, in the still of the night, under a bright moon, he got under way with the entire fleet, [...] escorted by numerous rowing barges from which could be heard the sounds of many trumpets, shawns, flutes and fifes, and many other instruments both Portuguese and Chinese [...].

On top of the quarterdeck of this vessel was a richly adorned platform [...] surrounded by six very pretty girls ranging in age from twelve to fifteen who were professional musicians and singers with beautiful voices that had been hired for the occasion and brought there from the city of Ningpo [...]. António de Faria embarked on the lanteia (a swift rowing vessel) and when he arrived at the pier there was a deafening racket of trumpets, shawns, kettledrums, fifes and drums, and many other instruments used by the Chinese, Malays, Chams, Siamese, Borneans, Ryukyu Islanders, and other nations who came to that port seeking the protection of the Portuguese against the pirates infesting those waters [... From here they took him to the church of Ningbo where...] Moving ahead of him were many dancers pelás (a leaping, twirling dance) frolics, games, and different kinds of dramatic interludes which the local people who trade with us -- some upon request and others forced by the penalties imposed on them -- also performed like the Portuguerse. And all this was accompanied by the music of many instruments, trumpets, shawms, flutes, horns, flageolets, harps, rebecs, together with fifes and drums, and a heavy babble of voices in the singnsong charachina (Chinese style), producing such an incredibleracket that made it all seem unreal.

When we reached the church door, eight priests [...] in a procession singing the "Te Deum Laudamus" while another excellent choir sang the response with organ music that was as fine as any ever heard in the private chapel of a great prince. And [...] he heard a beautifully arranged vocal and instrumental mass [...]. Then, [...] six little boys came out of the sacristy, dressed like angels and carrying gilded harps. Then the vicar himself knelt down before the altar of Our Lady of the Imaculate Conception, and gazing upon the image with upraised arms, his eyes brimming with tears, he intoned a prayer in a voice chocked with emotion, as though he were speaking directly to the image: "Our Lady, thou art a rose"; to which the six little boys responded in unison, "Our Lady, thou art a rose ", harmonising so sweetly as they accompanied themselves on their harps that everyone there without exception burst into tears [...]. After this, accompanying himself on a violoncello• he was holding, the vicar intoned a few stanzas of this vilancete (hymn) [...].

\Once mass was over [...] they led him off to a large garden terrace [...] and, once they were seated at table, they were waited on by very pretty girls, richly clad in mandarin style, who sang, accompanied by background music played by others, every time they served a dish. And António de Faria was waited on personally by eight extremely fair gentlewomen, the daughters of honourable merchants, whose fathers [...] had brought them there from the city. These girls were all dressed like Sirens, and they waited on table as though they were dancing to the sound of instrumental music, [...] and when it was time to serve the drinks, they struck up the band of shawns, trumpets and timbals. The banquet went on like this for nearly two hours, and during that time they also presented some theatrical interludes, one in Chinese and he other in Portuguese. ”19

Another account is that of Gaspar de Meieles, who was captured in China. He sang very well and played the viol and was frequently invited to perform at banquets in exchange for little money. One particular day he went to collect firewood with Fernão Mendes Pinto, he encountered a funeral procession with its musicians and singers, whereupon the master of the music forced him to accompany the procession and play and sing with them so as to please the decease. 20

Music and dance were used by the Portuguese navigators from very early on as a way of making initial contact with people of other cultures. The expedition of Pedro Álvares Cabral, which left Lisbon on the 8th of March 1500 heading for India with thirteen ships and twelve hundred men, took on board trumpets, kettledrums, drums, sistra, flutes, timbrels• and bagpipes. • As we know. the expedition lost course and ended up landing off the coast of Brazil. Pero Vaz de Caminha's famous account of this event describes one of the first encounters between the Brazilian Indians and the Portuguese: "Além do rio, andavam muitos deles dançando e folgando, uns diante dos outros, sem se tomarem pelas mãos. E faziam-no bem. Passou-se então além do rio Diogo Dias, almoxarife de foi de Sacavém, que é homem gracioso e de prazer; e levou consigo um gaiteiro nosso com sua gaita. E meteu-se com eles a dançar, tomando-os pelas mãos; e eles folgavam e riam, e andavam com ele muito bem ao som da da gaita. Depois de dançarem, fez-lhes ali, andando no chão, muitas voltas ligeiras e salto real, de que eles se espantavam e riam e folgavam muito. E conquanto com aquilo muito os segurou e afagou, tomavam logo uma esquiveza como de animais monteses, e foram-se para cima." ("Many of them walked further down the river, dancing and amusing themselves, some in front of the others taking each other by the hand. They did it very well. Then Diego Dias wandered down along the river taking with him one of our pipers and his pipes. • Dias was a stock clerck from Sacavém, a well-humoured, pleasure loving man. He then went and joined them in the dancing, taking them by the hand, and the Indians amused themselves and layghed and happily walked in time with him to the sound of the pipes. After dancing, Dias was walking along and started making quick turns and high leaps which surprised the natives and then made them laugh. They did amuse themselves. The natives were at ease with them but suddenly took off over the hill like mountain creatures."). 21

What indigenous music colonisers did come across in Brazil was relatively simple, as noted Oneyda Alvarenga in his book Música Popular Brasileira (Popular Brazilian Music): "De âmbito melódico restrito, reduzia-se frequentemente a um recitativo monótono dentro de dois ou três sons apenas, e mesmo algumas vezes não passava de uma fala ritmada dentro de um som único. Preponderavam os instrumentos de percussão, especialmente os chocalhos de vários tipos [...]. Havia também alguns instrumentos de sopro, larga variedade de assobios, trombetas me madeira, [...] flautas de bambú e de ossos humanos ou de animais, falutas-de-Pã." ("It was of a restricted melodic range, frequently reduced to a monotone recitative within barely two or three sounds, and sometimes did not even go beyond a rhythmic vocal line on a single note. They preferred percussion instruments, especially rattles• of various types [...]. There were also an endless varietry of whistles, • clarinets, • [...] flutes made of bamboo, animal and human bones, and syrinxes.•"). 22

However, South American Indians' aptitude for music was so evident that from the beginning the Jesuits concerned themselves with the use of music as a vehicle for teaching the cathecism certain that "[...] a suavidade do canto fazia entrar nas almas a inteligência das coisas do céu." ("[...] sweet. melodious singing would help the inteligence of Divine knowledge enter the soul."). 23

In 1552, when the "meninos órfãos" ("orphaned boys" -- the Jesuits' european disciples) travelled to the outskirsts of Bahia, on hearing the Indians' flutes and trumpets they wrote to Lisbon asking to be sent flutes, pipes, shakers, • triangles with jingles, • tambourines with plates, • and if possibles some percussionists and woodwind players like those which Fr. Nóbrega must have taken with him to help convert the sertões (low land peoples). 24 They organised processions in which the converted Indians took part and they ventured into the jungle along with the native boys singing religious music, and returned "[...] seguidos da indiada que se deixava prender pela música e pelo cortejo." ("[...] followed by a group of Indians who hads been captivated by the music and the processions."). 25

The Jesuits used three principle methods of incorporating into the catechisms: adopting indigenous songs whose original texts were substituted with religious texts translated into Tupi (the Indian's language) and teaching European religious canticles in Tupi; allowing the Indians to use their dances in processions and probably inside churches; and inclusing characters representing departed spirits from the Indians' myths alongside the saints when they finally performed musical ceremonies. 26 To commemorate the visit of Fr. Cristovão Gouveia and Fernão Cardim to a cremony making the creation of the Capitania (State) of Espírito Santo in 1583, there was a festive presentation from the Indians showing a naval battle in which the Indians gave "[...] alaridos e urros, tocando seus tambores, frautas e pífaros, [...] de vozes e frautas, [...] danças dos índios a seu modo e à portuguesa [...]" ("[...] with a clamour and roar, playing their drums, flutes and fifes, • [... and sang liturgical music...] with voices and flutes [... and processions with...] Indigenous dances and in the Portuguese style [...]") and a country reel dance. Of a similar vein to these sorts of presentations is the Chorus Brasilicus, in Tupi, which was added to the tragicomedy D. Manuel Conquistador da Índia (Dom Manuel Conqueror of India) by Fr. António de Sousa which was put at the Colégio de Santo Antão (St. Antony's College) in Lisbon, to commemorate the visit of king Filipe II of Portugal (Felipe III of Spain) in 1619. The staging of this tragicomedy lasted two days with the text in Latin, Portuguese and Spanish as well as Tupi. In the Chorus Brasilicus a ship with Tapuia and Aimore Indians arriving from Brazil was ennacted with the words: "[...] vinha o Brasil, sobre um lagarto, vestido com penas, arco e frechas, como seus companheiros. Trazia consigo bugios e papagaios, que entraram bailando e parlando a seu modo, com gracioso donaire." ("[... a figure representing] Brazil came on top of a lizard clothed with feathers, with bows and arrows like their companions. They brought monkeys and parrots with them who joined in the clatter and dancing in the same humourous way."). 27

Fr. Fernão Cardim gives his account of Bahia in 1583: "Em todas estas três Aldeais, há escolas de ler e escrever, aonde os Padres ensinam os meninos índios; e alguns mais hábeis também ensinam a contar, cantar e tanger. Tudo tomam muito bem e há já muitos que tangem frautas, violas e cravo e oficiam missas em canto de orgão, coisa que os Pais estimam muito." ("In all three villages there are schools for reading and writing, where the Fathers teach the Indian children; and some they have taught to count, sing and play an instrument. Everyone has taken to it well and there are already many who play flutes, viols and harpsicords,• and perform at mass singing with organ• accompaniment or even polyphony, something which the Holy Fathers greatly admire."). 28

Nheengaraíbos [ sic ](Choir Masters) were chosen in the past from among these singers and they in turn taught other Indians "por papel" ("from paper"), other words, from musical manuscripts. They also taught them "[...] to dance the Portuguese way which for them was the most enjoyable thing ever." Writing in 1660, Fr. Simão de Vasconcelos also agrees that Indians are "[...] extremely fond of music, and those who are chosen as church cantors take their position very seriously and spend day and night learning how to teach the others. They are gifted at playing all musical instruments, shawms, flutes, trumpets, violones, • cornets and horns: and they are a valuable addition to songs with organ, vespers, complins, masses and processions. In the State of Pernambuco, right up until the second half of the eighteenth century, indigenous musicians still took charge of musical activities in all the village churches, playing the organ and singing."29

Contudo Oneyda Alvarenga points out that: "The process of assimilation through the catechisms and the high death rate due to conditions of slavery were contributing factors to the indigenous peoples being left with few noticeable signs of their own musical traditions. By this time they also led lives like the majority of Brazilian people. In both instances the native Indian did not react strongly against the dominating European culture and the elements of their own culture were generally either substituted by European customs or were assimilated into the new evolving society. No indications remain of the precise period from where one could plot ana analyse the process of integration which they were subjected to. [... And when Oneyda Alvarenga refers to Brazil's black African population he says:] The Jesuits' campaign against slavery, combined with the indigenous Indians unsuccessful daptation to work, because of the sudden change from a nomadic to an agricultural lifestyle which was detrimental to them, necessitated bringing African slaves to Brazil as soon as sugar cultivation began." 30

Thousands of slaves were dispersed throughout Brazil over four centuries. Some came from Sudan and the Gulf of Guinea, among them were Muslims, and others from Angola, Congo and Mozambique. All of them already had a more developed culture than that of the Brazilian Indians. 31 Their constant contact with 'white' man's customs and the widespread intermarriage were at the heart of a cultural and musical influence which was deeper and more pervasive than that of the South American Indian.

Obviously it is not possible here to develop the question of this influence, and the way in which it was a determining factor in the development of popular Brazilian music up to the present day. I have only noted some particularly curious facts, mainly in the area of the so-called 'erudite' music.

Uin Brazil up until the nineteenth century the profession of barber was practised by black slaves who, in addition to this, were dentists, blood-letters and musicians. The groups which they organised, the so-called 'ternos de barbeiros' ('barber shop trios'), played a vital part in popular festivals in which they performed many kinds of dances and also exzcerpts from operas. It is well known that these bands were made up of musicians who played by ear and others who had been taught by black Afro Brazilians who read music. From one of them we are told that those musicians who did not know their part from memory used their fellow musician in front as a music stand by pinning the score to their shoulders. Apart from these bands, 'black' orchestras also existed, kept as a luxury by some gentlemen for their own pleasure and to impress visitors. This custom originated from the sixteenth century, as we know there was already an orchestra conducted by a marshal on a sugar plantation in Bahia. 32

At the end of his travels in Minas Gerais, in 1818, the german botanist von Martius was amusing himself playing violin near a small village in the region of the São Francisco (Saint Francis) river when a 'black' slave approached him and asked him if he would like to play in a quartet. Some days later there appeared a "[...] black Orpheus from the forest leading a strange entourage. Several donkeys carried a contrabass, • violins, • trumpets and music stands on their backs [...] and also the wife and children [...] two of his slaves played the second parts and with jovial confidence we set about playing the first quartet of Pleyel." In 1863, still in Minas Gerais, the Baron of Bertioga presented a concert to some American missionaries in the salon of his home, played by an orchestra made up of some thirty 'black' men and women who played a Rossini "Ouverture", Pergolesi's "Sabat Mater and in homage to the guests, the Lafaette march. 33

In the State of Minas Gerais the teaching and performing of music was gradually left in the hands of the mullatos who formed their own groups or to the Irmandades de Santa Cecília (Confraternities of Saint Cecily) along the lines of those in Lisbon. In the State capital, Ouro Preto, in the eighteenth century, many mulatto children, orphans or abandoned childen were handed over by the City Council to the music masters, also predominantly mulatto, somewhat reminiscent of what happened in the famous conservatories of Naples.

Also among the mulatto women, who due to their social condition had a much freer life than that of 'white' women, were some who made careers as actresses and even opera singers like Joaquina Maria da Conceição Lapinha. She performed with great success at the Teatro de S. Carlos (the National Opera House), in Lisbon, at the end of the eighteenth century. Among the mulattos of Minas Gerais we come across composers of most praiseworthy sacred music, as in the case of Joaquim Emérico Lobo de Mesquitas. 34 Another mulatto was Fr. José Maurício Nunes Garcia, the renown composer from Rio de Janeiro who was writing at the end of the eighteenth century.

There are few eye witness accounts of the presence of Portuguese music in Africa or perhaps it has not yet been studied. Around 1620 news sent from Angola reported that a solemn mass was sung in the capital"[...] with three choirs accompanied by all manner of instruments [...]"35 and having thirteen 'black' musicians divided into three choirs for effect. From Abyssinia we learn that high nobility and the emperor himself placed their sons under the tutelage of Portuguese missionaries because they wanted them to learn European music. 36 The Jesuit, Fr. Luís Cardeira reported from there saying: "Em seis meses formou hũa capella de baixos, tenores, & typres, cousa igualmente espanta, & consola, assi aos de casa, como de fora. Preparou [...] hũas vesperas, & Missa, a cinco vozes, com grande sucesso [...]. O Emperador em particular gostou tanto destes atos, que com se lhe repetirem muytas vezes, nam se fartaua de os tornar a ver, & dizia. Nam fora eu agora como estes, pera os Padres me ensinarem, & o mesmo dizia de seus filhos, e priuados, desejandolhes idade pera aprenderem aquellasa cousas; & de hum filho pequenino que tẽ, disse daqui por diante o entrego aos Padres [...]." ( "In six months we have formed two choirs of basses, tenors and sopranos, and something equally surprising, a console, like those for private homes in Europe [...]. Two vespers and a mass for five voices have been performed with great success. The emperor in particular liked these performances so much that they were repeated several times for him. He was not even weary and came back to see us saying he wished he had been taught like that by the Fathers. And his sons said the same and so did his courtiers, wishing they were young enough to learn such things, and one of the youngest sons, who I will tell you about further on, was handed over to the Fathers [...]."). 37

Turning to the Middle East, António Gouveia tells how the shah of Iran appreciated the music of the Portuguese missionaries. He went to hear them at Christmas in 1608, along with his retinue of attendants and ended up correcting the harpist who had to admit being careless. The harpsichord and zither• were also used by the Portuguese to accompany polyuphonic voices, "[...] de que o Xá & os seus mostraram muyto grande contentamento. O principe Manucharham se levãtou de seu lugar, & se foy pera o Choro onde cantauam, mostrando tanta alegria que segundo nos confessou, lhe parecia estar no Parayso." ("[...] at which the shah, his family and attendants greatly enjoyed. Prince Manucharham rose from his seat and went over where the choir sang, and was so visibly delighted that he admitted to us that he had felt if he was in paradise.")38

India alone constitutes an important chapter on the presence and influence of Portuguese music in the East but it is only possible to briefly cover a few points within the context of this article. The important role played by the Society of Jesus must be mentioned here. Music was used in their colleges, schools and churches with the same fervour missionaries showed in other parts of the world. Sacramental responces and acts were already performed not just by the Jesuits but also by soldiers and passengers on board the naus during their voyages from India. 39 Sice at least 1558, there are accounts of performances of Latin tragedies in which choirboys sang at the Jesuitic College at Goa in the presence of the Viceroy of the Portuguese State of India. At one particular service performed at the beginning of the school term in 1564, a choir sang accompanied by a harpsichord and violins. Also in Cochin that same year, a Greek tragedy was performed on opening day and at the end of the five acts there was a musical interlude with vocals, flutes, shawms and viols. The following year for the same celebration they put on a tragicomedy about the New Testament parable of the prodigal son in which a harp, flutes and shawms played. 40

Fr. Alessandro Valignano referred to music from the Jesuitic College at Bassein in an account in 1579. He said they sang mass in plyphony in his church and performed other services just like in Goa, but unlike them he did not have the advantage of Portuguese choirboys making it necessary to arrange singers from further afield which was quite difficult. 41 With regard to the Jesuitic College at Cochin, he reported that on Sundays and holidays they also sang in polyphony at mass and in the services. However it was just as hard for them as in Bassein because there were no singing teachers in India of European music of course, and it became necessary for some of the Brothers to teach children to sing and to plead for singers from abroad. 42

Certain performances were apparently sung in the local language, as they did in Coulão, twelve leagues south of Goa, for Christmas in 1567 when Fr. Manuel de Barros staged a Nativity scene and taught some local boys to be sheperds and others to sing the festive words, possibly in Tamul.43

One of the first probable references to sacred European music and Indian music coming together was in 1513 as told by Afonso de Alburquerque, Viceroy of the Portuguese State of India:

"O Gouernador sempre comia com trombetas e atabales. Diante da casa auia hum grande terreiro onde estauão os naiques, capitães da gente da terra, cada hum dozentos piães, que estarão derrador do terreiro com suas armas, que cada Domingo vinhão dar vista ao Gouernador, e estauão assy postos em ordem derrador do terreiro, com seus tangeres e trombetinhas, que são muyto guerreiros, e antre elles hum que tangia huma trombeta de cobre de duas braças, direita, que era ouuida sobre todas, que fazia hum som de guerra espantoso, que esta tangia de quando em quando.

E vinhão a terreiro muytas mulheres bailadeiras com seus tangeres, que a ysso ganhão sua uida, que bailauão e cantauão em quanto duraua o comer [...]."

("The governor always dined with trumpets and kettledrums. In front of the house there was a grand courtyard where all the ships' crew, local captains and farm workers, each captain having two hundred peons, assembled with their arms, for each Sunday they visited the governor. They were all lined up in the courtyard with their drummers and trumpeters, who were very warlike, and leading them was one playing a fanfare trumpet• two braças [approx.: one fathom] long, which was heard above all the rest. It made a frightening warlike sound and was played intermittently.

Many professional female dancers gathered in the courtyard with their instruments and they played and sang throughout the festivities [...].").44

In 1585, the Third Provincial Council of Goa decree that women could not learn to dance, play or sing Deqhanins_nor other festive dances and courtly songs, most ceretainly for the same reason because in order to protect the converted from Hindu contamination, they tried to keep them away from Hindu schools, temples and their own ceremonies. ”45

FACING PAGE:

Lute player and singer.

Detail of one of a pair of nanban screens, with six panels each, depicting "Social Customs of Foreigners".

Unknown Artist.

Seventeenth century. Ink on paper. 93.0 cm x 302.0 cm, each screen.

Moritatisu Hosokawa Collection, Tokyo.

In: COOPER, Michael - EBISAWA, Arimichi - GUTIÉRREZ, Fernando -PACHECO, Diego, The Southern Barbarians: The First Europeans in Japan, Tokyo - Palo Alto/Califórnia, Kodanssha International Ltd. - Sophia University/ Tokyo, ill. p. 166.

Some Portuguese noblemen maintained their own private music chapel. For example there is a report of a certain Guilherme Pereira, who went to China twice as a captain, "[...] e que tinha a mor casa e aparato de nunca teve português na Índia, de viso-rei abaixo, porque trazia mais de trezentas pessoas em sua casa, e tirados alguns feitores seus, todos os mais eram seus cativos, e tinha sempre em sua casa mestre de capela com charamelass, frautas, violas de arco." ("[...] and had the grandest house and grounds belonging to a Portuguese gentleman in India, from the Viceroy down. His household had morte than three hundred people who were mostly slaves apart from the administrators. He always had his chapel master in residence along with instruments including shawms, flutes and rebecs."). 46

In 1584 at the Jesuitic Colégio de S. Paulo (St. Paul's College) in Macao, which was founded twelve years earlier, there were more than two hundred students who learned to read, write and count as well as music. 47 But the most interesting case of a Portuguese musician in China is without doubt that of the Fr. Tomás Pereira S. J. (°1645-†1708), who finished his studies at the St. Paul's College where he was taking lessons. He was summoned by the court of the Kangxi emperor in 1672, on the recommendation of a Belgian astronomer, Ferdinand Verbiest S. J., who had heard of his talent. A chief ambassador ordfered him escorted there by two mandarins. He spent the rest of his life in Beijing, where he built several organs, some commissioned by the emperor himself. Among them was a mechanical or automatic organ, which played Chinese melodies and included a set of bells. A letter from 1681 spoke of one of the organs which the said Fr. Tomás Pereira had built which, "[...] que foi tal o aplauso e concurso que teve, que fomos obrigados a por soldadesca na Igreja e seu pateo, para evitar desordens dos gentios; [...] sendo obrigado o Autor a tanger mais de hum mez inteiro cada dia muitas horas, e muitas dellas a cada quarto para dar vasão a muita gente que corria e se renovava a cada quarto de hora." ("[...] the applause was so much and the crowd large that we were forced to soldier them into the church and churchyard to avoid disturbances among the people [...] the performer was obliged to play for more than a whole month for many hours everyday, and many of the spectators were ushered out every fifteen minutes to allow others in."). 48

On one particular occasion Fr. Tomás Pereira was called to the emperor's palace to play an organ and a harpsichord which the Jesuits had presented him. Right away the Portuguese musician copied several Chinese melodies, which the emperor and his musician had performed, into manuscript and immediately played them back. Such skill greatly impressed the emperor and he was overjoyed. He ordered a book on the theory of Chinese music to be written by Fr. Tomás Pereira and the Italian Fr. Teodoro Pedrini. Furthermore Kangxi even had the Tratado de Música Prática e Especulativa (Treatise of Practical and Speculative Music), possibly an earlier work of Fr. Tomás Pereira's, translated into Tartar [ Lü Zhengyi (Musical Temperament) ]. The emperor ordered the building of a maginficent tomb for which he wrote his own epitaph. 49

Japan appears to have been quite well studied and many books of great merit have been written on the subject because of the interest taken by their own researchers. 50 The first mention in the West of Japanese music appears in a description of a Shinto ritual which was performed in Goa by captain João Álvares for St. Francis Xavier, in 1547. The first Portuguese reactions to Japanese music are found in the writings of Fr. Luís Fróis (°1532-†1597; Japan arr. 1563-†1597) or Fr. Lourenço Mexia (°1540-†1599) whose opinion was quite disparaging. Both thought Japanese music was dissonant and unpleasant. In addition the Japanese themselves held a similar opinion of Western music. Bearing this fact in mind, a fact due to a basic incompatibility between the system or systems of Japanese music and that of the West, one must admire even more the speed and perfection with which the converted Japanese learned Western music as taught by the Jesuits. They became multi-cultural musicians and credit must be given for their musical abilities which justify their reputed curiosity for other cultures and capacity to assimilate anything new.

On his first visit to Japan, St. Francis Xavier offered a musical clock and probably a clavichord• to the Yamaguchi daimyo. Later, in 1551, Duarte da Gama disembarked in Funai to the sound of flutes and shawms, the very instruments which a few years later would already be used in the Jesuit schools to accompany religious choral works. In Funai again, in 1565, Jesuit disciples sang canticles on Saturday accompanied by violins, and on Sundays and holidays they sang polyphonic motets‚ It is worth noting that the Japanese kokyu, a three or four stringed viol, which appeared only at the end of the sixteenth century, originated from the Portuguese fiddle. • In 1577, Br. Organtino wrote to Rome suggesting that if they dispatched organs, musical instruments and singers to the missions, Kyoto and Sakai would be completely converted within a year. In reply to this request Fr. Alessandro Valignano brought over with him organs, admittedly portable ones and other instruments as well. There are various eye witness of accounts of how harpsichords, violins and above all organs were admired by the Japanese. Among the disciples at the Seminary of Arima was Fr. Luís Shiozuka (°1576-†1637) who became famous as an instrumental and choir master and worked in Macao and Manila before returning to Japan where he was killed as a martyr.

A famous story of the Jesuit missionaries in Japan concerns the official European visit of four young Japanese princes [ sic ], organised by Fr. Alessandro Valignano., about which more than eighty different accounts were reported in Europe. After leaving Nagasaki in 1582, the four young men stayed in Macao and Cochin for two and a half years where they studied music among other things. After the welcoming festivities in Lisbon, they then moved on to Évora, were they played the organ in Sé (Cathedral), the only one with three keyboards of this standart in existence in Portugal. Next they went to Vila Viçosa where they played the harpsichord and violins of the Duke of Bragança, Dom Teodósio II. In every place the young 'ambassadors' were also welcomed with both religious and profane music. Upon returning to Rome they were received by the Pope and this meeting is depicted in a mural which commemorated their visit.

On their way back, they played the organ in Évora and sung a "Te Deum" in the Sé.

The entry in Rome of the Four Japanese delegates.

Fresco.

Vatican Library, Vatican.

In: COOPER, Michael - EBISAWA, Arimichi - GUTIÉRREZ, Fernando - PACHECO, Diego, The Southern Barbarians: The first Europeans in Japan, Tokyo - Palo Alto/California, Kodansha International Ltd. - Sophia University/Tokyo, ill. p.46.

A dairy of their trip to Europe, published in Macao in 159051 included an account of a conversation between one of them and two converted Japanese in which European music were compared. On their return to Japan, in the presence of the dictator Tomotomi Hideyoshi, they were made to listen to his musicians sing and play harp, harpsichord, lute, fiddle, rebec, and barrel-organ• or portable organ. One of them Martinho Hara, would finally die in Macao in 1629. In 1593 a group of 'blacks' from a Portuguese ship danced before the same Hideyoshi to the sound of a flute and a tambourine, one of the first accounts of contact between Japanese and 'black' Africans. On another occasion Hideyoshi wanted them to wash in front of him because he did not believe it was their natural colour.

A curious type of organ made out of bamboo sticks began being built in Jesuit seminaries in Japan, of which an example still survives from the nineteenth century, restored and in working order in the church of las Piñas, in the outskirsts of Manila. It is also thanks to the Jesuits that two liturgical books with a total of thirty pieces copied into musical notation, were published in Japan from the end of the sixteenth century to the beginning of the seventeenth. Further vestiges of the presence of European music are to be found in a few paintings and silk screens on religious themes or of European scenes in various European instruments are depicted (especially harps and lutes and vihuelas).• Certain religious chants of European origin also exist, some which appear to come from Gregorian chant, which Christian communities in southern Japan have continued to use.

The presence and influence of other musical cultures in Portugal appears to have been sporadic, apart from one exception which will later be mentioned. For example, the case of Rui Gonçalves da Câmara, appointed captain of the Island of São Miguel, in the Azores, who took five Indian slaves there "[...] que tangiam charamelas e violas de arco‚• que era uma realeza haver isto nesta terra [...]" (“[...] who played shawms and viols and it was such a magnificent thing to have this on this land [...]”)52but who all died soon after, perhaps because they could not adapt to the climate.

Clearly all 'black' slaves who were being shipped to Portugal in huge numbers from the first half of the fifteenth century were an exception. The four centuries of their presence in Portugal were the subject of a fascinating study published in 1988 by José Tinhorão. Nevertheless, the author classified this presence as a "silent one" in the book's subtitle. The fact is that he quotes the account of an Italian who visited Lisbon at the end of the sixteenth century, according to him, "[...] while the Portuguese seem so serious, always going about sad and melancholic, unaccustomed to geiety even while eating or driking for fear of being seen, the slaves appeared to always be happy and do nothing but laugh, sing, dance and become drunk in all the public squares." The oldest account we have of the dances of African slaves in Portugal is from 1451, during the celebrations which took place in Lisbon to commemorate the marriage of Princess Leonar, the king Dom Afonso V's sister, with Frederik III, the German emperor. 53

However already by 1559, a year after king Dom Sebastião's death in Ksar-el-Kebir, a Law decreed that:

"Na cidade de Lisboa & h～ua legoa ao redor della se não faça ajuntamento de escrauos, nem bailos, neem tangeres seus, de dia, nem de noite, em dias de festa nem pela semana, sob pena de serem presos, & os que tangerem ou bailarem, pagarem cada hum mil reaes para quem os prender, e os～q bailarem, & forem presos, por estarem presentes, pagar～e quinh～etos reaes."

("In the city of Lisbon and within one league thereabouts, there is to be no gathering of slaves, or dancing, or the playing of music day or night, on Holy days or weekdays under the penalty of imprisonment. Those arrested who play or those who dance must pay one thousand reais per person and bystanders will be arrested and must pay five hundred reais."). 54

Tinhorão comments that the aim of such a Law was to counterattack the continuation of 'black' African religious cults. Yet the conversion of 'black' Africans to Christianity would reach the other extreme resulting in the foundation of irmandades (Sisterhoods and Brotherhoods) and confrarias (Confraternities) with the purpose of defending their own traditions., under the refuge of religious protection, namely of the Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Homens Pretos (Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Black People), aligned to the church of São Domingos (St. Dominic), in Lisbon.

Diplomatic relations were firmly established in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries between the Portuguese crown and the Congolese king (which also lead to the ordination of one of his sons). Because of this connection, members of that Brotherhood staged autos and processions for the coronation of the Congolese kings. These enactments were still performed until the mid-nineteenth century, ultimately developing into a creative society formed for 'blacks' in Lisbon which took the name of 'Reino do Império do Congo' ('Imperial Kingdom of Congo') and organised balls and had its own royal court.

From early on 'black' Africans also took part in religious processions, especially the procession of the Corpo de Deus (Corpus Christi), the collection of alms, and pilgrimages, either with their dances like the frenzied lundum or in their skill as public criers playing fifes, cornets, fiddles and drums. They dressed in scarlet uniforms and wore caps or twin-peaked hats. In an early sixteenth century panel on display in the church of Madre de Deus (Mother of God), in Lisbon, there is a depiction of such a group of black musicians playing four shawms and a sackbut. •55 Likewise, in a description from 1730 of the festival of Nossa Senhora do Rosário (Our Lady of the Rosary) celebrated in the church of Salvador (Holly Saviour), one can read that three marimbas, • four fifes, two old rebecs, tambourines, conga drums• and wood • and an exaggerated number of three hundred Jew's harps gathered in the churchyard. 56

Unfortunately it is impossible to imagine how the songs and dances of Lisbon's 'black' Africans sounded between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. They suffered the same destiny as popular and traditional music in general of being lost in time memorial since their music was not transcribed. A collection still in existence attempts to show their musical style even though it is in conventional music annotation. It deals with vilancicos (secular hymns) written in Portuguese as spoken by 'blacks', and makes constant references to dances, instruments and the imitation of siounds from nature in their native tongue accompanied with music in dance rhythms.

Religious vilancicos appear to have folkloric roots and were extensively developed in Portugal, Spain and Latin America in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The main chorus in between each stanza was composed vy European choirmasters for the festivities of Christmas and the Day of Kings (7th of January), often using the Nativity theme. Paintings depicting the three kings arriving in Bethlehem and these Oriental figures (with whom gypsies, moors and 'blacks' could identify themselves) participating in the adoration of the new born baby Jesus showed how Christian Faith welcomed everyone. This show of democratic eucumenism is conveyed in the following verses from a vilancico sung in the Royal Chapel in Lisbon, in 1658:

"Pol criara de la casa

venimo tanta de genta

de Angola y de Cabo Verde

de la China y de la Persia.

No venimo como escrava

sino como cabayera.", or

("Poor servants we are

comin' so many of us

from Angola and Cape Verde

Angola an' Persia.

As gentlemen we came

and not as slaves."). 57

The way how Nativity scenes showed the king of Arabia, Balthazar, as a 'black' man reinforced the participation of the 'blacks' in Christmas celebrations. Another vilancico from the Royal Chapel refers to young 'blacks' dressed in scarlet costumes and red caps just as they appeared in the Corpuis Christi processions. Nevertheless it is impossible to know for sure if the characters that appear dancing, playing, and singing in these secular poems of broken Portuguese in Portugal were in fact 'blacks' from Angola, Cape Verde or Guinea as sources indicate, or just European musicians imitating them.

To end this rapid musical voyage over four continents through the centuries, several aspects have been omitted so here at least a few final comments.

The Portuguese were in fact sufficiently impressed by indigenous music from the different peoples with whom they came into conmtact because their travelogs included mention of it. However the majority of these documented accounts were made by non musicians therefore obviously their writings on the subject were imprecise and sporadic and often made use of literary styles from the time which marred an objective interpretation. For this reason it is generally impossible to identify with even vague certainty and even more impossible to classify the diverse types of music referred to. Only rarely does one come across a slight concern for taking detailed note of the instruments and the way they were played. On the one hand what music the Portuguese did encounter was music from an oral tradition and since the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries it has been transformed and modified right down to its very roots. On the other hand these same cultures and social groups have reorganised and transformed themselves and no longer bear any resemblance to the majority of those described in Portuguese accounts from the past.

Today very few hand accounts of the music taken by the Portuguese to Asia, Africa and America survive. This can be blamed on frequent historical inaccuracies, the decline of Catholicism, and naturally the damaging effect tropical conditions have on any document. With the exception of a few cases where Portuguese presence continued to be significant until the twentieth century, only isolated examples exist where there are disputable remnants of encounters between traditional music and European music from the sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries. This often happens in the heart of small cryptochristian communities which are still a living testimony of the past's racial and cultural misogony.

In the case of the Jesuits, and keeping in mind the importance music had in their teachings and evangelising, it is quite surprising that even in Europe musical sources with reference to them are lacking. As documents at our disposal do not normally make references to specific musical works, it is altogether impossible to pose a general hypothesis about the diverse types of religious, secular and erudite music which the Portuguese took to far off places because we have no means which enable us to relate these hypothesis to a collection of specific musical works.

With reference and interaction between the musical traditions of the Portuguese and the local traditions of other peoples, apart from the previously mentioned exceptions, practical attempts to embrace local traditions were rare as spreading Catholicism was their sole objective. The main problem of the musical relationship between the Portuguese and other races seems to be the same problem which affected their cultural relations in general. Portuguese culture was dominated by the Catholic religion, which was characterised in that period by an intense proselytism: conversion of non-Catholics to the new religion. This proselytism signified, up to a certain point, the negation of the parts of other cultures which were original and different. This attitude was at loggerheads with the undeniable capacity the Portuguese had to interrelate and mix with other cultures and races in a spontaneous way. However, when this process of proselytismbecame deep rooted and permanent, as in the case of Brazil, a new culture arose which also produced an extraordinary synthesis of different musical traditions.

At an ideological level we must keep in mind that a democratic and unbiased view of relationships between other races and different cultures is a modern concept. However, casting aside historical conditioning from the period they lived in, the Portuguese at the time of the Discoveries were pioneers of a sort of mutual interrelationship between other races from the East and West and this same pioneering attitude is also found reflected in the field of music interrelationships. □

Translated from the Portuguese by: Linda Pearce

PORTUGUESE LEXICON

Alaúde = Lute

Anafin = Moorish copper vertical trumpet

Argolas = Jingles

Assobio = Whistle

Atabale = Atabal / Kettledrum

Atabaque -- See: Atabale

Avena = Reed pipe

Bacias = Tymbals

Baixão = Violone

Berimbau = Jew's harp

Búzio = Conch

Cabaça = Gourd

Cangá = Wood block

Cítara = Zither

Charamela = Shawm

Chocalho = Rattle

Clavicórdio = Clavichord

Congo = Conga drum

Contrabaixo = Contrabass

Corneta = Bugle / Cornet

Corneta grande = Clarion

Cravo = Harpsichord

Doçaina = Flageolet

Fagote = Bassoon

Ferro = Triangle

Flauta = Flute

Flauta-de-Pã = Syrinx

Frauta -- See: Flauta

Gaita = Pipe

Gaita de foles = Bagpipe

Harpa = Harp

Marimba = Marimba

Nésperas (arch.) = Shakers

Órgão = Organ

Pandeiro = Tambourine

Parapada = African horn clarion

Pífaro = Fife

Pluriarco = Archlute

Quissange = African xilophone / Zanza

Rabeca = Fiddle

Realejo = Barrel-organ

Sacabuxa = Sackbut

Sansa = Zanza

Sestro (arch.) = Sistrum

Sino = Bell

Soalhas = Plates

Tambor = Tom tom / Drum

Tambor pequeno = Bongos

Tamborim = Timbrel / Tabor

Tamborina -- See: Tamborim.

Trombeta = Trumpet

Trombeta bastarda = Bombardon

Trombeta de cobre = Fanfare trumpet

Trombeta de madeira = Clarinet

Vihuela = Old Iberian musical instrument, shaped like the guitar but strung like a lute / Guitar

Viola = Viol / Viola

Viola de duas cordas = Two-stringed viol

Viola de arco = Rebec

Viola grande = Violoncello / Viola da gamba

Violino = Violin

Xilofone = Xylophone

This article is an adaptation of the paper presented in October 1989 at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, in Shatin / New Territories (with the support of the Fundação Oriente (Orient Foundation)); at the Centro Cultural Sir Robert Ho Tung (Sir Robert Ho Tung Cultural Centre), in Macao (with the support of the Fundação Oriente and the Instituto Cultural de Macau (Macao Cultural Institute)); and at the Chulalongkorn University, in Bangkok (with the support of the Fundação Oriente and the Embassy of Portugal in Thailand).

NOTES

1 MORAIS, Domingos, Os Instrumentos Musicais e as Viagens dos Portugueses, Lisboa, Instituto de Investigação Científica e Tropical - Museu de Etnologia, 1986, p. 13

2 STEVENSON, Robert, Iberian Musical Outreach Before the Encounter with the New World, in "Inter-American Music Review", Los Angeles, 8 (2) Spring-Summer 1987, pp. 13-99.

3 CASTANHEDA, Fernão Lopes de, História do descobrimento e conquista da Índia pelos portugueses. 3^a edição Conforme a edição princeps revista e anotada por Pedro Azevedo, 4 vols., Coimbra, Imprensa da Universidade, 1924, vol.1, chap.3, p.13.

4 BACON, Leonard, trans., The Lusiads of Luis de Camões New York, Hispanic Society of America, 1950, p. 190 [Translated from "Os Lusiadas" edited by F. S. Lencastre, Lisboa, 1927, Song [Canto] V, [strophe] LVIII, lines 5-8].

5 STEVENSON, Robert, op. cit., pp. 98-99 -- Qouting: CASTANHEDA, Fernão Lopes de, História do descobrimento e conquista da Índia pelos portugueses. 3^a edição Conforme a edição princeps revista e anotada por Pedro Azevedo, 4 vols., Coimbra, Imprensa da Universidade, 1924, vol.1, chap. 12.

6 MORAIS, Domingos, op. cit., p.16 -- Quoting: PIGAFETTA, Filippo, Relação do Reino do Congo e das Terras Circunvizinhas, Lisboa 1949 [1st edition, Roma, 1591].

7 Ibidem., pp. 14-15

8 DIAS, Margot, Instrumentos Musicais de Moçambique, Lisboa, Instituto de Investigação Científica e Tropical-Centro de Antropologia Cultural e Social, 1986, pp. 34-45 -- Quoting: CORREIA, Gaspar, Lendas da Índia (1497-1550), 4 vols., Porto, Lello & Irmãos, 1975.

9 SANTOS, João dos, Etiópia Central, Lisboa, Biblioteca dos Clássicos Portugueses, 1891, pp. 73-75.

10 Ibidem., pp. 75-76.

11 CATZ, Rebecca D., trans., "The Travels of Mendes Pinto, Chicago - London, The University of Chicago Presss, 1969, p.111 [Translated from a facsimile of the 1614 editio princeps published by Tenri Central Library, Tokyo, 1973].

See: PINTO, Fernão Mendes, Peregrinação, Lisboa, Afrodite Fernando Ribeiro de Mello, 1971, p.199-- For the original Portuguese version of these passage. In the following notes 11 to 19, pages indicated between square brackets [] refer to this edition].

12 Ibidem., p.14--[p.25].

13 Ibidem., p.70--[p.125].

14 Ibidem., p.431 --[pp. 779-780].

15 Ibidem., p.352--[pp. 631-632].

16 Ibidem., p.22 --[p.40].

17 Ibidem., p.355--[p.638].

18 Ibidem., p.357 --[pp. 641-642].

19 Ibidem., pp.129-134--[pp. 231-240].

20 Ibidem., p.238--[pp. 421-422].

21 STEVENSON, Robert, op. cit., p.99 -- Quoting: BARROS, João de, Décadas da Ásia: Década I: 1552, Lisboa, Livraria Sá da Costa, 1945, p. 103.

22 ALVARENGA, Oneyda, Música Popular Brasileira, Rio de Janeiro, Globo, 1960, p.19.

23 BETTENCOURT, Gastão de, História Breve da Música no Brasil, Lisboa, Secção de Intercâmbio Luso-Brasileiro do Secretaria Nacional de Informação, 1945, p.20

24 LEITE, Serafim, Cantos, Músicas e Danças nas Aldeias do Brasil (séc. XVI), in "Brotéria", Lisboa, (24) 1937, pp. 42-52, p.43; LEITE, Serafim, A Música nas Primeiras Escolas do Brasil, in "Brotéria", Lisboa, (44) 1947, pp. 377-390, p.382.

25 ALVARENGA, Oneyda, op. cit., p.20.

26 Idem.

27 LEITE, Serafim, (1947), op. cit., p.386

28 Ibidem., p.379.

29 Ibidem., pp. 382-383; ALVARENGA, Oneyda, op. cit., p.20.

30 Ibidem., p.21.

31 Ibidem., pp. 21-22.

32 Ibidem., pp. 22-23.

33 LANGE, Francisco Curt, La Actividad Musical en la Capitania General de Minas Gerais (Brasil): La Formación de los Compositores Mulatos, in CONGRÉS DE MUSIQUES ET INFLUENCES CULTURELLES RÉCIPROQUES ENTRE L'EUROPE ET L'AMÉRIQUE LATINE DU XVI^ÈME AU XX^ÈME SIÈCLE (CONGRESS ON MUSICS AND RECIPROCAL CULTURAL INFLUENCES BETWEEN EUROPE AND LATIN AMERICA FROM THE XVI^TH TO THE XX^TH CENTURIES), Bruxelles, 1983 -- [ Actes du Congrés (Proccedings of...) ]; in MAYER, René, ed., "Buletin du Musée d'Instruments Musicaux", Bruxelles, (16) 1986, pp. 145-149, p.158.

34 LANGE, Francisco Curt, Las Hermanadades de Santa Cecilia y su Propagación desde Lisboa hacia el Brasil, in CONGRÉS DE MUSIQUES ET INFLUENCES CULTURELLES RÉCIPROQUES ENTRE L'EUROPE ET L'AMÉRIQUE LATINE DU XVI^ÈME AU XX^ÈME SIÈCLE (CONGRESS ON MUSICS AND RECIPROCAL CULTURAL INFLUENCES BETWEEN EUROPE AND LATIN AMERICA FROM THE XVI^THTO THE XX^THCENTURIES), Bruxelles, 1983 -- [ Actes du Congrés (Proccedings of...) ]; in MAYER, René, ed., "Bulletin du Musée d'Instruments Musicaux", Bruxelles, (16) 1986, pp. 109-121.

35 STEVENSON, Robert, Portuguese Music and Musicians Abroad (to 1650), Lima, Pacific Press, 1966, p. 17.

36 VEIGA, Manuel da, Relação Geral do Estado da Cristandade da Etiópia, Lisboa, Mateus Pinheiro, 1628, fol. 37.

37 STEVENSON, Robert, (1966), op. cit., pp. 16, 26.

38 Ibidem., p.16; GOUVEIA, António de, Relaçam que se Tratam as Guerras e Grandes Vitórias que Alcançou o Grande Rei da Pérsia, Lisboa, Pedro Crasbeeck, 1611, fol. 207.

39 MARTINS, Mário, Teatro Quinhentista nas Naus da Índia, Lisboa, Brotéria, 1973.

40 MARTINS, Mário, Teatro Sagrado nas Cristandades da Índia Portuguesa (séc. XVI), in "Didaskalia", Coimbra, (5) 1975, pp. 155-190, pp. 158, 165-166, 170.

41 RÊGO, António da Silva, Documentação para a História das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente, 12 vols., Lisboa, Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1947-1958, vol.12, pp. 492-493.

42 Ibidem., pp. 502-503.

43 MARTINS, Mário, (1986), op. cit., p179.

44 CORREIA, Gaspar, Lendas da Índia (1497-1550), 4 vols., Porto, Lello & Irmãos, 1975, vol.2, pp. 363-364.

45 SALDANHA, Mariano José Gabriel, A cultura da Música Europeia em Goa, in "Estudos Ultramarinos", (6) 1956, pp. 3-4.

46 FRUTUOSO, Gaspar, Saudades da Terra, Ponta Delgada, Tipografia do Diário dos Açores, 1926, bk. VI, p.279.

47 TEIXEIRA, Manuel, Macau no Século XVI, Macau, Direcção dos Serviços de Educação e Cultura, 1981, p.66.

48 CANHÃO, Joel, Um Músico Português do Século XVII na Corte de Pequim: O Padre Tomás Pereira, in "Boletim da Associação Portuguesa da Educação Musical", Lisboa (55) Out.-Dez. [October-December] 1987, pp. 9-15, p. 10.

49 Ibidem., pp. 9-15.

50 WATERHOUSE, David, Southern Barbarian Music in Japan: 1542/3-1639, in CASTELO-BRANCO, Salwa El-Shawan, ed., "O Encontro de Culturas na Música: Portugal e o Mundo", Lisboa, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, [forthcoming] -- The base the short abstract.

51 SANDE, Eduardo de, De Missione Legatorum Iaponen Sium ad Romanam curiam, rebusq; in Europa, ac toto itinere animadvertiu. In Macaensi portu Sinici regni in domo sis Societatis IESV cum facultate ordinarij, et superiorum, Macau, 1590 [reprint: Tokyo, 1935].

52 FRUTUOSO, Gaspar, op. cit., bk. IV, p.309.

53 TINHORÃO, José Ramos, Os Negros de Portugal: Uma Presença Silenciosa, Lisboa, Caminho, 1988, pp. 113,115.

54 Ibidem., p.120.

55 ANDRADE, Sérgio Guimarães de, Os Músicos Negros do Retábulo de Santa Auta, in "Retábulo de Santa Auta: Estudo de Investigação", Lisboa, 1972, pp. 44-51.

56 TINHORÃO, José Ramos, op. cit., p.190.

57 Ibidem., pp. 148-149.

* Studied Music at the Conservatório Nacional de Lisboa (National Conservatory of Lisbon), Lisbon. MA in Germanic Philology from the Faculdade de Letras ( Faculty of Arts) of the Universidade de Lisboa (University of Lisbon), Lisbon. Ph. D from the King's College of the University of London, London. Associate Professor at the Departamento de Ciências Musicais (Department of Musical Sciences) of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (New University of Lisbon), Lisbon. Author of a number of publications on related topics, among others: Opera in Portugal in the Eighteenth Century -- for which he was awarded the Prémio de Ensaísmo e Investigção do Conselho Portruguês de Musica (Award for Essay and Research of the Portuguese Council of Music) -- and Estudos de História da Música em Portugal (Studies on the History of Music in Portugal).