Gazeta musical

Gazeta Musical, also Gazeta Musical e de todas as Artes from 1958 until 1971, was a music journal of cultural relevance during the 1950s and 1960s. It lasted for over three decades, from 1950 until 1998, but the main corpus and its regular publication ended August 1962, with issue number 137. From there, the journal published annual issues until 1971 to maintain ownership of the title. These are much smaller in comparison with the previous period, with fewer pages per issue, and often included the republication of articles from previous issues and other journals. A third series attempted to revitalize the journal, resuming its original name (Gazeta Musical), but it resulted in only two issues – May 1972 and November 1973. Three more issues would appear later, corresponding to the fourth and fifth series of the journal. A single issue from 1990 is an homage to Luís de Freitas Branco, its first director, and the last two are bulletins of the school Academia de Amadores de Música. The run edited by RIPM comprises the series 1-3, excluding four issues from the 1962-1971 period that had no music-related content.

Gazeta Musical was published monthly until August 1962, although the periodicity was sometimes interrupted with the publication of double issues, with each issue containing eight to twenty pages. It featured a sober look, especially during the first series; with the reformulation of its identity in 1958 and the introduction of artistic content, it began to include more images, namely reproductions of the artworks from the different exhibitions it covered. 

Despite these changes, the editorial team remained fixed for the great majority of Gazeta Musical’s publication. The journal was a project of a group of friends, music collaborators, and members of the Academia de Amadores de Música: the poet and literary and music critic João José Cochofel (1919-1982); the composer and musicologist Fernando Lopes-Graça (1906-1994); the music critic, composer, and music teacher Francine Benoît (1894-1990); the pianist and music teacher Maria Vitória Quintas; and the pianist Maria da Graça Amado da Cunha (1919-2001). Luís de Freitas Branco (1890-1955), composer, professor, and music critic, was invited to be the director of the journal to avoid the suspicion of the censorship services. It was thought that Cochofel, Lopes-Graça, or Benoît would not be authorized to direct the journal, as all had connection to leftwing ideology and opposed to the dictatorial regime. As such, this was a cautious measure to ensure the success of Gazeta Musical, but Freitas Branco was no mere front name: in fact, he contributed to the journal with articles and music criticism during its early days. Maria Vitória Quintas would substitute for Freitas Branco from the double issue December 1953/January 1954. Cochofel was the editor of the journal until 1973 and a prolific writer, contributing significantly to the concert review, radio programme, and book review sections. The close proximity of Gazeta Musical with the Academia de Amadores de Música is clear throughout the complete run of the journal, publishing news, articles, and announcements about the activities of the school.

During its first series Gazeta Musical was dedicated solely to music content and had a strict sectional structure: “Bibliografia musical,” a review of music books; “Música gravada,” reviews of recordings produced by companies such as Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, His Master’s Voice, Decca, Philips, Supraphon, Vox, and Columbia; “Música radiofónica,” a summary of and comments on radio programmes from foreign stations and the Portuguese Emissora Nacional; “Programas radiofónicos recomendados,” a selection of radio programmes transmitted from Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom (this section remained throughout the entire run of Gazeta Musical); “Edições musicais,” reviews of music scores; and a music criticism section treating concerts from Lisbon and occasionally Porto. Opera and dance reviews appeared in 1954.  With the change of title to Gazeta Musical e de todas as Artes, the content necessarily expanded to other subjects and thus articles and essays about literature and artistic movements were included, alongside reviews of books, poetry, theatre productions and cinema. The list of collaborators increased over the time, in particularly after 1958, with new contributors discussing literature and visual arts, generally belonging to the neo-realist movement.

Among the articles that spanned several issues are “Questões  técnicas,” articles about music theory by Luís de Freitas Branco; “Nótulas de etnografia musical,” a series of articles about traditional music, oral literature traditions, and popular song by the ethnographer Porfírio Rebelo Bonito (1896-1969); “Crónica de França,” articles and music criticism from French musical life, written by foreign collaborators such as René Dumesnil (1879-1967) and Louis Saguer (1907-1991); a series of articles about urbanism by the historian and art critic Armando Vieira Santos (1903-1971); letters about literature and the connections between Portugal and Brazil by the poet and literary critic Jorge de Sena (1919-1978, he also signed some concert reviews); and the short stories by José Faure da Rosa (1912-1985).

The cultural intervention of the journal is frequently noticeable. For instance, in the diffusion and understanding of musical, literary, and artistic works from outside of the country, and in the publication of interviews and surveys with writers, philosophers, conductors, and composers which gathered views and opinions on different subjects, such as the opinion of writers about music, the opinion of Portuguese and Brazilian composers about the new languages of contemporary music, Portuguese cinema, the writer’s profession, and even a survey of the journal’s readers to determine their characteristics and to understand their taste and musical knowledge. Contemporary music played an important role in the identity of the journal. New styles, including the development of dodecaphonism, the legacy of composers such as Schoenberg and Webern, and new technics and experimentations with electronic music, namely by Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry around musique concrète, were discussed by composers and musicians alike. Articles were published on musical life and contemporary composers from The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Austria, in addition to interviews with composers including Serge Nigg (in 1951), Pierre Boulez (1953), Luigi Dallapiccola (1954), Paul Hindemith (1955), Henri Sauget (1955), Karlheinz Stockhausen (1955), Germaine Tailleferre (1956), and Heitor Villa Lobos, César Guerra-Peixe, Luís Cosme, and Camargo Guarnieri (1958-1959), in which their compositional process and opinions on contemporary music were discussed. Premieres of new works were announced and reviewed by the journal’s foreign correspondents. Articles and biographical notes concerning composers such as Bartók and Stravinsky were also included. Finally, the growth of importance of the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian and its role in the Portuguese cultural panorama is clearly reflected in the pages of Gazeta Musical.

This RIPM Index was produced from copies of the journal held by the Library of Congress, the Museu Nacional da Música (Lisbon) and the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal.