André da Silva Gomes (1752-1844) - Missa em Sol maior (c.1790)

Описание: Autor: André da Silva Gomes (1752-1844)
Obra: Missa em Sol maior (c.1790)
Intèrprets: Amеricantiga; Ricardo Bеrnardеs (conductor)

Pintura: Jenaro Pérez Villaamil (1807-1854) - The Chapel of the Benavente Family in Medina de Rioseco (1842)

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André da Silva Gomes
(Lisboa, bap. 15 December 1752 - São Paulo, 16 June 1844)

Portuguese composer. Little is known about his early years. It is believed that he may have received lessons from or at least been influenced by David Pérez, a Neapolitan composer of Spanish descent, Master of the Royal Palatine Chapel of Palermo, who lived in Portugal for several years as Master of the Imperial Chapel of Lisbon. Pérez developed significant pedagogical activities in Portugal. An influential composer of opera seria, David Pérez directed all the musical life of José I court until the end of his life, influencing all Portuguese composers of his time. It is unknown whether André da Silva Gomes had already moved to Brazil or if he came specifically to take up the position of Master of Chapel at the cathedral of the city of São Paulo in 1774 under the bishop Frei Manuel da Ressurreição. Among his duties, he was in charge of reorganizing the choir and repertoire of the cathedral to avoid the hybridization of sacred music and operatic music, a practice that the governor of the captaincy of São Paulo, Luís Antônio Botelho de Sousa Mourão, had banned. In addition to the tendency to purify the profane sounds of sacred music (mainly coming from opera or theatrical music), encouraged by the governor of the Captaincy of São Paulo, but probably resulting from the Encyclical Annus qui hunc (1749) of Pope Benedict XIV, André da Silva Gomes found himself, in São Paulo, in an urban environment and a cathedral lacking resources, initially counting, in this church, almost exclusively on the organist Inácio Xavier de Carvalho. Was then he founded a free music school and gathered an orchestra. In 1775 he married to Maria Garcia de Jesus with whom he had no children, but the couple adopted 16 children and provide them, besides the surname, formal and musical education. In 1789, he joined the military career where he conducted the musical corporation. In 1797 he was appointed as a teacher in Latin Grammar. With the coronation of Pedro I of Brazil in São Paulo in 1822, he directed his Te Deum in the cathedral in honor of the future emperor. The same year, when the independence of Brazil was proclaimed he was in charge of the musical solemnities in São Paulo. As a composer, his extant output is over than 130 works, mainly sacred.