Fernando de Almeida (d. 1660): Tradition and Innovation in Mid-Seventeenth-Century Portuguese Sacred Music

Abstract

The Library of the Ducal Palace at Vila Vicosa preserves three large choirbooks of polyphonic repertoire intended for Holy Week, prepared between 1735 and 1736 by a copyist of the Patriarchal Church. These choirbooks contain all the known extant works by Fernando de Almeida (died in 1660). When comparing the music of Fernando de Almeida with that of his near contemporary Joao Lourenco Rebelo (1610-1661), the different trends in Portuguese early- to mid-seventeenth-century church music become clear, especially if viewed in the light of the acknowledged aesthetic and compositional premises explained in the 1649 Defensa de la mvsica moderna by King Joao IV. Rebelo’s concertato works incline towards the style of north-Italian composers. The ingenuity of Fernando de Almeida’s style, which is particularly noticeable in his eight-voice Holy Week responsories, lays in the integration of prominent Baroque features within the mould of Iberian Mannerist tradition.