The discourse on symphonic music in Lisbon in the last decades of the 19th century

During the last decades of the nineteenth century, Lisbon saw the appearance of somenew specialised music journals, which achieved a prominent place in the context of the localmusic scene. Having among their collaborators several of the leading gures of the musicallife of this period, their pages made room for the themes and concerns that marked the time. This is precisely the case of the growing interest shown towards symphonic music – particularlythe German –, at a time that witnessed an ongoing process of change in the musical life, in which symphonic and chamber music repertories gradually gained ground upon the establishedoperatic tradition. In such a process, the music critics and intellectuals active in the generalistpress and in the music journals seem, indeed, to have played a fundamental role. The presentpaper aims to examine the role played by those music periodicals and their collaborators inthe above-mentioned context, namely by exploring the discursive mechanisms operating in thatprocess of promotion of symphonic music which led it to a new status. Moreover, this paper alsoaims to identify the ideas and values upon which such validation of symphonic music is based,as well as to develop a diachronic perspective on their path along the journals’ existence. Finally,this paper attempts to provide an assessment of the repercussions that all this exerted in theconstruction of a certain perspective of symphonic music.