Avondano's Lisbon Minuets, the Establishment of a Cosmopolitan Model

Abstract

The Portuguese composer Pedro António Avondano (ca.1714-1782) was the foremost member of an important family of musicians of Italian ancestry established in Portugal. He studied with his father, Pietro Giorgio Avondano, a Genoese violinist and composer who became member of the Portuguese Royal Chapel from 1719 onwards, his son became himself a violinist in the same chapel from 1764 until 1782. In 1765 after the period of relative chaos in the Irmandade de Santa Cecília (the musicians’ union of Lisbon), caused by the damages of 1755 earthquake, Avondano had a central role in the reorganization of this institution. Later the musician became a Knight of the Order of Christ, in 1767, an honour he had purchased for the amount of 480,000 réis. Cultivating the most important musical genres in Portugal in this period, Avondano wrote mainly vocal music, from which we refer, for example, the dramma giocoso - Il mondo della luna (1765) and several oratorios. However, he was one of the rare composers that in this period left us some good instrumental works like keyboard sonatas and tocattas, a symphony and the minuets that we are concerned in this study. On the basis of what we know of his biography we may assume that the purpose of this repertoire was to produce music suitable for the domestic Assemblies of the middle and upper classes, mainly dance music that occupies a central role in the musical programs of these gatherings. As a matter of fact, Pedro Avondano promoted balls and concerts in his own house, specially for the foreign community living in Lisbon (the so-called “Assembly of the Foreign Nations”), from which most Portuguese natives were banned, with the exception of the most prominent members of the local bourgeoisie and aristocracy who were regularly invited. As far as we know, his Long Room, known as Casa da Assembleia do Bairro Alto, opened at least since 1761.