Viana da Mota e a tradição do Lied

Abstract

Although it may have happened, it is not certain that Viana da Mota was familiar with the work of Hugo Wolf during his years in Berlin. However, his Lieder, composed intermittently from the age of fifteen, show a remarkable assimilation of the German tradition and assume some formal characteristics that can be associated with the work of this composer. This article aims to situate Viana da Mota’s production in the context of the Germanic tradition of the Lied, as well as the influence that his songs had on Portuguese music in the twentieth century, namely on composers such as Fernando Lopes Graça and Joly Braga Santos. The individual characteristics in which this pianist and composer differentiates his works for piano and voice with German texts from those he composed with Portuguese texts, will also be discussed, and a series of musical performance problems raised by them is similarly addressed.