“Two Madeiran Manuscripts from the 19th Century for Classical Guitar”

Manuel Morais
Paulo Esteireiro

The instruments in common use [in Madeira]

are the machête, or machêtinho, the Spanish
guitar (viola Francesa), […]
Robert White, Madeira, its climate and
scenery. London, 1851, p. 38

In May 2009, on the “35.ª Feira do Livro do Funchal”, (“35th Book Fair of
Funchal”) we were able to acquire two madeiran 19th century manuscripts for classical
guitar. These are two compilations bound in oblong format, where they were copied a
diverse repertoire for classical guitar with six single strings. To facilitate their
description, we’ll refer to them as Ms. 1 and Ms. 2.
In Ms. 1 was pasted on its cover a small label that reads: Musics for Classical
Guitar / Belong of H. R. Teixeira. It consists of 22 sheets of good quality paper, which
have been previously printed with ten staves per page. No date can be found in them,
which forces us to collate some of the pieces annotated - at least by three copyists - with
the 19th century repertoire available, both Portuguese and foreign for this chordophone,
here also called french Guitar. Based on this, we tried to advance with a date for its
copy. In its three first pages, we found six pieces that were copied from the Methodo
para a Viola Franceza (Method for the french Classical Guitar), published in Oporto on
mid-nineteenth century, by Manuel Nunes Aguedo (fl. 1856), but they are arrangements
by João António Ribas (1799-1869)i. Three names were annotated in this collection,
two string players of 19th century guitar, and the one of a portuguese composer also of
this period. The first is famous Italian guitar player Giuliani (Mauro Giuliani, 1761-
1829), appointed author of a small Andantino. The second is M.[anuel] J.[oaquim]
M.[onteiro] Cabral (fl. 1801-c.1860) from Funchal, guitar-machete player, collector of
music from the earliest madeiran romances, as well as composer, represented by a Polka
Mazurkaii. The last one, is the portuguese composer, F. [rancisco] A. [ntonio] N.
                                                                                                                       
i
 Manuel Nunes Aguedo, Methodo para a Viola Franceza Extrahido de diversos methodos, por M. N.
Aguedo. Nova edição revista e correcta, com peças recreativas por João A. Ribas. Porto: C. A. Villa
Nova, [186-]. P-Ln, M. 3684 V., pp. 19-21: 12 Recreações para a Viola arranjadas facil por João A,
Ribas. For further repertoire for guitar from portuguese authors from this time, see Methodo Geral para a
Viola Franceza Extrahido de diversos Methodos os mais acreditados, por Manoel Nunes Aguedo. Porto,
1856. P-Ln, 2156 V. http://purl.pt/14637 (acesso em 10-III-2011).
ii
 It’s the only known piece by this composer writen for guitar solo. About this author, see O Machete
Madeirense no Séc. XIX / The Madeira Machete in the 19th Century. CD-Rom+Áudio. Funchal: Gabinete
Coordenador de Educação Artística, 2009, n.º 4; Sarau Musical no Funchal / Musical Soirée in Funchal.

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[orberto] dos Santos Pinto (1815-1860), represented by an arrangement (author
uncertain) for voice and guitar, of Romança, extracted from A Prophecia ou a Queda de
Jerusalem (The Prophecy or the fall of Jerusalem)iii. Given the dates listed here, we can
say, cautiously, that this manuscript was probably copied in the 1860s, taking into
account the date of publish, in Oporto, of the João António Ribas piecesiv. We would
like to emphasize that this collection is diversified both in terms of music and repertoire
- adaptations of opera arias; exercises and studies; ballroom dances from this time
(waltzes, mazurkas, polkas, marches, gallops, etc.). Besides these solo pieces for guitar,
there were also annoted some for voice accompanied by this instrument. Particular case
is that it has been here copied parts of guitar pieces that once collated, serve as
accompaniment to some madeiran romances compiled by Monteiro Cabral, but that
only appear in the primitive source written for voice and machete. It is worth
mentioning that it was included a Brazilian Waltz for guitar, but with a particular tune:
D₁ – G₁ – D₂ – G₂ – B₂ – D₃v. To finish, we add that this manuscript is made use by both
English and Portuguese as they often appear mixed the two languages.
Ms. 2, as the one before, has also pasted on its cover a small label, but
unfortunately it can’t be read what it had written on. It consists of 39 sheets of good
quality paper, which have been previously printed ten staves per page. This compilation
was written by a single copyist, presenting a great uniformity in its content and in the
use and distribution of works by their pages. As in Ms.1 it cannot be found any date
which forces us to try to date it from the collation of some of its parts.
Except in two works, all titles from his vast and diversified written repertoire
appear mostly written in Portuguese, but without the name of the composer or arranger.
The exceptions are two ballroom dances were it was added the author's name, Valse do
Snr Duarte dos Santos (Waltz of Mr Duarte dos Santos). For what is known, Duarte dos
Santos, full name Duarte Joaquim dos Santos (1801? -1855) did not play guitar but
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
CD-Rom+Áudio. Funchal: Gabinete Coordenador de Educação Artística, 2011 , n.º 6; 5 Olhares sobre o
Património Musical Madeirense. Funchal: Associação Musical e Cultural Xarabanda e Associação dos
Amigos do GCEA, 2011, p. 25.  
iii
 Premiered in July 31st 1852, see Ernesto Vieira, Diccionario Biographico de Musicos Portuguezes.
Lisboa: Typhographia Mattos Moreira & Pinheiro, 1900, vol. II, p. 181.
iv
 Unfortunately, in none of its sheets is visible any watermark, fact that makes us take as reference the
dates mentioned. On the other hand, writing is surely mid- nineteenhth century.  
v
 On standard tuning, its firts first five strings match the madeiran “viola de arame” (wire guitar). Could
this be the tune of this hand chordophone, when made use of six courses Different tunings usually
practiced by French guitar, appear in methods published in the U.S. by 1870, see Henry C. Camp, Guitar
Made Perfect. New Method of tuning. Boston: White, Smith & Perry, 1870.
http://memory.loc.gov/music/sm/sm1870/x0000/x0001/001.tif (accessed in March 10th 2011).    

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organ, piano and harp. Thus, the two waltzes were probably transcribed by a madeiran
guitar player, from the piano version, because this composer emigrated to Funchal in the
first decade of 1840, remaining active in that city until his death, which occurred on the
24th May 1855vi. In this manuscript we can find a large and varied number of pieces for
solo instrument (rondos, waltzes, sonatinas, marches, etc..), and we may highlight the
virtuous Thema with variation, which in some cases may even reach the significant
number of eleven variations. The attempts made to identify the authors of the pieces
copied here were completely fruitless, comparing them with the known repertoire of
foreign guitar players (and not only) of the first half of the 19th century (Sor, Giuliani,
Aguado, Carcassi, Carulli, etc). The repertoire built here is not, in its majority, of easy
execution, thereby showing the existence of an elite of madeiran guitar players. Except
the quoted Monteiro Cabral, it stays unknown the names of the french guitar unknown
players from this period, particularly the users of these two manuscripts. Returning to
the issue of dating this manuscript, we must take into account not only the dates of stay
of the composer Duarte dos Santos in Funchal, as well as the type of calligraphy of the
copyist. Given this data, we believe that this collection was copied around 1860.
Finally, we would like to add that these two manuscripts are surely of Madeiran
origin, since they came from a filling of a house located on Rua dos Ferreiros, which
was acquired by the antiquarian that sold them to me, in the said Book Fair, in the past
year 2009.

The Classical Guitar (“viola”) in Madeira

The current six-string simple classical guitar, also known more recently as
guitar, began gradually to replace the five courses baroque guitar during the second half
of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth century, in countries
like Spain, Italy and France (Turnbull, s.d.).
In Madeira, the term guitar (“viola”) is used at least since the sixteenth century,
although references to the six single strings guitar are more difficult to date. One
                                                                                                                       
vi
 According to Ernesto Vieira, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 273-4, his name is written as Duarte dos Santos,
Duarte Joaquim dos Santos, D. J. dos Santos or even Duarte J. Santos. Viera, op. cit., p. 273, tells us that
“Duarte Santos published in London several light compositions for piano, two and four hands, as waltzes,
polkas, quadrilles and contradanzas, etc.”. At the Bristish Library is kept a Virginia Waltz, for Piano
Forte, of Duarte J. Santos, published in London in [1846]. For further information about this author, see
Rui Magno Pinto, 50 Histórias de Músicos na Madeira. Funchal: Associação de Amigos do GCEA /
Funchal 500 Anos, 2008, pp. 1-3.  

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hypothesis is that the first references to this instrument have emerged in the late
eighteenth century, in testimony of foreign visitors such as George Foster (1754-1794)
or Maria Riddel (1772-1808) (Morais 2008: 3-12)vii. Another hypothesis, advanced by
Manuel Morais, is that one of the illustrations of the English visitor William Combe
(1741-1823), in his book A History of Madeira, published in 1821, includes a french
guitar, which is the simple six string guitar. Anyway, the french guitar had certainly a
great diffusion in Madeira’s musical salons in the early nineteenth century, since in the
1830s, englishman John Driver stated that «few women [madeiran] did not play» the
guitar (Morais 2008 : 14-21).
The increase in the practice of this instrument had certainly lead to the increase
of trade around the guitar. For example, in 1839, an ad in the journal A Flor do Oceano
(The Flower of the Ocean) sold «hua Viola Franceza em 1:400 rs., hua guitarra em 800
rs.» («a French guitar for 1:400 rs., a guitar for 800 rs».) (A Flor do Oceano, 23/3/1839)
and a year later, Peter Arrigoti announced to the public that he repaired «clocks of all
qualities, Music Boxes, violins, guitar, Harps» (O Defensor, 18/7/1840). If we add that a
piano in the 1820s could cost 156$000 reisviii, one can conclude that the guitar practice
was considered more affordable. Even in the following decades, an used guitar could be
purchased for 1$000 reis (Correio da Madeira, 15/12/1849:4) while an equally used
piano could cost 80$000 reis (A Ordem, 05/02/1857: 4).
The high number of young people playing guitar and the low complexity in
building guitars, opposite the piano, certainly encouraged the madeiran woodworkers to
build guitars. Proof of this, in the mid-nineteenth century, the construction of musical
instruments - machetes and french guitars («violas franzesas») - was indicated in an
economy study about Madeira as one of the «industrial groups in which Madeira could
perhaps provide products and artifacts of some merit» (Menezes 1850: 305),
participating the builders in exhibitions of regional products. The instruments must have
continued to be valued in the second half of the nineteenth century, and there are those
who point an increase in orders from these instruments during this period (Sarmento
1941).
                                                                                                                       
vii
 These foreign visitors indicate the existence of a stringed instrument designated by "guitar" in english
and that Manuel Morais concludes that it relates to a classical guitar. However, nothing indicates that this
is fully six single strings guitar, and may well be five courses baroque guitars.  
viii
 Torre do Tombo National Archive, Complaints Board and the Royal Treasury of Funchal, Funchal
Customs, Tales of Customs, Rights for entries, 1689-1826, L º. 256: fl. 190 - December 1826: « Lourenço
Justiniano Soares, by Newton Gordon Murdok, of the English galley “Carolina" came from Bristol “hum
pianno "- rated at 156$000 rs, rights to 15%» (reference courtesy of Master Rita Rodrigues).  

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 From the mid-nineteenth century, even with increased competition from
instruments like the piano, the guitar remained part of private musical salons. In
Funchal’s journals, there are descriptions of benefit concerts and soirees in which ladies
played both piano and guitar. For example, prominent ladies of Funchal’s society such
as Amelia Augusta de Azevedo and Maria Paula K. Rego are referred as pianists but
also as “machetistas” (machete players) and guitarists in musical soirees involving:
«this distinguished lady [Mary Paula K. Rego] in the piano as well in the machete and
the guitar was heard with great pleasure and admiration (A Voz do Povo, 4/13/1871).
In the late nineteenth century, some of the nineteenth century schools and
teachers that announced piano lessons still included, sometimes, teaching guitar and
machete as one of the essential disciplines of female education:
SCHOOL FOR GIRLS - D. Christina Adelaide Gomes makes public that in the 20th
of the current moth it wil be opened a school that teaches portuguese, english,
french, piano, singing, machete, guitar and dance, as well as works of wool, paper,
cardboard, upholstery, scale and mirror and many others that are requested. Also
accepts pensioner girls. - RUA DIREITA Nº 31• (Diário de Notícias, 17-11-1895).

In the early twentieth century, the guitar often becomes part of the “Tunas” and
various musical groups, starting to fall into disuse mainly from the 1930s, due to strong
competition from technologies such as records, radio and cinema.

Dances

A brief observation of manuscripts for viola, studied for this issue, show that the
dances occupied a prominent place in the repertoire of the nineteenth century for this
instrument. In this CD we therefore include a number of diverse dances in order to well
illustrate the importance of such repertoire. Thus, it is possible to hear in this edition
waltzes (Valse Hespanhola, waltz [No. 12] and Valse [No. 18]), the most cultivated
genre throughout the nineteenth century, a contradanza (french contradanza) and several
thematic dances (Pastoral dance, African Dance and Turkish Dance). In the found
manuscripts also include other very fashionable dances in the romantic period, such as
mazurkas, polkas and quadrilles.
The dance was probably part of the education of the higher classes of Madeira
since at least the first half of the nineteenth century, as evidenced by the story of english
visitor Alfred Lyall who, in 1826, commented in his writings that «the madeiran danced
extraordinarily well» (Smith 1994: 134).

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 The importance of dance in private and social gatherings of the nineteenth
century should be quite high, having available manuals for anyone who wanted to learn.
For example, in 1877, an advertisement in the Diário de Notícias of Funchal promoted a
«method easy to learn to dance without the aid of a master all of the modern [dances]
used in balls» (Diário de Notícias, 13/06/1877). Even in magazines from Lisbon, as the
Ilustração Portugueza (Portuguese Illustration), it was possible in the early twentieth
century photographs to view the footsteps of new ballroom dances and thus keep up
with new fashions (Ilustração Portugueza,19/01/1914).
In Funchal, between dances more commonly grown in the period under study,
one can find primarily waltzes and quadrilles - since at least the 1830s - and, later, from
the 1850s, polkas and mazurkas. In the second half of the nineteenth century, began to
be cultivated thematic dances, which allude to a particular situation (pastoral, African,
Turkish, etc.).
The quadrilles seem to be abandoned earlier than the other dances, or at least
pass to a background from the last quarter of the nineteenth century, although some still
appear sporadically thereafter. In the first quarter of the twentieth century, polkas,
mazurkas and the thematic dances are progressively replaced by new dances, with
American influence such as one steps and fox-trots (Esteireiro, 2008).

The 19th Century Salon

As well as the piano and the machete, the guitar also benefited from the
proliferation of musical practice in the private rooms of the Funchal houses, which
began to intensify in Madeira during the first half of the nineteenth century. During this
period, the houses followed the changes of manners, caused by this new type of urban
sociability, and new divisions began to emerge as music halls, which were intended to
parties and dances soirees, where stucco ceilings were decorated with musical motifs
(Vieira 2001: 100).
Some of the madeiran salons had excellent conditions for domestic musical
gatherings, being at the same level of the best European private lounges, as witnessed
and reported by their foreign visitors of the time. For example, in the mid-nineteenth
century, one of the aristocrats who visited Madeira, describing a room of a house where
a dance arose, stated that it "rivaled with those of Paris and London, having even a
gallery for the Orchestra» (Nascimento 1951: 98).

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 This new type of urban sociability of musical gatherings in private lounges,
emerged as a fashion imported from France. The emergence of a large repertoire of
popular songs in this period, for example, is a result of this new sociability, in that it
was mainly due to the woman's home entertainment through singing, piano and plucked
string instruments (Morais 2003: 81-82 ).
Some of the madeiran families were even known by the exquisite evenings that
they organized in their family rooms where between «contradanzas, polkas and waltzes
one would arrive at early morning». Some examples are the house of the «illustrious
Gordon family» and the D. António da Câmara Leme theater, in his palace (Carita and
Mello 1988: 42).
This musical soirees in Funchal were also promoted by foreign visitors. In 1853,
for example, the visitor Isabella de França describes, in her book Jornal de uma Visita à
Madeira e a Portugal 1853-1854 (Journal of a visit to Madeira and Portugal 1853-
1854), a gathering organized by a German family, in which it was «a real treat to hear»
the host sing an aria. In that soiree participated people of various nationalities, which
shows the importance of these gatherings for foreigners who stayed for long seasons in
Madeira, being curious the reference that Isabella of France makes about the excessive
noise caused by the superposition of different languages in a volume rather audible:

Each struggled to make himself understood, shouting ever more loudly, as if thereby
english would be translated into german and french into portuguese. All these voices
mixed and formed such babel that I came to believe that if someone fired a shot no
one would get scared by it (France 1970: 170-1).

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Bibiography

CARITA, Rui e MELLO, Luís de Sousa (1988). 100 Anos do Teatro Municipal
Baltazar Dias. Funchal: Câmara Municipal.
ESTEIREIRO, Paulo (2008). «The repertoire of the dances in Funchal at the 2nd half of
the nineteenth century: The compositions and orchestrations by Anselmo Serrão and
Augusto Miguéis» In Madeira and the Music, Manuel Morais (coord.). Funchal: 500
Years, p. 509-531.
FRANÇA, Isabella de (1970). Jornal de Uma Visita à Madeira e a Portugal (1853-
1854). Funchal, Junta Geral do Distrito Autónomo do Funchal.
MENEZES, Servulo Drummond de (1850). Uma Época Administrativa da Madeira e
Porto Santo. Funchal. Typ: Nacional.
MORAIS, Manuel, coord. (2008). A Madeira e a Música: Estudos [c. 1508-c.1974].
Funchal: Empresa Municipal “Funchal 500 Anos”.
MORAIS, Manuel, ed. (2003). Cândido Drummond de Vasconcelos: Colecção de peças
para Machete (1846), estudo e rev. Manuel Morais. Casal de Cambra: Caleidoscópio.
NASCIMENTO, João Cabral do, coord. (1951). Arquivo Histórico da Madeira, Vol 9.º,
N.º 1. Funchal: Câmara Municipal.
SARMENTO, Alberto Arthur (1941). As pequenas indústrias da Madeira. Funchal.
Diário de Notícias.
SILVA, Antonio Ribeiro Marques da (1994). Apontamentos sobre o Quotidiano
Madeirense (1750-1900). Lisboa: Caminho.
TURNBULL, Harvey et al (s.d.). "Guitar." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music
Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/43006
(acecessed at August 31st 2012).
VIEIRA, Alberto, coord. (2001). História da Madeira. Funchal: Secretaria Regional de
Educação.

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