SEIXAS, Carlos (1704-1742)
Concerto in A major & Sonatas for Harpsichord
José Luis González Uriol (harpsichord)
Date & Local Coimbra, Palácio de S. Marcos; 4-6 / May / 2001
Harpsichord Built by Joaquim José Antunes in 1758
The Harpsichord Antunes
Built in Lisbon, its a typical instrument of Portuguese construction from the 18th century, with a single keyboard, two independent 8 foot registers sound board in pine, quite short key levers, the box also in pine with the interiors sides vencered with Brazilian wood and strung entirely in brass.
These mechanical and acoustic characteristics, allow a light and detailed playing and result in a ample and warm sound, with subtly distinguishable timbral qualities in the low middle and high registers of the keyboard (53 notes, from C to e). The instrument is particularly appropriate for Seixas keyboard writing, usually with transparent textures, rarely in more than two parts, frequently contrasting melody and simple accompanying material.
Short Biography
José António Carlos de Seixas was born in the parish of São Cristóvão (St. Christopher) in the city of Coimbra on 11 June 1704, the son of the Cathedral organist, Francisco Vaz, and Marcelina Nunes. He was also appointed organist of Coimbra Cathedral on 9 February 1718 to replace his father, who died thirteen days later. At some point between 1720 and 1722 Carlos Seixas moved to Lisbon, initially teaching the harpsichord at Court and subsequently becoming an organist at the Patriarchal Church. On 30 June 1733 he was appointed to the rank of Captain in the Company of Ordinances of the Palace. Carlos Seixas died in Lisbon on 25 August 1742 at his home behind the Church of Saint Anthony and was buried in the charnel-house of the Irmandade do Santíssimo Sacramento (Brotherhood of the Most Sacred Sacrament) of Basilical of Saint Mary (the present Cathedral).
Unlike his contemporaries Francisco António de Almeida (1702-?), António Teixeira (1707-?) and João Rodrigues Esteves (fl.1719-1751), who studied at Rome as scholars of the Crown between 1716 or 1717 and 1728, Carlos Seixas seems never to have left Portugal and must have been trained in the school of his father, heir to the 17th-century Iberian organ tradition, familiar from the tentos of Rodrigues Coelho and Correa de Arauxo, of Cabanilles, Aguilera de Herdedia and Pedro de Araújo. He had a considerable reputation as a performer, with regard to which José Mazza, around 1780, tells the following anecdote: The Most Serene Prince Antonio wanted the great Escarlate [Domenico Scarlatti], for he was at the time to be found in Lisbon [as chapelmaster to the Portuguese Royal Chapel between December 1719 and January 1727] to give him [Seixas] a lesson, governed by the erroneous idea that however hard the Portuguese try, they never manage to do what the foreign are able to accomplish, and sent him to the aforementioned; who only saw him put his fingers on the harpsichord, and recognizing the giant by his fingers, said to him. You could give me a lesson or two; and on seeing the Prince, said to him, Your highness sent him for me to assess, yet you should know that that man is one of the greatest exponents I have ever heard.. It would seem that the fame attached to Carlos Seixas lasted until the late eighteenth century, and even meriting a brief biographical entry in Ernst Ludwig Gerbers Historisch-biographisches Lexicon der Tonkunstler (vol. 2, Leipzig, 1792).
The Sonatas: nº 37, 16, 27, II, 44, 46, 71
In the keyboards works of Carlos Seixas a number of stylistic choices come together and coexist. These reflect the principal trends of the first half of the eighteenth century, from the late southern Baroque to post-Baroque, with a tendency towards the galante, and highly varied techniques of construction, almost exclusively within the structural mold of the two-section sonata. These techniques go from note groupings and motivic sequencing in Sonata 37 in E minor, trough the building of more extended forms on the basis of motifs in series, as in Sonata 16 in C minor, to the establishment of secondary thematic material woven into the tonal plan, to be seen in Sonata 27 in D minor. Sonata II in C minor is an example of a typical free fugue, of the type practiced in Italy and Iberian Peninsula. The texture is essentially two-part, commonly adding a third part and. The expositions of the theme alternate with episodes, which abound in the sequences and harmonic movement so characteristic of the Baroque.
Though conditioned by Italian harpsichord idiom, Seixas demonstrates a fully developed and highly demanding idiosyncratic technique, as in Sonatas 44 in F minor and 46 in G major, which have features parallel to those later developed by Domenico Scarlatti. His inspiration shows itself above all in the slow movements and some of the Minuets, where he transmits a certain melancholic or yearning quality, as occurs in Sonata 71 in A minor.
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