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Feliz aniversário José Joaquim Emerico Lobo de Mesquita! 🙏🏼📯 Composer: José Joaquim Emerico Lobo de Mesquita (1746-1805) Work: Magnificat Performers: Ensemble Calíοpe; Júlio Mοrеtszοhn (conductor) Painting: Newton Limbird Smith Fielding (1799-1856) - Rio de Janeiro from Ilha das Cobras (1833) HD image: Map: Guillaume de L'Isle (1675-1726) - Terre Ferme, Perou, Bresil, Amazones, Paraguay, Chili (1708) HD image: Further info: Listen free: No available --- José Joaquim Emerico Lobo de Mesquita (Vila do Príncipe [now Serro, Minas Gerais] 12 October 1746 - Rio de Janeiro, April 1805) Brazilian composer and organist. Son of the Portuguese José Lobo de Mesquita and his slave Joaquina Emerenciana, he was active in the province of Minas Gerais during the latter part of the 18th century, spending most of his life at Arraial do Tejuco (now Diamantina), where he settled in about 1776, and Vila Rica (Ouro Prêto). In 1788 he entered the brotherhood of Nossa Senhora das Mercês dos Homens Crioulos in Arraial do Tejuco, confirming that he was a mulatto. He served as organist at the church of S Antonio (1783-4), at the Ordem Terceira de Nossa Senhora do Carmo (1787-95) and was apparently the first organist of the Irmandade do Ss Sacramento, all in the same city. In 1798 he moved to Vila Rica, where he worked as a composer, conductor and organist of the same Ordem Terceira brotherhood as well as for the brotherhood of the Matriz (main church) of Nossa Senhora dos Homens Pardos. There he was appointed alferes (a military rank corresponding to second lieutenant) of the Terço de Infantaria dos Homens Pardos. In 1801 he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he held the post of organist at the church of Nossa Senhora de Carmo until his death. Mesquita was the most prolific composer of the Brazilian captaincy. The oldest manuscripts found to this date bear the date 1779 (Antiphona regina coeli laetare and Antiphona zelus domus tuae), but many works were copied throughout the 19th century in Minas Gerais and São Paulo as well. Mesquita cultivated primarily an individual homophonic concertante style, whose components often recall European Classical practices, and ‘possessed an extraordinarily expressive and advanced technique for his epoch’ (Lange, 1965). He is the only composer whose works are found in all of the sacred music archives of Minas Gerais, in several regional centres. In recognition of his importance, he was made the patron of Chair no.4 of the Brazilian Academy of Music.
