Victor Macedo Pinto
PORTUGAL
Composer, pianist, pedagogue and music critic, Victor Macedo Pinto was an important personality in the Portuguese musical scene of the 20th century, having left a wide and eclectic legacy in which the piano plays a central role.
The 24th edition of the Santa Cecília International Competition honours this composer and pianist by awarding the Victor Macedo Pinto Prize to the winner of the Main Category, to support a CD recording with KNS Classical, and to the Category A participant with the best interpretation of the 20th/21st century piece.
BIOGRAPHY
Victor Coelho de Macedo Pinto was born on the 24th of March 1917 in Porto, and began his musical studies at the age of 15 with his cousin, Margarida de Macedo e Faro. He attended private piano and composition lessons with Luiz Costa and Cláudio Carneyro, respectively, and continued his studies at the National Conservatory in Lisbon, graduating from the Higher Course in Piano in 1943, under the guidance of Maria Cristina Pimentel. Throughout his musical career, Macedo Pinto was a piano disciple of Vianna da Motta and Winfried Wolf, and a composition student of Fernando Lopes-Graça. As a pianist, he performed in concerts promoted by musical organizations such as Círculo de Cultura Musical, Pró-Arte and Sonata, and performed regularly in trio with soprano Madalena Andersen and flutist Luís Boulton.
Macedo Pinto began his pedagogical activity in 1959, teaching the Higher Course in Piano at the Porto Conservatory. He also taught the Higher Courses in Piano and Composition at the Coimbra and Braga Conservatories, in the latter replacing Filipe Pires, during the academic year 1963/1964. As a music critic, he wrote for publications such as O Primeiro de Janeiro, Gazeta Literária, Gazeta Musical, Arte Musical, Seara Nova, A Semana, and Diário de Notícias.
In addition to his artistic career, Macedo Pinto graduated in Law from the University of Coimbra, and in Italian Language and Literature from the Italian Institute of Coimbra. He worked as a magistrate for the Labour Court from 1945 to 1948, and then started his diplomatic career as an attaché for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In May 1957, he served as Second Secretary of Portugal’s diplomatic mission in Karachi, Pakistan, and returned to his country in September, dedicating himself exclusively to music.
Victor Macedo Pinto died in Porto on the 31st of October 1964, and left an extensive musical repertoire, which includes a wide variety of genres: piano works (Nove Instantâneos, 1956; Variações e Fuga sobre um tema de Emil Andersen, 1957; Três Homenagens, 1950-1961; Elegia a Luís Costa, n.d.), vocal (Sete Canções Populares Portuguesas, 1948; Sete Canções Antigas, 1950; Ficções do Interlúdio, 1951) and instrumental (Rapsódia Coreográfica, 1962; Dança Variada, n.d.) chamber music, orchestral works (Homenagem, n.d.; Sinfonia, n.d.), choral music (Missa Litúrgica, n.d.), and music composed for the staging of Euripides’ Medea (ca. 1958) and Sophocles’ Antigone (1959).
Homenagem, for string orchestra, is worth mentioning in this edition of the competition. Only two performances of this work are known: one in memory of Chopin, with Pedro de Freitas Branco conducting, and another on the 3rd of June 1960 at Cinema Trindade by Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto, in a concert conducted by Silva Pereira. More than six decades later, Homenagem, played by Orquestra Filarmónica Portuguesa under the baton of Osvaldo Ferreira, will be opening the final round of the Santa Cecília International Competition.
Gustavo Dias Afonso
Victor Macedo Pinto
PORTUGAL
Victor Macedo Pinto was born in Porto in 1917.
BIOGRAPHY
He stood out as composer, pianist and music critic. He was a piano disciple of Luís Costa, Vianna da Motta and Winfried Wolf and a composition disciple of Cláudio Carneyro and Fernando Lopes-Graça.
With a manifold personality and a solid cultural background, Victor Macedo Pinto was a lecturer at the conservatories of Coimbra, Braga and Porto, teaching the Higher Courses in Piano and Composition.
Victor Macedo Pinto died in Oporto in 1964. Containing a wide diversity of genres, his musical work is characterized by an essentially Portuguese lyric inspiration, displaying both national and cosmopolitan features.
Over the last years, Santa Cecilia International Competition has been honored the portuguese composer.
