Tribute to D. Pedro de Menezes

2015 commemorates the 600 Years of the Conquest of Ceuta, the first overseas settlement and trading post taken by the Portuguese on the 21st. August, 1415.  On the next 17th October, the city of Santarém will also render homage to Dom Pedro de Menezes, 1st Conde de Vila Real and Ceuta’s first Captain and Governor.

Dom Pedro de Menezes is entombed at Santa Maria da Graça Church, in Santarém, where a High Mass will be celebrated at 15.30 on the same day. In a collaboration with OPART, E.P.E., the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra from the São Carlos Opera House, will perform Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. 

Commissioned by the Confraternitá dei Cavalieiri di San Luigi di Palazzo  (friars of the San Luigi di Palazzo brotherhood),  this work was composed in 1736 during the last days of the composer´s life in the Franciscan convent of Pozzuoli where Pergolesi retired convinced that the tuberculosis he suffered from would no longer permit him to return to Naples, the city where the he studied.

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi died in March, 1736. He was only 26 years old.

Conductor | Samuel Barsegian

Soprano | Carla Caramujo

Mezzosoprano | Paula Morna Dória

Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa