Mr. Dinis
Seven songs attributed to King D. Dinis (1261-1325) will be performed in Leiria on Tuesday, the day that marks 700 years since the death of the Troubadour king.
Entitled “The melody of D. Dinis”, the concert scheduled for 7pm at the Church of São Pedro will feature music that appears in a document discovered in 1990 in Torre do Tombo by American musicologist Harvey Sharrer, believed to have lyrics and composition by the sixth king of Portugal.
Musicians and researchers Esin Yardimli Alves Pereira and Ricardo Alves Pereira dedicated several months to research – entitled “Sharrer Parchment” – and share the result live, in a show with percussionist Paul Johnson and baritone Jorge Luís Castro.
“It’s a musical archaeological work very intense, as scientific as possible”, Ricardo Alves Pereira explained to the Lusa agency.
First Portuguese music manuscript
The document containing the seven songs attributed to the Troubadour king (1261-1325) is even more relevant for being the “second secular music manuscript from the Iberian Peninsula and, perhaps, the first from Portugal”.
“In the Iberian Peninsula there are two manuscripts discovered, with music recorded with his notes, from the medieval era, of secular, non-religious music: one is that of the minstrel Martin Codax, who has the friend songs, the ‘Parchment Vindel’, from Galicia ; another is the ‘Parchment Sharrer’, with songs by D. Dinis – seven of them”.
Esin and Ricardo focused on the latter, but the task proved complicated: “It is a document that, fortunately, has survived to this day, but very important parts are missing: there is no longer any page, there are many stains and it was very difficult to remove the melodies”.
The two researchers analyzed and compared it with another type of repertoire, to find a way of “being able to recover the parts that did not survive and also recognize what is written”.
“What we did is 100% our own research, based on research we read from other musicologists. What will be heard on January 7th [terça-feira] it’s our vision of what’s in that manuscript might have sounded at the time, including the missing parts,” he said.
The study reveals “very different melodies” compared to others.
The researchers filled in the blanks of the songs contained in the document, studying the structure of each song to find parallels and, from there, suggesting “notes and rhythms that would be there or could be there”, as well as “the very way of interpret”.
D. Dinis – A suffering romantic
In this repertoire composed of love songs, the speaker, “who referred to himself as D. Dinis, but does not necessarily need to be”, addresses his beloved directly, in a “inner expression of the emotions he feels”, around “the equivalent of the pain of love”.
It is not the first time that D. Dinis’ seven songs have been heard in full. But, highlighted Ricardo Alves Pereira, it will be a new proposal for how this music would sound, based on “a very scientific work” that “has also become a very personal work and will be presented to the public with great care”.
The concert launches the second edition of the Leiria Medieval Music Cycle, which takes seven moments to Leiria Castle throughout 2025, in a program dedicated to D. Dinis, remembering the 700 years of his death, and to the secular medieval music of the Peninsula Iberian.
Fernando Ribeiro, lead singer of Moonspell and poet, is one of the guests, at a poetry recital set to music dedicated to songs of mockery and curses for people over 18 years old, on March 22nd. Another is medieval music specialist Eduardo Paniagua, who will hold a residency dedicated to the cycle’s theme in July.
