Eurico Tomás de Lima (Ponta Delgada, Açores, 17 December 1908 – Maia,) was a Portuguese pianist, composer and pedagogue.
Eurico Tomás de Lima was the son of António Tomás de Lima, a violinist, composer, conductor and professor at the National Conservatory in Lisbon. He also studied at the National Conservatory, from 1921 to 1929. He studied piano with Alexandre Rey Colaço and José Viana da Mota, aesthetics and music history with Luís de Freitas Branco, and composition with Hermínio do Nascimento. In 1929, he finished the Virtuosity degree, graduating summa cum laude ("Distinção e Louvor").
In 1932, he presented for the first time a solo piano recital playing only his own compositions. Apart from his own works, his preferences in piano music lean towards "Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and all of the masters of the slavic school."[1]
In 1940 and 1941, he took part in the Cultural Missions of the Secretariat for National Propaganda, at the invitation of the minister António Ferro. In these chamber music recitals throughout the country, he collaborated with cellist Madalena Moreira de Sá e Costa, violinist Paulo Manso and soprano Leonor Bívar Viana da Mota. Also in 1941, he was awarded a composition prize from National Radio (Emissora Nacional de Radiodifusão): the First Prize – Golden Poppy, in the Flower Games (Jogos Florais) competition.
In 1949, and again 1952, he toured Brazil to great acclaim.
Between 1956 and 1973, he regularly recorded piano recitals for Emissora Nacional, playing mainly his own works. However, he also gave special attention to Portuguese piano music, as seen in a recital, recorded in 1970, devoted in its entirety to works by Óscar da Silva (1870–1958), a Portuguese pianist and composer who studied in Germany with Carl Reinecke and Clara Schumann.[2] Eurico Tomás de Lima met Óscar da Silva in childhood, and reconnected with him in São Paulo, during his first tour in Brazil. "Tomás de Lima advised [Óscar da Silva] to return to Porto and offered his house to stay, so that his situation wouldn't be a repeat of the fate of Marcos Portugal: it took a hundred years after his death for his remains to return to the motherland!"[3]
Eurico Tomás de Lima was also active as a piano pedagogue. He taught at the following schools: Academia de Amadores de Música (Lisbon), Academia Mozart (Porto), Academia Beethoven (Porto), Academia Parnaso (Porto), Academia de Música e Belas-Artes da Ilha da Madeira, Conservatório Calouste Gulbenkian de Braga.[4] The composer is side by side with the pedagogue, as a large part of Eurico Tomás de Lima's piano compositions (especially his four-hands and two-pianos repertoire) was written for his students. As a testimony of the reach of his didactic works: the Portuguese pianist Artur Pizarro, in his first public appearance in 1971, played a piece by Eurico Tomás de Lima.[5]
Eurico Tomás de Lima has a substantial catalogue of compositions for solo piano, one of the largest of Portuguese twentieth century. The only Portuguese composers with more works for piano solo are Fernando Lopes Graça, Óscar da Silva and António Victorino d'Almeida.Eurico Tomás de Lima was always very methodical in writing and cataloguing his works: he always wrote down in his manuscripts the place and date of his compositions.
| Year | Title of Work | |
|---|---|---|
| 1928 | Nocturno op. 1 | |
| 1928 | Prelúdio | |
| 1928 | Estudo de Concerto | |
| 1929 | Valsa | |
| 1930 | Estudo em forma de Dança | |
| 1930 | Estudo de Execução Transcendente em Mi bemol Maior | |
| 1932 | Tema e Variações em Fá Maior | |
| 1932 | Estudo n.º 1 (Staccato) | |
| 1932 | Fantasia em Sol bemol | |
| 1933 | Estudo n.º 2 | |
| 1933 | Sonata n.º 1 | |
| 1933 | Barcarola | |
| 1933 | Minuete | |
| 1934 | Dança Portuguesa | |
| 1935 | Sonata n.º 2 | |
| 1935 | Dança Negra n.º 1 – Angola | |
| 1938 | Sonatina n.º 1 | |
| 1940 | Dança Negra n.º 2 – Angola | |
| 1940 | Abelhas Douradas | |
| 1941 | Fantasia à memória de Chopin | |
| 1941 | Suite Algarve | |
| 1943 | Dança Negra n.º 3 – Angola | |
| 1943 | Divertimento | |
| 1943 | Estudo n.º 3 | |
| 1944 | Marcha n.º 1 | |
| 1945 | Samba | |
| 1945 | Buchenwald – Protesto Musical | |
| 1947 | Suite Portuguesa n.º 1 | |
| 1947 | Pantomina Rústica | |
| 1948 | Variações Vimaranenses | |
| 1948 | Sonata n.º 3 | |
| 1948 | Dança Negra n.º 4 – Angola | |
| 1950 | Sonatina n.º 2 | |
| 1950 | O Ferreiro | |
| 1950 | Marcha n.º 2 | |
| 1951 | Morna n.º 1 – Cabo Verde | |
| 1952 | Chula do Douro | |
| 1952 | Toccata | |
| 1953 | Morna n.º 2 – Cabo Verde | |
| 1953 | Lundum Açoreano | |
| 1954 | Sonata n.º 4 | |
| 1954 | Suite Portuguesa n.º 2 | |
| 1955 | Prelúdio e Scherzino | |
| 1955 | Dança | |
| 1956 | Regresso dos Ceifeiros | |
| 1957 | O Bailador de Fandango | |
| 1959 | Estudo Brasileiro | |
| 1966 | Ilha do Paraíso (Férias na Madeira, Suite em Seis Quadros) | |
| 1969 | Valsa Caprichosa | |
| 1970 | Canção sem Palavras | |
| 1970 | Profecia | |
| 1973 | Gradual (“Colecção de 28 peças para a mocidade”, 1932–62)[6] |
This CD contains Eurico Tomás de Lima's complete works for voice and piano, paired with two solo piano works: Canção sem palavras e Sonatina n.º 2.
"The current CD has chosen to include a diverse group of works for piano, which will allow the general public to witness the progressive evolution of the composer's oeuvre throughout nearly forty years of productivity."[9]
"This CD is the third of a series of recordings of Portuguese Piano Music that I have researched and made since 1999. This particular volume is produced to accompany my own book PORTUGUESE PIANO MUSIC: AN INTRODUCTION AND ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY (Scarecrow Press, USA, 2012).[10] [...] The main objective here is to bring a wide variety of styles and composers to the listener in order to show the richness of the pianistic repertoire of Portugal, including didactic piano music."[11]
This CD contains a vast collection of Portuguese piano music, including Eurico Tomás de Lima's Valsa Caprichosa, no. 25 from Gradual.
This double CD contains the complete solo piano sonatas e sonatinas of Eurico Tomás de Lima.
CD1
CD2