King Joao IV of Portugal

Catherine Bott talks to Owen Rees about the musical legacy of King Joao IV of Portugal and the so-called Golden Age of Portuguese polyphony. In 1578, the young king of Portugal, Sebastian led an ill-considered crusade against the Moors of Morocco. He was routed at the battle of Alcazar-Quivir and disappeared without trace, leaving his succession and the fate of his nation on a knife-edge. Of the six claimants to the Portuguese monarchy, the most powerful was Philip II of Spain, whose invading army conquered the country in 1581. Neither Philip nor his two successors acknowledged Portugal's cultural or ethnic independence and treated her as nothing more than a province of Spain. Portugal's considerable foreign revenue enriched the Spanish treasury, while her dominance in trade and sea power was successfully challenged by the English and the Dutch, thus loosening her grip on her colonies in Africa, Asia and South America. This period of external domination and subsequent economic decline lasted for nearly 60 years until the Portuguese nobility reached the end of its tether and led a revolt against their oppressors in 1640, as a result of which, the Duke of Braganza was declared the new and rightful king of Portugal and the Algarves. One of King Joao IV's first actions was to lead his countrymen in a protracted war of restoration against the Spanish, whose armies were finally driven out of Portuguese lands after four more years of fierce fighting. Joao o Restaurador - John the Restorer - was not just a successful troop-leader, though. He was also a generous supporter of the arts, and a considerably talented musician and composer himself. And, by the time of his death in 1656 he had amassed the biggest music library in the world.