Francisco António Norberto dos Santos Pinto

Francisco António Norberto dos Santos Pinto was born and died in Lisbon, in 1815 and 1860 respectively, and was one of the most active Portuguese composers of the mid-nineteenth century. His career is useful for understanding Lisbon's musical life of the period, which was dominated by opera, ballet and sacred music.

He began his training at the Royal Chapel of Bemposta, where he sang as a boy soprano and learnt solfège. He then studied the horn with Justino José Garcia, master of the Royal Cavalry Band, and at fifteen joined that same band. In 1830 he entered the Brotherhood of Saint Cecilia without taking the usual examinations, thanks to an ability already recognised. By around 1833 he was principal horn of the orchestra of the São Carlos Theatre, and for about five years he studied composition and orchestration with Manuel Joaquim Botelho, the orchestra's second flautist. In 1854 he won the post of professor of brass instruments at the National Conservatory and, in 1857, was promoted to conductor of the São Carlos orchestra.

His debut as a composer came with the music for the ballet Adoração do sol, premiered at São Carlos in October 1838 and danced by Huguet Vestris. Over the following fifteen years he composed eighteen further ballets and, between 1841 and 1859, incidental music for thirty-three plays by dramatists such as Mendes Leal and José Romano. His sacred output, comprising forty-six works, culminated in a Te Deum premiered posthumously in 1863 at the Church of Loreto. Although his style was Italianate, he competed for first place with Casimiro in mid-century Lisbon.

His legacy is associated above all with his overtures and his Symphonia en re mayor, which drew great brilliance from a reduced theatre orchestra. Today he is remembered as a representative figure of nineteenth-century Lisbon's musical profession.