Joaquim de Vasconcellos

Joaquim António da Fonseca de Vasconcellos was born in Porto in 1849 and died in the same city in 1936. He was a Portuguese lexicographer with little formal musical training. He studied at the University of Coimbra between 1865 and 1869, and then made a lengthy journey through Germany, France, England and Spain between 1871 and 1875. In 1886 he took over the direction of the Museum of Industry and Commerce.

His best-known work is the dictionary Os musicos portuguezes: biographia-bibliographia, published in Porto in 1870, when he was barely twenty-one. It was the first comprehensive work on Portuguese music in its field and is notable for its breadth; it is considered a complement to Vieira's dictionary. His monograph on the singer Luiza Todi, published in 1873 and reissued in 1929, remains a reference for the study of this celebrated performer. He also contributed to Pougin's supplement to Fétis's Biographie universelle.

Among his publications are a critical essay on the catalogue of King D. João IV and a facsimile edition, with index and commentary, of the catalogue of the great Royal Library of Lisbon, which was destroyed by the earthquake of 1755. His valuable music library was auctioned anonymously in 1898. He also wrote on art history and ceramics, and was a member of the Gesellschaft für Musikforschung.