Luiz
Costa

Pianist and composer Luiz Costa (1879-1960) trained in Portugal under Bernardo Valentim Moreira de Sá and later in Germany, from 1905 to 1907, under Vianna da Mota, Ferruccio Busoni, Bernhard Stavenhagen and Conrad Ansorge. After returning to his native Porto, he made a name for himself playing the great Classical sonatas of Beethoven and Schubert and also performed chamber music alongside musicians including Pablo Casals, Alfred Cortot and Guilhermina Suggia. Luiz Costa was also a teacher, and director of Porto’s Conservatory of Music, where his aesthetic principles and diligent work ethic had a profound effect on generations of students. A highly cultured man, he was close to Portuguese artists of his time such as the poets Corrêa de Oliveira and Teixeira de Pascoaes, as well as the sculptor Teixeira Lopes. As president of the Orpheon Portuense, he introduced to Portugal some of the greatest musical names of the twentieth century, including Maurice Ravel. In fact, it is the influence of the Impressionist movement pioneered by French composers that is most prevalent in Luiz Costa’s music. However, his chamber music oeuvre matured into neo-classicism.