Eurico Tomás de Lima

"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). [...] 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."

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. 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.

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. Eurico Tomás de Lima had met Óscar da Silva in childhood, and reconnected with him in São Paulo, on the occasion of 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!"

In 1949, and again 1952, he toured Brazil to great acclaim.

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 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."

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").

Eurico Tomás de Lima (Ponta Delgada, Açores, (1908-12-17)17 December 1908 - Maia, (1989-06-08)8 June 1989) was a Portuguese pianist, composer and pedagogue.