Five different periodicals entitled A Arte Musical were published in Portugal between 1873 and 1936. This volume treats the only two to appear in the nineteenth century. Published three times monthly the first A Arte Musical (1873-1875) was the earliest Portuguese periodical devoted specifically to music. The main core of writers and correspondents consist of a few pioneers of Portuguese musicology, and in particular Joaquim José Marques (1836-1884). For some years a resident of Rio de Janiero and a traveller throughout Europe and Africa, Marques contributed a chronology of opera in Portugal. Other writers gathered round Marques include Platon Lvovitch de Vaxel (1844-1917) and Joaquim de Vasconcelos (1849-1936). Vaxel, a Russian amateur musician, wrote the first significant history of Portuguese music, and later became the periodical’s correspondent in Leipzig and St. Petersburg. Extracts from several published works of the German-trained Vasconcelos are included in the journal. Performances of operas constitute the main topic of the second A Arte Musical, including reviews of the Italian operas performed at the Teatro de S. Carlos in Lisbon—with important singers such as Elena Theodorini, Francesco Tamagno and Ella Russell—and reviews of Portuguese opera presented in the city of Porto.