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Home  Fado & History |
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Fado A shawl, a guitar, a voice and heartfelt emotion. These are the ingredients of Fado, the celebrated form of world music that captures what it is to be Portuguese.
Inspiration for Fado can come from almost any source. Although there are predominance of themes like: destiny, deep-seated feelings, disappointments in love, the sense of sadness and longing for someone who has gone away, misfortune, the ups and downs of life, the sea, the life of sailors and fishermen, and last but not least “Saudade” (one of the main themes used in fado, that means a kind of longing).
Fado is probably the oldest urban folk music in the world and represents the heart of the Portuguese soul, and for that matter fado performance is not successful if an audience is not moved to tears.
History of Fado Listening to Fado is like visiting Lisbon, meeting the Portuguese people, those that once upon a time faced the unknown sea. This type of music that connected nobles, vagabonds and seafarers, is still nowadays a shared passion by all Portuguese.
By the early twentieth century, Fado had become a fixture in the everyday life of Lisbon’s working class. It was played for pleasure and also to relieve the pain of life. Fadistas, skilled singers that performed at the end of the day and long into the night. Fado was the earthly music of taverns, brothels and street corners mainly in Alfama, Mouraria, Bairro Alto and Madragoa. Fado reached its golden era in the first half of the 20th century, when the Portuguese dictatorship of Salazar (1926-1968) forced the fado performers to become professional and confined them to sing in the fado houses and the so called "revistas", a popular genre of "vaudeville". The main names of this period were: Alfredo Marceneiro, Amália Rodrigues, Maria Teresa de Noronha and Armandinho and Jaime Santos (guitar players).
Fado became popular thanks to the singer Maria Severa who lived in the first half of the 19th century and died at the age of 26. She made this type of song famous in aristocratic circles through her romance with the Count of Vimioso. Her life later became the subject of Portugal's first sound movie in 1931. To this day, female performers wear a black shawl in her memory and her life story has been the influence of several Fado songs, poems, novels, and plays. However, fado has been shaped by those who have sung it.
Fado can be performed by men or women, although the raw emotion of the female fadista is nearly always preferred. Dressed in black with a shawl draped over her shoulders, a fadista stands in front of the musicians and communicates through gesture and facial expressions. The hands move, but the body remains stationary. It’s a solemn and majestic performance.
Traditionally accompanied by the Portuguese guitar, there are many ways of singing the Fado. It can range from the faster Fado corrido of Mouraria, to the impromptu singing known as ‘desgarrada’, or the mournful music of the students of Coimbra. There is also a version that describes conquests, love affairs and different life experience of each neighborhood, immortalized by the artist José Malhoa in his famous paintings of the Fado. And the well known Fado Vadio (Vagrant Fado), which is characterized by the place where it was born and sang for so long, the streets! Though it is an expression that is in risk of vanishing. It’s one of the most traditional forms of Fado, but nowadays fadistas cannot sing in the middle of the streets, it’s illegal. From the 1940’s until 1999 Fado was shown to the world through the voice of one amazing artist, Amália Rodrigues, the towering figure of Portuguese fado. Possessing a great stage presence and being a natural entertainer, she was worshipped and celebrated as the most famous representative of Portuguese culture. In the 20th century she made Fado known beyond Portugal, performing all over Europe, Japan, South America, and even in the United States, in New York's "La Vie en Rose" in the 1950s. When she died the country’s prime minister called for three days of national mourning, and as a national icon, she was buried in Lisbon's National Pantheon. Her former residence is now a museum that is well worth a visit. Amália has found a worthy successor in Mariza, who takes Fado to an even wider audience. Other very important names of Fado are Maria da Fé, Hermínia Silva, Argentina Santos and Carlos do Carmo.
Nowadays in Portugal, the younger generation respects fado but isn’t dedicated to it. Contemporary fado musicians like Misia have introduced the music to performers such as Sting. Misia and fadistas like Cristina Branco and Mariza walk the fine line between carrying on the tradition and trying to bring in a new audience. Dulce Pontes, Camané, Mafalda Arnauth and Katia Guerreiro are other sonant artists that keep Fado alive, and brought with them a new look to the traditional song, occasionally reviving 19th century fado. The youngest world-traveling fadista of today and a top "New Generation of Fado" singer is Joana Amendoeira.
Fado cannot be explained, it must be felt and experienced. Once audiences are very knowledgeable and very demanding, the fadista must have the soul to transmit that feeling. The Grand Night of Fado is held every year in Lisbon and Oporto, and without a doubt it is the perfect place to enjoy a sample of this traditional music, it’s a very special evening that showcases the best new musical talents, an event that helps to launch careers and discover unique voices.
Where did it come from? The word Fado comes from the Latin fatum, which means fate or destiny. Actually the name couldn’t be better chosen. Fado, in a certain way, represents better than anything the spirit of the Portuguese people: the belief in destiny as something that overwhelms us and from which we can't escape, the domination of the soul and heart over reason, which leads to acts of passion and despair, and reveal such a black and beautiful sorrow. There are many theories about the origin of Fado. Therefore we are going to name a few:
1- Fado has its origin in Moorish songs; Moors kept living near Lisbon even after the Christian take-over. The melancholy of those songs and the referral in many lyrics to Mouraria in Lisbon would strengthen this theory.
2- Fado arrived to Portugal with the sailors returning from their long trips (1822), under the form of Lundum (the music of the Brazilian slaves). Lundum only after a while started modifying until it became the Fado. The first songs of the kind were related to the sea and with the lands far beyond them, where the slaves lived. This fact supports this theory, among one of Amália's songs, called "The Black Boat" which talks precisely of a senzala (place where the slaves were kept).
3- The melancholy character of Fado evolved from Portuguese seafarers who sang of home during their long absences at sea.
4- Fado was born in the Middle Ages. As cantigas de amigo (friend songs) are a good example of it. They were love songs dedicated to a woman and have great similarities with diverse subjects of the Fado of Lisbon. Those that were sung by the man to a woman seem to find kinship in the Fado of Coimbra, where the students intone their songs beneath the window of the loved one (serenades). Furthermore, there were satire songs or of disdain, that are still today frequent themes for Fado, in social and political critics.
Besides the lack of proofs about the origin of Fado, once in Portugal, it’s possible to affirm that Fado seems to have first appeared in Lisbon and Oporto, being later taken to Coimbra with the University students (having acquired different characteristics).
Coimbra’s Fado: There are two main varieties of fado, namely those of the cities of Lisbon and Coimbra. The Lisbon style is the most popular, while Coimbra's is the more refined style. Some of their characteristics are that in Lisbon it is always sung by a solo performer on the contrary, in Coimbra it is often performed by groups of male university students. Both are accompanied by two guitarists, one playing the melody on a twelve-stringed Portuguese guitar and the other supplying the rhythm on the six-stringed viola. In Coimbra we find the usual Fado’s sad style, but with different motivations and also based in the medieval songs called trovas. The ex-libris of Coimbra are its students, that arriving from Lisbon and Oporto, took their guitars and the new playing style was adopted. It was used to impress their loved ones they would sing all night long about their anguish for not having them, putting in their hands a heart full of sorrows that only them could relive. Moreover to explain the dissatisfaction of leaving behind the best years of the youth, the student bohemian life. And so it became the official music for the goodbye songs of each year, and for the students. Nowadays their performances constitute a basic ingredient in the city’s annual academic rituals, they are called Tunas. Those are groups of students that sing with their academicals and their heavy cape on, to do serenades or honor their Faculty. There are Tunas in almost every Portuguese University nowadays, there are many competitions between them, but only in Coimbra does the serenade tradition remain. One of the celebrations made in Coimbra to mark the beginning of a new academic year is the Monumental Serenata (monumental serenade), when serenades are sung outside the entrance to the city’s old cathedral. But for some Coimbra students, Fado is not just for days of youth. Adriano Correia de Oliveira and José Afonso both became famous singers, while Artur Paredes and Carlos Paredes became well-known guitarists.
"Coimbra is more enchanting when it’s time to bid farewell." This is the most famous line from this city’s Fado. It sums up the romantic spirit of the university students who sing it.
Fado Houses: The best place to enjoy an evening of Fado is for sure a Fado House. A candlelit dinner, accompanied by songs you’ll understand without even speaking the language, is an experience that you simply have to live. Combined with the Fado Museum where its evolution is explained and the passion behind the country's famous musical expression with audiovisual presentations, wax figures, multilingual information panels, and musical archives. It presents the cultural and social impact of Fado, from its use in cinema through the impact of censorship in the 20th century.
Nevertheless... Please note that despite Fado being a symbol of the Portuguese nationality, it is, by no means, the national song. From region to region, Portugal possesses several rich and typical folklores of each geographical area that have nothing to do with Fado. Perhaps we can, if you want, to say that this will be the form of folklore of Lisbon, Oporto and Coimbra. However, it is appreciated and recognized in all the Portuguese country as a symbol. This is the spirit of fado, the expression of a collective soul, made of each one's soul.
Portuguese Traditional Music In all the times and all places mankind always showed great ingenuity making sound and music from existing materials in its natural environment. The voice and the clapping of hands can certainly be considered the first instrumental forms used by Man. The Iberian Peninsula was home to a lot of different people and cultures so its normal to these cultures to influence the others but still retain a little of their aspects, this happened with the Portuguese music. Even in the present you can find types of instruments from different places, such as the bagpipes and the Arab adufe, but they are now and forever a part of the Portuguese culture. From the Pauliteiros of Miranda to the Corridinho in Algarve the traditional music and songs transpire a poetic character that tells the history of a community to other people and generations to come
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