Music of Portugal

Portugal is internationally known in the music scene for its traditions of fado, a popular form of music that has undergone numerous mutations in the last half of the 20th century. Within Portugal, regional folk music remains popular, having been updated and modernized in many cases, especially the northeastern region of Trás-os-Montes.

A crucial concept in Portuguese music is saudade, which can be most closely translated as yearning, but has a more expansive meaning. Saudade is said to be requisite for musicians, as it powers their performances and causes frenzied crowd reactions.

Fado

Fado (fate in Portuguese) arose in Lisbon as the music of the urban poor. Fado songs are typically lyrically harsh, with the singer resigned to sadness, poverty and loneliness, but remaining dignified and firmly controlled.

Fado is said to have been born in the beginning of the 19th century in Lisbon, when immigrants from Brazil were commonplace, and their music was the fofa and lundum dances. These were often crude and vilified by the upper-class at the time, but soon became the basis for fado. Portuguese literature, especially the quatrain couplets and modinha ballads, were another integral part of early fado, but fado had appeared by 1836, when Maria Severa sang a fado so beautifully that she seduced and ruined the Conde de Vimisio. References to what may have been fado appear in Brazil in 1829, while modern fado is known since at least 1910, when it was first recorded. Many refer that fado origins are much older, to the 15th century, where the women cryed with longing for their husbands that went to the never sailed seas, the Arabic inprint in Fado is visible, especially in the instruments. Arabs left Portugal in the 13th century, but their influence in crafts and music prevailed. Fado is often songed with a Portuguese guitar.

Late in the 19th century, the city of Coimbra developed a distinctive fado scene. Coimbra, a literary capital for the country, is now known for being more refined and majestic. The sound has been described as "the song of whose who retain and cherish their illusions, not of those who have irretrievably lost them" by Rodney Gallop in 1936. A related form are the guitarradas of the 1920s and 30s, best known for Dr. Antonio Menano and a group of virtuoso musicians he formed, including Artur Paredes and José Joaquim Cavalheiro. Student fado, performed by students at Coimbra University, have maintained a tradition since it was pioneered in the 1890s by Augusto Hilario.

Starting in 1939 with the career of Amália Rodrigues, fado was an internationally popular genre. A singer and film actor, Rodrigues made numerous stylistic innovations that have made her probably the most influential fadista of all time.

A rival in terms of influence is José Afonso, who began performing in the 1950s; he was a popular roots-based musician that led the Portuguese roots revival. With artists like Sérgio Godinho and Luís Cília, Afonso helped form nova canção music, which, after the 1974 revolution, gained socially-aware lyrics and became canto livre. The biggest name in canto livre was Brigada Victor Jara, a group that seriously studied and were influenced by Portuguese regional music.

Regional folk music

Recent events have helped keep Portuguese regional folk traditions alive, most especially including the worldwide roots revival of the 1960s and 70s.

Trás-os-Montes

Trás-os-Montes' musical heritage is closely related to the music of Galicia, Cantabria and Asturias. Traditional bagpipes (gaita-de-foles), a cappella vocals and a unique musical scale with equal semitones have kept alive a vital tradition. Some of the songs from this region are in the archaic language of Mirandês, including the most prominent group Galandum Galundaina, who have rejected a claim of Celtic heritage like their neighbors in Galicia and Asturias, instead focussing on the Arab influence.

The gaita-de-foles is similar to the Galician and Asturian gaita, but has only one drone and a more variable scale. It is played accompanied only by drums. It is usually played in a group along with the caixa and bomba, both kinds of drums found also in Galician ensembles.

Baixo Alentejo

Baixo Alentejo, in the south of Portugal, is a region known for its extant polyphonic singing groups, comparable to those found on Sardinia and Corsica.

Political music

During the reign of the fascist regime music was widely used by the left-wing resistance as a way to say what could not be said, singing about freedom, equality and democracy. Many composers and singers became famous and persecuted by the political police, some of them beeing arrested or exiled like Zeca Afonso, José Mário Branco, Sérgio Godinho, Adriano Correia de Oliveira, Manuel Freire, Fausto, Vitorino, Júlio Pereira and some others. After the Carnation Revolution that same music was used to support left-wing parties. Political ideas and causes like the agrarian reform, socialism, equality, democratic elections, free education and many other were a constant presence in the their lyrics, written by well-known poets like José Barata Moura, Manuel Alegre or Ary dos Santos.

Underground

More underground but very prominent is portuguese reggae and ska. Some of the more famous bands of these types include Primitive Reason, Three and a Quarter, One Sun Tribe and Purocracy. This music is popular among the more drug-influenced subculture, with its main roots based in Lisbon and the surrounding areas.

References

• Cronshaw, Andrew and Paul Vernon. "Traditional Riches, Fate and Revolution". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, pp 225-236. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0