Portugal has a rich musical culture, with roots that go back to Provencal
troubadours, followed by ballads and the fado, and as of late, incorporating the
rhythms of Portugal\'s former West African colonies.
Each of these elements
are stll alive in current Portuguese music like the French Provencal influence
in the folk music played at festivals in the northern part of the country, as
well as the rock and jazz most prevalent in the larger cities. An addtional
element is added by a wealth of singer-songwriters, most of whom spawned from
the extremely political \'New Song\' movement. This movement began rolling
during the 1970\'s when the country threw off a thirty year dictatorship under
Salazar, and was forced to withdraw from its colonies.
In Portugese folk
music, there are a wide variety of instruments. Some of the most common include
bagpipes, harmonicas, accordions, flutes, drums (adufes, bombos, caixas,
pandeiros, sarroncas), and numerous percussion instruments (ferrinhos, genebres,
reco-reco, trancanholas). However, Portugal is most well-known for its string
instruments: violins, twelve-stringed \"Portuguese guitar\", and six variations
of \"viola-guitars\" unkown to other European countries. Design, character, and
tuning are unique to each one of the viola-guitars. The most well known is the
small, four-stringed cavaquinho. The others have elaborate combinations of
single, double, and even triple strings.
One of the common combinations of
instruments is the zes-pereira. Comprised of a large bombo, a caixa, and a
bagpipe or fife, these are often used to announce special occasions. Another
tradition combination popular throughout the country is the rancho, made up of
violins, guitars, clarinets, harmonicas and ferrinhos, later joined by the
accodion.
The singers of Porgtugal are excellent. In every town there is an
amateur choir. It is customary for someone to begin an acappella following a
good meal, and others at the the table will join in. It not at all unusual, if
you go to a fado performance, to find the enitre staff of the establishment
taking part, from the owner to the person working the coatroom. To listen to a
vocal ensaemble of three women from Manhouce, or a male choir from Alentejo is
to hear genuinely popular roots music. Alentejo is home to the saia as well,
sung by women as they play the pandeireta. Since Portugal is mostly a rural
society, and is largely unaffected by industrialisation, there are a number of
songs the reflect the cycles of nature, such as natal, reis and janeiras. These
are often lullabies, or tilling, sowing, and harvest songs.
They also have
singing contests where competitors improvise on a theme in turn, or the
fandango, a dance where two men match their dancing skill. Other traditional
dances inclue modas, despiques, chulas, rusgas, corridinhos, viras, waltzes, and
the ritual steps of the pauliteiros (stick-dancers) of Miranda in the Douro
region.
The fado is Portugal\'s most famous type of music. It is lyrical and
very sentimental, and likely to have stems from African slave songs, though
Portugal\'s own maritime and colonial past is equally noticable.
After the
revolution in 1974, when the empire was dispelled, the fado went through what
could be called a crisis. Today, it has come to be identified with an overall
sense of frustration.
There are two versions of the fado. The first of which
is style of the Alfama and Mouraria districts of Lisbon which is played mostly
in the Bairro Alto clubs. It is highly personal and full of feeling. The Coimbra
style is much more academic, played mostly by students, and reflects the ancient
university traditions of the city. In either style, fado songs are usually about
love, though there have been songs written on other subjects.
By far, the
most famous of the fado singers, and arguable its greatest performer, is Amalia
Rodrigues. She can be seen a prestige clubs and concerts in Lisbon, though in
recent years, she has strayed into other genres. Other big tradition names
include Florencio Carvalho, Alberto Prado, and Castro Rodrigo. Recent performers
have adapted the form to a more modern rhythm, including manuel Osorio and
Carlos do Carmo. The \'singer-songwriters\', have also looked towards the fado
Following the lead of Jose Afonso, nearly all the stars have produced one or two
of their own interpretations of the orginal form.
The modern Portuguese
ballad was the result of an attempt to update the Coimbra and it gave way to the
\'New Song\' in the last years of the dictatorship. This, from the revoltion of
April 25, 1974 and on, became a genuine political song movement, broadening in
recent years to a movement know as Musica Popular. In essence, Musica Popular is
contemporary folk music, composed and performed by something of an all-star team
of \'singer-songwriters\'.
The lyric generated by this movement have always
been as significant as the music backing them. many artists used modern poetry
that dealt with contemporary social and cultural issues. They also drew on music
rooted in popular tradition, including rural and urban, that showed various
infulences - colonial, French, English or Spanish - but fortunately avoided the
trite and hackneyed rhythms of commercial pop music.
One of the forerunners
of the genre was the 1956 LP Cancoes Heroicas - Cancoes Regionais Portuguesas
(Herioc Songs - Portuguese Regional Songs), arranged by Fernando Lopes Graca and
performed by hte Choir of the Amateur Musicaians\' Academy. Although the
harmonisations are a long way from New Song, two basic elements are present:
committed lyrics and respect for genuine regional music. Another LP, Fados of
Coimbra by Jose Afonso and Luis Gois, was released in May of that same year.
Unfrotunately for them, the fado was out of favor and have become just another
branch of \'national song\', with overtones of vulgar soap-opera.
Over time,
Jose Afonso abandoned the Portuguese guitar for the Spanish, which allows for
more freedom in the accompaniment. His first solo records came out in 1960,
including Balada do Outono (Autumn Ballad) which gave its name to the new genre
and won listener\'s respect for it. He was soon joined by Adriano Correia de
Oliveira and the poets Manuel Alegre, Ary dos Santos and Manuel Correia, whose
work porvided the lyrics for numerous songs.
After the colonial wars began,
censorship began to take its toll. Manino do Bairro Negroe (Black Slum Kid) and
Os Vampiros (The Vampires), both by Jose Afonso, were taken off the markent and
only instrumental versions of the songs could be sold. Some singers went into
exile. Luis Cilia released several records in paris under the general title of A
Poesia Portuguesa de Hoje e de Sempre (Portuguese Poetry of Today and All
Times), on which he sung his own arrangements of poems by Camoes, Pessoa,
Saramago and others.
The release in 1968 of Jose Afonso\'s Cantares do
Andarilho (Songs of the Road) marked the coming of age of the ballad. By this
time, Adriano was making his first LPs, as were Manuel Freire, Father Fanhais,
Jose Mario Branco, Jose Jorge Letria, and on their heels were Fausto, Pedro
Barroso and the Angolan Rui Mingas. Simultaneously, the social climate was
getting hotter and hotter. These singers were banned from TV and hardly every
heard on the radio. With very few venues at which to perform, and the fact the
permits were very difficult to obtain, these talented artists had to find an
alternate source of income.
Jose Afonso\'s Cantigas de Maio (Songs of May),
Jose Mario Branco\'s Mudam-se os Tempos, Mudam-se as Vontades (Changing Times,
Changing Wishes), and Adriano Correia de Oliveira\'s Gente d\'Aqui e de Agora
(People Here and Now) show a large improvement. The lyrics delved deeper in
their reflection on living condition and they were more open in their protest.
The music explored new forms, rhythms and means of expression. Jose Mario Branxo
made a key contribution as an arranger and producer. Preproduction censorship
however, continued to be strictly imposed and some singers stopped recording to
avoid it. Others, like Jose Afonso, resorted to even more cryptic lyrics.
This was how things stood on the night of April 24, 1974. At 10:55 pm Joao
Paulo Dinis of the \"Associates of Lisbon\"radio show played E Depois do
Adeus(After the Goodbyes), Paulo de Caravalho\'s Eurovision Song Contest entry
for the year. At midnight came the final signal Leite Vanconcelos played
Grandola Vila Moren on Radio Renascenca\'s \"Limite\" show. The army captains
went into action and on the following day the dream was a reality; Portugal was
returning to democracy.
Thereafter began a period in which is was difficult
to determine who was in power. Singers like Sergio Godinho, Luis Cilia, Jose
Mario Branco and Father Fanhais returned from exile. Now that censorship had
become a thing of the past, New Song gave way to political song. Every had
slogans, analyses and solutions to offer in the process of clarification which
followed.
Singers were suddenly in constant demand for the political and
cultural events being improvised with a minimum of technical resources all over
the country, giving performances in factories, cooperatives, squatters\'
settlements, and more. Groups were formed according to their political
standpoints: Free Song, the October Group, and the Group for Cultural Action -
Voices for the Cause. The latter, in mixing traditional songs with political
ones, set an unconcious pattern for future progress. Other artists slowly
branched out into working with one of the many theatre groups of the time and on
soundtracks for movies.
As time passed and things returned to normal,
traditional music was resurrected, bringing with it the first commercial folk
groups.
In the 1960\'s, Fernando Lopes Graca and Michel Giacometti produced
a five volume anthogy of regional Portuese Music. During the 1980\'s, Almanaque
from Lisbon followed in their footsteps, producing a series of records from the
oral tradition, as well as reworking the traditional themes in a slightly more
modern form. At the same time, Trovante, formed in 1975, were highly acclaimed
in Portugal for their contemporary and ambitious folk music. They worked closely
with Jose Afonso and Fausto as well. Its work is full of uneven swayings and
sudden changes of direction.
More recent folk music has come be known as
Musica Popular, which owes its renewed popularity mainly to the
singer-songwriters who dedicated themselves to it and musicians who have made
records devoted to these unique folk instruments.
Among instrumentalists,
perhaps the greatest guitarist Carlos Paredes. he explores bot the folk and
classical sides of the Portuguese guitar, with surprising results. Another
excellent instrumentalist is Julio Pereira, who began as a songwriter but became
interested in traditional stringed instruments and has recently experimented to
great effect in combining them with synthesisers, rhythm boxes and samplers in
compostions insprired by folk tradion.
As examined here, it is clear that
Portugal\'s history and music had great influences on one another, particularly
during the transition period that occured when Portugal became a democracy, and
discarded a thirty year dictatorship. It is also important to take note that
traditional Portuguese music still lives on in contemporary Portuguese
music.