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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.