Before going to Portugal, I wanted to start getting to know the country and its culture from afar. And then I got to know fado.
Fado - it`s the black veil music of Portuguese seafarer's wives, the tower music of Lisbon`s white Bethlehem, which sounds in the shore of Tezha seeing off and greeting the seafarers and fishermen. It is music that combines the grief of parting and the pleasure of meeting again after a long time - just as in one of the songs: "all of this happens, it`s all sad, it`s all fado".
Fado name comes from the Latin "fatum" - destiny. The extended name is fado saudada where "saudada" means sadness, aches, which can be heard in this music. It comes from people, form the city, from poor areas, where people gather, all tired and exhausted with broken lives, their pain. The text has a significant importance in fado. They are often like balladry stories, prayers, elegy, lament, a musical message of his life, his pain. Fado has a fate similar to that of blues, that comes from the rack and was perceived as the expression of "poor" people, but now has become popular all around the world.
Portuguese guitar
1 word stands for the singing style, plot and mood accompanied by a 12-string guitar. Fado is the state of a wounded soul. It is pain, they are unfulfilled dreams, the trauma of a lost homeland, an unhappy love ... Even though there are two types of fado - the Lisbon one and the Coimbra one, however, they are very similar. Lisbon`s fado is more related to the sea - for those who left and those who staid, where nostalgia and seamen`s homesickness interchange with the weeping of their wives for the lost love and orphans. Coimbra, as a city known for its university, has a student fado they usually sing during some student celebrations.
Mariza`s house in Lisbon
An excerpt of Portuguese contemporary poetry anthologies, from the poetry of Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, translated into English which relates to the ache of fado:
You will go to court, you will beg for your pension to be paid on time.
This land is killing you slowly.
The land that you call upon and which does not call you back.
The land that you have founded and which does not rise up.
In your destruction against you turned both defamations and hate with envy so cutting, he who dares to be himself never lacks enemies...
The most popular fado singers - Amalie Rodriguez, Mission, Mariza ...
Mariza
Fado is the word that characterizes a well-known singer in Europe - Mariza. She was born in Mozambique, but when she was three years old, the family moved to her father's homeland Portugal. There she first heard fado. Fado in Portugal is the same as tango in Argentina and flamenco in Andalusia: music that roots very deep in the faith of the peoples.
"Fado is an emotional kind of music full of passion, sorrow, jealousy, grief, but at the same time fado is different because it combines unbearable pain with sparkling joy of life, life`s cruelty with the power of love," says Mariza herself.
In Quebec City`s Summer Festival 2002 Mariza won the award for the best performance but in 2003 she was declared Portugal`s Personality of the Year for the spreading of Portuguese culture, in its most characteristic manifestation: the fado.
Mariza
Beautiful fado of Mariza:
Nasceu de ser Português
Fez-se à vida Pelo mundo
Foi sonho p'lo vagabundo
Foi pela terra abraçado
Bem ou mal Querido AMADO
O Fado
Vive de ser Português
Alegre foi e foi gingão
Por ser um fado é canção
Por ser futuro é passado
Mal Querido ou bem AMADO
O Fado
Chad crustaceans mais Português
Anda ing sharp do vento
S vezes solta um know about Parliament
E Pede p'ra ser achado
Ele é Querido, ele é AMADO
O Fado
About fado - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fado
Famous Portuguese fado singer Mariza home page - www.mariza.com
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