Playing the
Lisbon Portuguese Guitarra by Ronald Louis Fernandez
(continued)
Section
16b. Another Fado do Marinheiro, an even older
Portuguese Fado?
In his book, Ao Fado tudo se canta?, Daniel Gouveia
spends a few pages (pp. 25-28) discussing the old Fado do
Marinheiro which appears in Alberto Pimentel's A Triste
Canção do Sul. Then, he tells us of phoning Pedro Caldeira
Cabral, the famous guitarrista, and finds that Pedro has in his
personal collection an older piece of music dating from 1836
with the same title.
Pedro gives Daniel permission to duplicate it in his book which
he does. Daniel then gave me permission to put a version of that
1836 piece in my online lesson. Since many people cannot read
the written music and "hear" it in their head, I have put
together a video on YouTube which you can see and hear here:
Here is the piece written out so you can study it. I have added
what I think may be an appropriate accompaniment. The top staff
is for the Portuguese Guitarra and the accompaniment is for the
Viola de Fado which is usually replaced nowadays with the
Spanish Guitar.
This version is obviously different from the one in
Pimentel's book which I discussed in section 16a. Whether
this fado from Pedro Cabral or the one from Pimental is
older is not the most important matter. They are both
examples of Fados from the first half of 19th century and
they have a number of structural similarities, for example:
the melody starts on an up beat, they are both 16 measures
long, the musical phrases seems to be 4 measures long, each
have rhythmic patterns which occur throughout the piece,
they end on strong downbeat, they can be accompanied with a
simple tonic, dominant, dominant, tonic pattern. We do not
know the poetic content of these 2 fados but we know that
they were considered to be fados and the title involves a
typical fado theme.
There are other 19th
century Fados with different titles which feature the theme of
marinheiros (sailors). Daniel Gouveia notes that the Canção do
Marítimo (no. 238), A Despedida do Marujo (no. 336) and O
Marinheiro (no. 532) all of which appeared in César das Neves
comprehensive 3 volume collection from 1873 to 1897) entitled
Cancioneiro de Músicas Populares Portuguesas (see below for free
access to this collection).
On YouTube there are a number of 20th century
versions of Fado do Marinheiro. One is by Carlos Ramos
(music by Raúl Ferrão, lyrics by Luís Galhardo). There
is another one entitled "O Fado do Marinheiro" sung by Berta
Cardoso. There is a recent (2012) lovely video performance by
Carminho of "Meu Amor Marinheiro"--in the last third she
looks straight into the camera and really turns on the
performance (it brought tears to my eyes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykFNG4pc1Sg
These marinheiro fados are all completely different
songs and distinct from the 2 old fados I have
discussed. What
they all show is that marinheiros (sailors) have been a long
time theme of fados.
Within the context of my lessons I think it is good for
Portuguese Guitarists to know something about the history of
Fados that is why I have taken the time to present these 2
old Fados. They are simple songs. Perhaps someone could work
them into a variação or set them to new fado poetry.
They are instructive because they present the simple early
structure of the fado song. If the reader wants to write a
fado, these are 2 simple models to start with.
About 20 years ago, I was lucky to have Pedro
Caldeira Cabral show me his studio, play some of his
original pieces, buy me lunch, and then
offer to copy the 3 volumes of Cesar das Neves' books for me. I
met him the next day outside a copy shop (in the pouring rain)
and he presented me with a large box with the complete 3
volumes. This was extremely kind of him. Over the years I
studied this collection and I became somewhat aware of the the
state of popular music in Portugal in the late 19th century. To
be sure there are not a great number of true fados in this
collection but there are some.
Well, lucky me to have met up with Pedro! Well, lucky for you
too, because you live in a connected age where these 3 volumes
are available world wide. Since they are very old they are out
of copyright and therefore can be shown free to the public.
There are over 500 songs with piano arrangements in this
collection. You can see this collection in several digital
collections. They are available on Google Books, the Internet
Archive and elsewhere.
Here are the links on Google books for Volume 1 (1893), Volume 2
(1895) and Volume 3 (1898):
