Playing the Lisbon Portuguese
Guitarra by Ronald Louis Fernandez (continued)
Section 19. Fado Castiço (Fado Tradicional) and Fado Canção
(musicated or composed Fado)
There are a few hundred old traditional fado melodies which are well known to the community of fadistas and fado audiences. Most of these fado melodies are known by particular names such as Fado Vitoria or Fado Bailado. In 1999, about 120 of these melodies were collected by Antonio Parreira and written down by Maestro Jorge Machado (see the bibliography section below). In 2005 a collection of 16 CDs was issued by Movieplay under the title Todos os Fados. In volume 16 (page 34) of this collection fado historian Daniel Gouveia notes that 411 fados are now recognized to exist.
The composer of some of these Traditional Fados
melodies is not known. But there are many whose composer
is known. For example, the melody called "Fado
Bailado" is credited to Alfred Marceneiro. Associated with this
melody are verses entitled "Estanha Forma de Vida" some of these
verses were written the singer by Amalia Rodrigues.
In commercial popular music, words and melodies
are legally linked and their authors protected by copyright
laws. In traditional fado, the melody and the words can be
independent of one another. More simply, singers are free to
draw from a body of traditional melodies and then sing whatever
words they wish. This fact becomes evident as you listen to fado
recordings and hear the same embellished melody used by
different singers to accompany their own verses. In a sense,
fadistas are continually reinventing the fado by
drawing on the traditional music ideas and composing new words.
What this means is that the accompanying guitarist never knows
what verse a fado singer will put to a particular melody.
Clearly for an aspiring fado guitarist, the central task becomes
one of learning the corpus of traditional melodies so he can
easily accompany any fado singer.
Learning the traditional fado melodies pays off
doubly for the musicians because they can also use these old
traditional melodies for guitarradas which are their
personal instrumental compositions. The Fado Lopes is a well
known instrumental in the Fado world. It is sometimes
called Variation in E minor. Armandinho, Chainho, Jose Nunes and
other greats have developed fascinating variations on this
piece. The original Fado Lopes was composed by Mário José Lopes.
(aka Jose Lopes) early in the 20th century. It was been reworked
by singers as well as instrumentalists, the great Fadista
Fernando Farinha has written and sung words for this piece, his
version was called Vidas Trocas (listen to it on YouTube.
The existence of a body of traditional,
well-known melodies gives a coherence to the realm fado music.
Nevertheless, the liberty to change words or embellish the
melodies gives the Fado a special freedom to evolve.
The literature on Fado extends back to the 19th
century. It is beyond me to review that literature but there are
a few topics I should mention
There are a number of ways in which commentators
distinguish kinds of Fados.
1. The first one is the difference between Lisbon
Fado and Coimbra Fado. The 19th century Lisbon fado is related
to the working class barrios on Lisbon. The Coimbra Fado is
associated with student serenades sung in the university city of
Coimbra in central Portugal.
2. The difference between Fado Castiço (Fado Tradicional) and
Fado Canção (Fado Song). Traditional Fado goes back to the early
19th century, the melody is tied to a repeated stanza. In
contrast the Fado Canção is a composed fado which has a
stanza and a verse. April in Portugal, which is known in
Portugal as Coimbra, is an example of Fado Canção. Interesting
that the song is called Coimbra yet is not a "Coimbra
Fado". Fado Conde Anadia which was a great hit in the 19th
century is an example of a 19th century traditional fado. I
believe Luis Penedo use to refer to Fado Canção as a "Musicated"
Fado. It was a form associated with Music Hall Theatre as
opposed to Fado Castiço which was associated with tavern
culture.
3. There are some literary scholars who classify fados according
to their poetic structure. This is a classification based on the
number of lines per stanza and the number of syllables per
line. Quadras have 4 lines, , Quintilhas have 5 lines. Sextilhas have 6 lines.
Setessílabo have 7 syllables, Decassíabo have 10 syllables. The
very basic Fado Menor has 4 lines with usually 7 syllables per
line, I often count 8 syllables which I assume has to do with
pronouciation or stylist differences. It really does not matter
as along as the words fit close to the music structure.
It is good for a player to be aware of the poetic
structure of the song because it is can affect the manner of
accompanying. Obviously, melody length and number of
syllables and accompaniment must be in sync. A singer cannot be
using 12 syllables to a musical arpeggio which will only fit 7
or 8 syllables.
4. The predecessors of Lisbon Fado. The modinho
and the lundum (also lundu) are two 18th century music forms
which are closely related to the early fado. Two hundred
years ago there were related forms of Brazilian and
Portuguese modinhos--this is understandable as there was
constant traffic across the Atlantic Ocean between Lisbon and
Rio de Janeiro. There are writers who also credit the fofa, the
fandango and a Brazilian dance called the Fado (which has
questionable links with the sung fado) as roots of the fado.
Whether the dance fado is an important ancestor of the
modern fado I think is interesting but unimportant as it was not
important enough to continue. The great Pedro Caldeira Cabral
told me after lunch one day that fado is essentially a Lisbon
style modinho. My opinion is that the Fado has many ancestors
but it evolved within the environment of Lisbon into its own
unique and changing form.
5. There are several writers who have suggested
that the core Fados are Fado Corrido Maior, Fado Menor and Fado
Mouraria. It is unknown whether these are the oldest fados but
nevertheless they are very important 19th century forms. Rather
than particular songs they are song forms. They are associated
with poetry which is 4 lines, with 7 syllables. There is no set
melody. There are typical harmonic (chord) patterns. They each
have typical arpeggio patterns. I assume that some Fado scholars
can identify more aspects which characterize these forms, but
for me as a musician these are what I am consciously aware of.
The reader can easily find more info on-line about these topics.
Also, see Rui Vieira Nery's 2012 book A
History of Portuguese Fado (ISBN: 978-972-27-2024) or the
Portuguese language original, Para Uma História do Fado,
2004 (ISBN: 972-8892-32-2). Daniel Gouveia has much to say
on such matters in his Ao Fado Tudo se Canta?, 2010 (ISBN:
978-989-8135-40-7). Donald Cohen's book, Fado Português: Songs
from the soul of Portugal, 2003 (ISBN: 0-7119-8229-5)
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