In the early 19th century, Lisbon was a city in the midst of a complete transformation, following the French invasions, the Liberal Wars, the rural exodus and the early stages of industrialisation. Added to all this was the recent independence of Brazil, a colony which, until recently, had been the seat of the kingdom’s capital.
Just as had happened elsewhere in the early 19th century, Lisbon was ready to embrace – and transform – a new musical form, much as was the case, for example, with other port cities such as Seville (flamenco), Buenos Aires (tango) or New Orleans (jazz).
The Luso-Brazilian modinhas, with their colonial flavours and mixed-race sentiments, proved to be sensitive mirrors of an empire fading away in melody.
Fado — that uncharted territory — was, according to Nery, taken from the tavern to the treatise. Not as one who desecrates it, but as one who restores its multifaceted nature: music and myth, destiny and construction, memory and urban invention.
Fado dates back to the 18th and early 19th centuries, but it ‘did not originate in Brazil’. It was, however, heavily influenced by the comings and goings of people and by Brazilian folk music and dance. Until the end of the 19th century, fado was a sung dance!
And to gain a better understanding of fado, one must understand 19th-century Lisbon: the people who, with the dawn of the industrial age, flocked to Lisbon, and those who came from Brazil; the outskirts of the working-class neighbourhoods that sprang up on the outskirts of Lisbon – the city bordering the countryside.
Fado is a song that originated within the working class. With the emergence of the labour movement, many fado lyrics began to be published, and the first fado newspapers, such as ‘Guitarra Portugal’ and others, appeared.
Nineteenth-century fado stemmed from festivals; it told stories and was associated with crime. It is a fado of longing, accompanied only by guitars and sung in the ‘retiros’ of the taverns – usually places situated along the roads linking the outskirts to the centre of Lisbon – and in the fado houses, where ‘fado was played’!
In the 1870s, fado began to gain respectability, coming to be regarded as ‘chic music’ and being used for political purposes, whilst the lyrics bore witness to the very progress of the labour movement.
During the First Republic, it served as a weapon of political criticism. At the start of the 20th century, fado modernised! In 1906, the first records featuring fado recordings appeared.
Fado singers were required to hold a “professional licence”, a requirement aimed at combating the prejudice that fado was sung by less affluent people. Some cafés and restaurants, such as the “Café dos Anjos”, began to employ fado singers, and the singers began to perform for an audience that was no longer from the same social class.
Around the 1950s, fado crossed paths with the woman who would become one of Portugal’s greatest symbols: Amália Rodrigues.
When Amália began singing, the themes addressed in fado were essentially everyday life, love, the hardships of life, and the difficulties of work.
It was 1965 when Amália released a 45 rpm record entitled Amália Canta Camões.
Around the same time, an edition of the Jornal Popular was published on 23 October 1965, in which various figures from the literary and artistic worlds gave their views on this innovation, which was, at first, unusual in Fado.
To see further reflections of this controversy, in 1966, Amália appeared in an interview in which she herself was the defendant and the accusers were the public, judging her also for the ‘crime’ of having sung Camões and of having left so-called ‘authentic’ fado behind. Stunned, Amália says she does not understand the difference between the authentic fado of the past and the fado she sings. She also admits that a flaw she sees in herself is a lack of authenticity.
Even before these dates, Amália had already reached new heights. In 1962, she released her first album featuring compositions by Alain Oulman, entitled Busto, although we know that Amália had actually begun working with the composer as early as 1959. This album is a real surprise.
A new era in Fado had officially begun, and, without a doubt, a new era in Amália’s career as well.
This album already hints at the initiative that would endure for decades to come, which involved Amália performing the works of poets who belonged to her circle and were regular visitors to her home.
Amália’s genius with words was remarkable, evident not only in the poem she had written and recorded, ‘Estranha Forma de Vida’, but also in the way she delivered every word. Amália, who had only a primary school education, proved herself to be a poet of simple words, yet of complex meanings and feelings.
Amália played a key role in bringing fado to the world and establishing it as an art form. Her fado knew no boundaries, whether linguistic or cultural.
From the moment she appeared on the scene and became a fado singer, right up until her death in 1999, Amália was an icon of national culture who carried the country’s good name, through fado, to the four corners of the world.
