Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: The fadista in Portuguese Film
- 1 Images of Defeat: Early Fado Films and the Estado Novo's Notion of Progress
- 2 The Musical War Against Lisbon: Aldeia da Roupa Branca's Rural Family Values in Conflict with an Easy fadista Life in the Capital
- 3 A Return to marialvismo: O Costa do Castelo and the Comedies of the 1940s
- 4 Lisbon (Fado) versus Coimbra (Fado): New Severas, the Colonial Enterprise, and Class Conflict in Capas Negras
- 5 Fado, História d'uma Cantadeira: Construction and Deconstruction of the fado novo
- Conclusion: Fado Malhoa, etc.
- Afterword: The Legacy of Fado Films
- Bibliography
- Filmography
- Index
5 - Fado, História d'uma Cantadeira: Construction and Deconstruction of the fado novo
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2016
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: The fadista in Portuguese Film
- 1 Images of Defeat: Early Fado Films and the Estado Novo's Notion of Progress
- 2 The Musical War Against Lisbon: Aldeia da Roupa Branca's Rural Family Values in Conflict with an Easy fadista Life in the Capital
- 3 A Return to marialvismo: O Costa do Castelo and the Comedies of the 1940s
- 4 Lisbon (Fado) versus Coimbra (Fado): New Severas, the Colonial Enterprise, and Class Conflict in Capas Negras
- 5 Fado, História d'uma Cantadeira: Construction and Deconstruction of the fado novo
- Conclusion: Fado Malhoa, etc.
- Afterword: The Legacy of Fado Films
- Bibliography
- Filmography
- Index
Summary
Because of Portugal's neutral status during the Second World War, Lisbon attracted European exiles and American soldiers; the capital and its Estoril coast welcomed deserters, sailors, spies, and toppled monarchs. In this privileged Lisbon of the early to mid-1940s – politically distant from the compromised Continent – the fado novo would be heard for the first time, en masse, by international audiences.
However, well before the Second World War, the Lisbon fado had been criticized by Portuguese writers, who often pointed to the poor, urban origins of the song to prove its local rather than universal or national appeal. António Arroio (1909) associates the fado's poverty in harmony and theme with the poverty in which the song was born:
O Fado, o nome diz, nasceu nos centros de maior abominação; a maneira de o cantar é o conjunto mais completo e ridículo dos erros estilísticos, de faltas de bom gôsto. Mas também só assim tem côr própria, local; modificado ou estilizado diversamente, perde todo o valor e fica reduzido à sua eterna e pobre harmonia, sempre a mesma, sempre docemente sensual e deprimente.
[The fado, the name tells us, was born in the centers of greatest abomination; the manner in which it is sung is the combination of the most complete and ridiculous of stylistic errors and bad taste. Nevertheless, that is the only reason it has its own, local color; modified or arranged differently, it loses all of its value and is reduced to its eternal and poor harmony, always the same, always sweetly sensual and depressing.]
At the end of this classist tirade, Arroio states his thesis: “Para que pois cantá-lo, quando tantas riquezas de ordem superior abriga o cancioneiro nacional?” [Why then sing it, when so many other treasures of superior order are hidden in the national songbook?]
In 1936, Luís Moita recognizes the popularity of the fado, and comments on the impressions it gave foreigners when the song:
Saiu surrateiramente, das vielas de Lisboa, dos postes de rádio da Capital ou dos seus ‘caldos de cultura’ e foi surpreendê-los galgando a fronteira, com doridos vómitos, catitas e empoladas estrofes.
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- Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2016