Portugese Fado: A New Generation

All over the world, traditional music seems to be coming back into style. With its inclusion in the score of the Oscar-nominated hit Poor Things, Fado is the biggest old-newcomer on the world stage.

What is Fado? Nowadays, self-consciously representative of Portuguese culture as flamenco may be to Spain; it’s a folkloric, wildly dramatic and intensely melancholic musical tradition, preserved on the UNESCO list of intangible world heritage. Its vibe can be summed up in a Portuguese word you might know: saudade. This is popular with a lot of untranslatable word lists, but here I’ll quote Portuguese writer Manuel de Melo, its "a pleasure you suffer, an ailment you enjoy." This is the essence of Fado, something undeniably linked to Portuguese culture, but also inherently dramatic, heartwrenching, expressive and profound.

There are two forms of Fado named for their origins, Lisbon and Coimbra. Lisbon style is older, rising from a poor, marginalised district associated with South American, Iberian and African people in the early 19th century and it has continued this strong link with the working class. It sprang from a mixed heritage of dance styles (including the infamous fandango) and a form of Portuguese/Brazilian art song called the modinha. No surprise then that the Fado is known to bring the drama. Where Lisbon was known for improvisation and inclusion of female performers, Coimbra style was more appreciated by upper classes, and so was heavily rehearsed and more-or-less exclusive to men. If Lingo was Portuguese however, Coimbra is the one we’d be singing as it was popularised in bars and coffee shops by university students and faculty, drawing on a strong literary heritage in the city. The main difference today, however, is that Coimbra tends to be hopeful in its depiction of life and hardship whereas Lisbon is solidly melancholic.

So what now? This is all fairly historic, both styles are 19th century inventions, developing and spreading in the 20th century. Its 2024 why do we care? I’ve already mentioned the 2023 Poor Things cameo – the singer Carminho sang for Coldplay’s concert in Coimbra with a song named for both the style and city. Madonna uploaded a fado version of Like A Virgin to her Instagram in 2019. Artists, such as Carlos do Carmo, Christina Branco, and Mariza has expanded the range of instruments used in Fado to include piano, violin, accordion, whilst others experiment with fusion and other genres. Clearly fado is popular right now. It has become a national symbol in Portugal, ringing out through bars, coffee shops, concert halls and tourist sites. There’s some discourse on authenticity here, whether from the performance of fado for tourists or from adaption by Portuguese artists as it was popularised by the near mythic Maria Severa Onofriana who’s Portuguese gypsy heritage definitely influenced her work. There’s so much to say here and so little space, so to finish all I’ll say is check it out, you won’t be sorry.

Published in Lingo Magazine Edition #3 March 2024