Portal do Fado

Although the first discographic records produced in Portugal date from the beginning of the 20th century, at this stage the national market was still very incipient since it was quite expensive to buy gramophones and records. Effectively, the fundamental conditions for recording sound appeared after the invention of the electric microphone in 1925. At the same time, gramophones started being made at more competitive prices. And thus were created more favourable conditions to this market among the middle class.

In the context of the mediatization instruments of Fado, TSF - wireless telegraphy - had a central importance in the first decades of the 20th century. Among the intense activity of radio broadcasting stations between 1925 and 1935, we highlight CT1AA, Rádio Clube Português, Rádio Graça and Rádio Luso - this last one quickly becoming popular for favouring fado. The broadcasts of the first Portuguese radio station, CT1AA, began in 1925. Investing on technical and logistic infrastructures which guaranteed it the expansion of its broadcast range and the broadcasts regularity, CT1AA of Abílio Nunes incorporated fado in its broadcasts, conquering a large group of listeners, including in the Portuguese emigration diaspora. With live feeds from the Theatres and musical live presentations at the studios, CT1AA also promoted the broadcast of an experimental fado show directed by the Spanish guitar player Amadeu Ramin.

With the military coup of the 28 May 1926 and the implementation of previous censorship on public shows, the press and other publications, the urban song would suffer profound changes. In fact, in the following year the Decree Law Number 13 564 of 6 May 1927 globally regulated the show activities through extensive clauses; defending a “superior supervision of all the houses and show venues or public entertaining (...) by the General Inspection of Theatres and its delegates in behalf of the Public Instruction Ministry” on its 200 articles. Fado suffered unavoidable changes. The legal instrument regulated on the attribution of licenses to the companies which promoted shows at the most diversified venues, authorship rights, mandatory previous viewing of shows and sung repertoires, specific regulation for attributing the professional card, contracts, and tour travelling, among many other subjects. Significant mutations were so imposed on the performing venues, on the way interpreters presented themselves, and on the sung repertoires - striped of any improvised character - cementing a professionalization process of several interpreters, instrument players, song writers and composers, who were then performing at several venues before an increasing audience.

The hearing of fados would gradually become ritualized at fado houses, places which concentrated in the city’s historic neighbourhoods, mainly in Bairro Alto, especially since the 1930s. These transformations in the fado production would necessarily drift it apart from improvise, loosing some of its original performing contexts diversity and imposing the specialization of interpreters, authors and musicians. In parallel, the discographic and radio recordings proposed a triage of voices and performing practices that were imposed as models, thus limiting improvise.

The next decade, the revivalism trends of the so called typical features would definitely prevail, leading to a replication of the most genuine and picturesque in fado’s performing venues.

Fado was present in the theatre and the radio since their first moments and the same would happen in the Seventh Art. In fact, the appearance of sound films was marked by the musical genre and the Portuguese cinema gave special attention to fado. Proving it, the theme of the first Portuguese sound film, directed by Leitão de Barros in 1931, was the misfortunes of the mythical Severa. As a central theme or a mere side note, fado accompanied cinema production until the 1970s. In fact, the Portuguese cinema showed particular interest in the fado universe in 1947 with O Fado, História de uma Cantadeira, starred by Amália Rodrigues or in 1963, with O Miúdo da Bica, starred by Fernando Farinha. Despite the protagonism of Amália Rodrigues, the participations of artists like Fernando Farinha, Hermínia Silva, Berta Cardoso, Deolinda Rodrigues, Raul Nery and Jaime Santos in the Seventh Art are also noteworthy.

And if radio broadcasting allowed to go beyond geographical barriers, taking the voices of fado to thousands of people, when Rádio Televisão Portuguesa was inaugurated in 1957 – and specially when the broadcast became national in the mid-1970s - the faces of the artists would become known by the general public. Recreating environments connected to fado themes inside the study, television broadcasted regularly, between 1959 and 1974, with live feeds of fado shows which would undoubtedly contribute to its mediatization.

Enjoying the diffusion on the Teatro de Revista stages since the last quart of the 19th century, and the promotion on the specialized press since the first decades of the 20th century, Fado became progressively mediatized by the radio, cinema, and television. It gained great strength between the 1940s and 1960, often called the golden years.. The annual contest Grande Noite do Fado began in 1953, lasting until our days. Gathering hundreds of candidates from several organizations and associations of the city, this contest is traditionally held at Coliseu dos Recreios and is still today an important event to the fado tradition of Lisbon and the promotion of young amateurs who try to rise to the professional status.

The exponents of the national song were at the time attached to a network of typical houses with regular casts. But now they had a broader working market with many possibilities of discographic recording, tours, performances at radio and television. In parallel, there were performances by fado singers at “Serões para Trabalhadores”, cultural events broadcast by the radio and promoted by FNAT since 1942. Fado programmes were also promoted by the Secretariado Nacional de Informação, Cultura e Turismo which became responsible for the Censhorship, Emissora Nacional, and Inspecção Geral dos Espectáculos in 1944. In the 1950s, the regime’s approach to the international success of Amália Rodrigues strengthened the collage of the regime to fado, after changing it deeply.

The simplicity of Fado’s melodic structure values the voice interpretation, and also sublimes the sung repertoires. With a strong evocative inclination, fado’s poetry appeals to the communion between the interpreter, the musicians and the listeners. In quatrains or improvised quatrains, five-verse stanzas, six-verse stanzas, decasyllables and alexandrine verses, this popular poetry evokes themes related to love, luck, individual fate, and the city’s daily narrative. Sensitive to social injustice, Fado gained interventionist contours on many occasions.