Saturday, June 13, 2009

Dom António de Bragança, the Author of the “Fado das Horas”

One of the readers of All This Is Fado, who has been a long-time follower of the music of Maria Teresa de Noronha, recently inquired whether it would be possible to find out more information about Dom António de Bragança, the author of the famous “Fado das Horas.” After carrying out a little research on this aristocratic fado poet, with some help from my good friend Ofélia Pereira, this is what I have been able to compile.

By Anton Garcia-Fernandez.

Over the course of its history, fado has appealed not only to the working classes, but the nobility has also shown a pronounced interest in the genre, enabling it to move freely across social boundaries. In fact, the foundational myth of fado, dating back to the 1820s, has to do with the illicit love affair between the prostitute Maria Severa and the Count of Vimioso, an aristocrat who excelled at bullfighting and enjoyed fado singing. Many have been the members of the upper classes that have fallen prey to the lure of fado, from nineteenth-century noblemen such as Dom José Almada e Lencastre and the Count of Castelo Melhor to more contemporary singers like Maria Teresa de Noronha and Vicente da Câmara, who belonged to the privileged classes and decided to pursue a career in fado.

Dom António José Manuel de Bragança is actually related to Vicente da Câmara, and his love of fado goes back to the years of his youth. Born in 1895, Dom António soon followed in the footsteps of his brother Dom Pedro de Bragança, who was ten years his elder and was known for his rowdy, fun-loving ways, as well as for his eccentricities. Dom Pedro was very adept at hunting and bullfighting, but he also had a talent for songwriting and even got around to making some records accompanied by Raul Nery on the Portuguese guitar and Júlio Gomes on the guitar. As for Dom António, he concentrated on songwriting and soon emerged as a magnificent poet, penning the lyrics of fado classics such as “Fado Rosário” ("Fado of the Rosary") and “Fado das Horas” (“Fado of the Hours”), the latter recorded by Maria Teresa de Noronha, who counted him among his favorite lyricists.



The poems of Dom António de Bragança, usually full of witty rhymes, are inspired by the spontaneity and lightheartedness of folk poetry, but they are always very carefully constructed. Many of them explore the ubiquitous theme of love, but some others are highly self-referential and attempt to depict what fado means. For instance, Eduardo Sucena (1) claims that his “Fado da Verdade” (“Fado of Truth”) is a defense of fado against the fierce criticism of the genre made by Luís Moita in his famous 1936 book Fado, Canção de Vencidos (Fado, Song of the Defeated):

Once someone said
That fado put to sleep
Those who heard its moaning
That fado takes away our energies
That it takes away our happiness
That it is a song of the defeated

It is a heresy, it is a sin
To say such things about fado
To make such a statement
If fado is sad, when it is sung
It only brings to tears
Those who have a heart

The connection with Moita’s book, a collection of lectures read over the airwaves in which he blames fado for many of the social problems that were plaguing Portugal at the time, is obvious here, and Dom António’s very poetic reply in the second stanza speaks for itself. When dealing with the topic of love, however, Dom António favored a much more playful approach, as in the first stanza of his “Fado Rosário”:

When she gave me a rosary one day
My mother asked me
To pray for everyone
Yet I committed a great sin
For I completely forgot her plea
And only prayed for you.

The great aristocratic fado singer Maria Teresa de Noronha.

In the “Fado das Horas,” one of his masterpieces that will be forever associated with Maria Teresa de Noronha, he achieves a highly dramatic effect by virtue of his use of the oxymoron, thereby illustrating the paradoxical nature of love and the fugacity of life. It is worth translating the poem in full because of its lyricism and poetic quality:

I used to cry because I did not see you
Now I cry because I see you
But I am simply crying because
I want to see you all the time

Time flies by in a whirl
When you are talking, I listen
In the hours of our lives
Each hour lasts just one minute

When you are by my side
I feel that I rule the world
But time is so cruel
Each hour lasts only one second

Stay very close to me
And do not ever go away
So that my poor heart
May live at least for an hour.

Dom António de Bragança passed away in 1964, at age 69, leaving behind an important legacy of poems, many of which have become fado classics and entered the repertoire of some of the great performers of the genre. He ranks high among the several aristocrats that have paid heed to the calling of fado and devoted their artistic efforts to increasing the fame and reputation of the style. Although he never made any records, Dom António will always be remembered as one of the top songwriters of the fado aristocrático.

Links: For more information in Portuguese about Dom António de Bragança and other renowned aristocrats whose lives crossed paths with fado, click on Fadistas Como Eu Sou: Fidalgos Poetas e Fadistas.

Notes

(1) Eduardo Sucena. Lisboa, o fado e os fadistas. Edições Vega, 1992: 139-40. This book includes an entire chapter devoted to the so-called aristocratic fado, featuring a basic analysis of the relationships established between fado and the upper classes.

7 comments:

Okawa Ryuko said...

I discovered your blog today. Congratulations! Your love for Fado is quite moving. Guess you are a honorary Portuguese by now.

Anton Garcia-Fernandez said...

Dear Okawa,

Thank you very much for your comment. I am very glad that you enjoy the blog. My only intention with it is to give some exposure to fado among English speakers. I just created another blog of a similar kind in Spanish, which you can visit at http://guitarrasdelisboa.blogspot.com.

I am originally from Vigo, in the northwest of Spain, but I live now in the United States, where I teach Spanish language and literature at a college level. Fado has always been a passion for me and a very important part of my life, and so I am really happy that this blog allows me to get in touch with people who also enjoy fado.

Please feel free to stop by again anytime you wish. Muito obrigado! :)

Anton.

MLeiria said...

Antón
Como já tive ocasião de lhe dizer, acho este seu artigo muito interessante, tendo o mérito de lembrar e chamar a atenção para a importante figura do poeta de fado, Dom António de Bragança, que tantas e tão notáveis letras nos legou. Nunca é demais lembrar os poetas, sem os quais não haveria fado...isto parece redundante, mas não é! O que se me afigura é que nem toda a poesia serve o Fado; o poema tem que casar bem com a música e essa unidade com quem a interpreta; é esse o feliz caso, por ex., do "Fado das Horas", de que aqui fala.
Só não estou muito de acordo com a etiqueta, que já o Sucena utilizou, de "Fado aristocrático"; em rigor, o fado não é, nem se torna aristocrático, lá por ser da autoria ou interpretado por alguém da aristocracia... nem tem, que eu veja, alguma característica própria, algum conteúdo, que o identifique com a aristocracia...
Na minha modesta opinião, o que há e sempre houve é gente da aristocracia, rendida a essa Arte Maior que o povo soube inventar, para dizer a Vida - o Fado!
Já concordo que se possa catalogar algum fado como Fado Marialva, por ex., uma vez que isso tem a ver com o conteúdo das letras, entre outras coisas...
Não sei se fui clara, mas acho que o Antón percebe o que quero dizer. Concorda?
Bjão
P.S. Já foi ao blog da pessoa que fez o 1º comentário? Que belíssimo artigo!... Pena que já há muito tempo não escreva, mas tenho fé que há-de voltar...
Vou também fazer, no meu blog, ligação para este seu artigo.

Anton Garcia-Fernandez said...

Ofélia:

Muito obrigado pelo seu comentário. Sem dúvida, tem você razão: nem toda a poesia serve para o fado, e por isso às vezes eu não entendo porquê muitos fadistas desejam musicar poemas de Camões e outros grandes poetas portugueses quando há poemas excelentes desses que se chamam "poetas do fado", que na minha opinião são poetas, sem mais, e com letras grandes! Falo, por exemplo, do Linhares Barbosa, do Bragança, do Artur Ribeiro, e de tantos outros.

Também concordo com você em não gostar da etiqueta "fado aristocrático" que eu usei no artigo simplesmente porque a encontrei nos livros. Nada há nesse fado aristocrático que se possa chamar de aristocrata, senão os seus intérpretes, e eu acho que isso não é suficiente para justificar a etiqueta. Seria como fazer diferenças entre fado masculino e feminino ou chamar de "fado marceneiro" o estilo do Alfredo porque ele era marceneiro de profissão...

E o artigo da Okawa sobre o fado no seu blog é excelente. Já o tinha lido há tempo e acho que é mágoa que não escreva mais. Mas talvez algum dia voltará...

Beijinhos fadistas de Nashville meus e da Erin!

Antón.

MLeiria said...

Precisamente! Tb não entendo o motivo que leva alguns intérpretes a recorrerem a textos de Camões, Pessoa,entre outros... mas creio que é uma "moda" pós-amaliana que a própria criou. O facto é que houve e há um débito de poetas que escrevam no estilo descritivo, em que foram Mestres o Linhares, o Carlos Conde, o Henrique Rego...para só enumerar alguns. Escrever como eles não é para todos! Essa poesia obedecia a uma especial combinação de conteúdo,rima,estrutura, devendo ainda caber bem na música. Não é o mesmo que escrever, em verso branco, umas patacoadas e seguidamente fazer caber esse texto numa música género fado, nem que seja à marretada! É claro que, felizmente, temos ainda grandes poetas de fado, como acho que se lhes deve chamar, por uma discriminação positiva, porque é mesmo uma Escola que, espero, perdure por muitos e bons!...

Quanto à Okawa, tb eu espero que volte, breve e em força, para, com os seus textos, nos deliciar e enriquecer .

Bjinhos para a Erin e para si!

"Quem me dera ser o fado"
OP

Tiago Correia said...

PORTUGAL NAO ESTA EN MODA AMIGOS! NADA DE MODA, SOULAMENTE MUITO, MUITO POBREZA E MUITO SOPAS DOS POBRES TUDOS OS DIAS! NAO VEM PA PORTUGAL , E UMA MERDA DE VERDADE AMIGOS!!!
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The portucigano economy is in the toilet, and droves of it's citizens are fleeing to neighboring Spain to work just to put food on the table! Those who don't go to Spain are swimming, or jumping on bannana boats to go to Angola or Mozambique just to sell their corpo for cod to feed their families. The slightly better off portuciganos are flying to Brasil to live in a favela that is much better than the poor, decrepid conditions they live in now; at least here they can eat.
I observed the portuciganos to be an ignorant bunch stuck in a mental time-warp that only focus on "how" good things were in the distant past rather than focusing on their now deteriorated, non-existant economy, and how bad things really are today.
Perhaps, this is "why" they can't seem to see the log stuck in their eyes but see the splinters in everybody elses eyes. I do find it ironic that they are racist toward Spain, Angola, Mozambique and Brazil only to later go look for a better life in these countries!

***NAO TRABALHOS EM PUTUGAL...PUTUGAL E UMA MERDA!! E VERDADE E VERDADE AMIGOS!!!***

TE VEJO NO SOPAS DOS POBRES A NOITE COM SEUS IRMAOS DESEMPREGADOS :)

Nelinha Borges said...

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Fado...o merda mais merda e triste no mundo! Com os portuguesitos (merda sempre!)
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You are VERY funny with your article! It is the Portuguese time and time again, not only in Portugal, but also in Canada and the USA that are the most shut-in, self absorbed European culture on the planet!

You don't have to go far to see this at all, you visit Spain and you have English, German, and French as languages to describe products to potential foreign buyers at your stores but guess what? NO Spanish! You try to talk to the store clerk in Portugal and he sort of speaks a little bit of the above mentioned languages but guess what? NO Spanish! You go to youtube channels and you see a sea of Portuguese spewing anti-Spanish hate comments on Spanish websites...so it is more than obvious to me, and everybody else on the planet, that the Portuguese are an insular, shut-in xenophobic culture that pretty much hates all that is not Portuguese. The evidence is in front of your own noses and in your own country so maybe you should rethink your silly article. If you perhaps opened up a little more and be friendlier with your Spanish neighbor rather than being a bunch of hater xenophobes, good things would happen. But you don't so what do you expect? Us regular folks to read your silly article and say, " Yeah, yeah...sounds good!" Well, NO!! Go spread your anti-Spanish xenophobic lies to the ignorant Portuguese masses that always have a propensity via a multi-generational hate platform to be anti-Spanish haters (this is taught to all Portuguese children from a young age throughout the generations). Again, maybe if you Stopped doing this, Spain and other European countries would be more willing to visit there, buy your goods and be kinder to you, but you keep on the hate program you so proudly cherish and past down from generation to generation.

Luso? A made up word to Hide the fact your culture is a mix of Arabs and gypsies. Not much to be Proud of here!
Sao os fatos amigo e os fatos seu muitos dolorosos pa os portuguesitos. Te vejo na sopas dos pobres a noite como tudas as noites ja que 50% de Portugueses sao presentes em os sopas dos pobres! Muita, muita pobresa em Portugal, Muita! E isso nada?? Que orgulho do ser um Portugues! Muitos orgulho!