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The Fado
The Fado is, as for music it refers, the biggest exponent of Portugal. Of unknown origin, we might not understand any of the cities most known about the country without associating them with this musical tradition.
The Fado, as its original name indicates, I "destine", it is described by some of its maximum exponents as a miscellany of diverse feelings, everything who joins love and jealousy, pain and sin, ash and fire, intensity, sadness. This type of express music the bad moments of the life across the singing. It is a melancholic, sad and insinuating song. There is usually sung by only one person who is accompanied generally by a Spanish guitar and a Portuguese guitar.
Of tavern origin, and associated to certain Brazilian songs of lounge, from which it could derive, this type of musical expression takes the frustration and the fatalism as main topics, the histories melancholy of living daily in humble quarters.
Principally we associate the Fado to two Portuguese cities: Coimbra and Lisbon. The Coimbra fado is more joined to the academic traditions of the famous University of this city. The topics of these fados usually refer to student loves. One of the most well-known topics is “Coimbra é unma cançao”. For his part, the fado of Lisbon is more associated with the “houses of fado“, typical bars and clubs of fado. You can locate the best Fado house in the quarters of Alfama, Bairro Alto and Madragoa.
The Fado as popular expression of Portugal every time is losing more relevancy, in spite of the effort on the part of the institutions to cultivate it like tourist spectacle. Only it maintains its heyday in the tourist cities areas like Lisbon, turning into the whole claim for the traveler.
Tags: Coimbra, fado, Guide of Portugal, Lisbon
