And … yesterday’s long day wasn’t over yet!

After visiting the monuments, the monastery, the Cascáis church, and the Sintra National Palace, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the evening dinner and fado music.

Fado, as our guide explained, means “destiny” or “fate,” and the music can either be happy or sad. The genre was definitely new to me. We left the hotel at 6:45 pm and I am not sure what time we arrived, but it took them a long time to serve dinner. The restaurant reminded me of those places in Hawaii that serve luaus—oh certainly not the food, but that there were several hundred people seated banquet style, and somewhat crammed in like sardines, COVID notwithstanding. The food was quite tasty: a vegetable soup, sea bass with green vegetables, and ice cream for dessert.

I sat on the very end of the table, only about three feet away from the performers. I was hoping to get some good pictures, but unfortunately every time they performed, the lights were turned off and they were singing practically in the dark. My phone alerted me to “Be still” but the singers moved around a lot, and it was nigh impossible to get a clear picture. I also noticed all the singers looked up at the ceiling, many of them closing their eyes, while singing. There were a total of six singers, and for the bulk of the program, all sang solos, all very focused. Only for the grand finale did they all join in singing together.

My tablemates were remarking that the volume level was good, because they didn’t use microphones. However, I found the music quite loud, but I thought it would be too rude to whip out my decibel meter when they were only standing three feet away from me!

Taking video was impossible because of the low lighting conditions, but I did record a small sample.

I found a more complete example of fado on YouTube, to give you a taste of this type of music.

According to Wikipedia:

Fado (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈfaðu]; “destiny, fate”) is a music genre that can be traced to the 1820s in Lisbon, Portugal, but probably has much earlier origins… Although the origins are difficult to trace, today fado is commonly regarded as simply a form of song which can be about anything, but must follow a certain traditional structure. In popular belief, fado is a form of music characterized by mournful tunes and lyrics, often about the sea or the life of the poor, and infused with a sentiment of resignation, fate and melancholy. 

Fado typically employs the Dorian mode or Ionian mode (natural major), sometimes switching between the two during a melody or verse change. A particular stylistic trait of fado is the use of rubato, where the music pauses at the end of a phrase and the singer holds the note for dramatic effect. The music uses double time rhythm and triple time (waltz style).

I was interested in the Portuguese guitar, which has 12 strings and has a different shape from a typical guitar. In addition to the Portuguese guitar, there were two other players: a (regular) guitarist and a double bass player. I think I enjoyed more the instrumental music in their two solos without the vocalists. None of the players used sheet music.

We didn’t get back to the hotel until about 10:00 pm … it had been quite a day! On to the next!