Fado - Intangible Heritage of Humanity

Olá my dear friends,

Have you ever heard about fado?

Fado means fate and is a music genre which can be traced to the 1820s in Portugal, but probably with much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar Rui Vieira Nery states that "the only reliable information on the history of Fado was orally transmitted and goes back to the 1820s and 1830s at best. The music is usually linked to the sea and the Portuguese word saudade which symbolizes the feeling of loss.

On 27 November 2011, Fado was inscribed in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists. You can see the application on the video above as well as the history of fado in only 10 minutes.

The next video is a representation of a “Casa de Fados” usually small taverns or restaurants where you can ear fado. The fadistas singing are Vicente da Câmara, Maria da Nazaré, Ana Sofia Varela, Carminho, Ricardo Ribeiro and Pedro Moutinho.

Check out the board Music at my Pinterest page for more fado songs, some of them with English subtitles.

From Portugal,
with love