Lisbon, Nov. 5, 2024 (Lusa) - The first "European Union Songbook" - which contains 164 songs from the EU's 27 member states, with six of them being from Portugal, is published on Tuesday, nine years after it began to be prepared.
In the book, the songs are presented in sheet music for solo voice, with chords, and the lyrics are written in the 25 original languages, which cover three alphabets, and are translated into English.
On the page of the book dedicated to each song there is also a QR code, which can be scanned using a mobile phone or tablet, allowing you to listen to the original recording of the song in question.
The 164 songs were divided into six categories - Freedom and Peace, Love, Nature and Seasons, Popular and Traditional, Faith and Spirituality and Children's Songs - and Portugal is represented in all of them.
In 2018, 60 songs from Portugal were on the ballot and the most voted for, by 2666 people, were: "Amar pelos dois", (in the Love category), "Canção do Mar" (Nature and Seasons), "Grândola, Vila Morena" (Freedom and Peace), "Malhão, malhão" (Popular and Traditional), "Foi Deus" (Faith and Spirituality) and "A Loja do Mestre André" (Children's Songs).
"Amar Pelos Dois" - with lyrics and music by Luísa Sobral, performed by Salvador Sobral - was the song that gave Portugal its first win at the Eurovision Song Contest, in 2017.
"Canção do Mar", with lyrics by Frederico de Brito and music by Ferrer Trindade, was first presented by Maria Odete Coutinho on the radio programme “Os Companheiros da Alegria” and recorded in 1953 by Carlos Fernando, accompanied by Mário Simões" Conjunto. The theme has been recreated several times by other artists, such as the Brazilian Agostinho dos Santos, the French Yvette Giraud and, later, in the 1990s, Dulce Pontes, with this version appearing on the soundtrack of the film "A Raiz do Medo" and in the US television crime series "Southland".
"Grândola, Vila Morena", with lyrics and music by José Afonso (better known as Zeca Afonso), included on the album “Cantigas do Maio” (1971), is one of the songs that served as the password for the Revolution of 25 April 1974. Over the years, the song has had several versions, from the Chilean band Aparcoa to pianist Pascal Comelade, including Brazilian singer Nara Leão, fado singer Amália Rodrigues and the North American Liberation Music Orchestra, with pianist Carla Bley and bassist Charlie Haden.
"Grândola, Vila Morena" is forever associated with the fall of the Portuguese dictatorship, because it was used on 25 April 1974 as a signal for the coup to go ahead that brought down the dictatorship; it appears among the first songs in the songbook, under the theme of Freedom and Peace, alongside songs such as “Le Chant des Partisans”, composed and performed by Anna Marly, a reference in the French Resistance, and the traditional Italian “Bella Ciao”, with origins in the 19th century, which also became a symbol of the fight against fascism during World War II.
Among the other songs from Portugal in the songbook, "Malhão, Malhão" is a popular ditty from the Douro Litoral region; "Foi Deus", with lyrics and music by Alberto Janes, is a fado celebrated by Amália Rodrigues; and "A Loja do Mestre André" is a traditional children's song.
Among songs from other countries that feature in the "European Union Songbook" are "O sole mio" from Italy and “Ave Maria” and “Au clair de la lune” from France.
The 60 Portuguese songs on the ballot had been nominated by members of the Portuguese musical community - in particular the Portuguese Association for Musical Education (APEM), the Lisboa Cantat Musical Association, the Institute of Ethnomusicology - Centre for Studies in Music and Dance at the New University of Lisbon, and the Lagos Music Academy.
The "European Union Songbook" is, according to the project's website, a "non-profit project launched by a Danish organisation with no monetary ties to the European Union.
"For more than 50 years, we European citizens have been exchanging physical things: coal, fish and other products. Cultural exchange, on the other hand, has so far been limited to sport - the Champions League - and a single music contest - Eurovision," . We felt that the time had come to create a more lasting common symbol, a songbook," it states.
The songbook was created with the participation of more than 100 musical organisations and music conservatories, and through public votes that mobilised more than 87,000 citizens from all over the EU.
The "Songbook of the European Union" project has been awarded the European Parliament's 2023 European Citizenship Prize.
JRS/ARO // ARO.
Lusa
