Musical Priorities in the Cultural Policy of Estado Novo

Abstract

In a searching reflection on the use of music as an instrument of power through the ‘Política do Espírito’, as the cultural policy of the Estado Novo was known, this article discusses conceptual and behavioural aspects of a process that developed between the early thirties and the early seventies of the 20th century in Portugal. It describes the European roots that underlie the concept of ‘Política do Espírito’, used by the Estado Novo as a designation for its cultural policy and discusses, from an ethnomusicological perspective, the political use of music in a late process of nationalist implementation (or national reconstruction as it was then described), showing objectives and concrete political practices. The concept of ‘espectáculo’ (show), with reference to the principal legislation, a general tendency to overvalue the past in the Estado Novo’s cultural policy, and Fado as a musical category of fundamental importance, are presented as parts of an orchestrated whole which, strongly rooted in Romantic images and ideals from the 19th century, developed in Portugal, with an enduring influence, through the cultural policy of the Estado Novo.