The publication of this much-needed encyclopaedia fills a gap in scholarship on Portuguese music and the people, institutions and discourses connected to it. There simply hasn't been a resource as encompassing as this before. Previous attempts to map Portuguese music have included two dictionaries from the end of the 19th century, a two-volume dictionary from the mid-20th century and an encyclopaedia of música ligeira (light music) in 1998. The former two concentrated on art music and the latter on one sector of popular music, providing inevitably partial accounts of the broad range of musical activity in Portugal. The EMPXX (to use the editorial team's own abbreviation) does away with this exclusivity by adding to the aforementioned areas coverage of a rich Portuguese soundscape that includes folk music, film music, fado, jazz, pop, rock, hip hop, Goan music, morna and much more. While there have been previous shorter works on most of these musics, anyone interested in placing a particular style or genre (fado, for example) within a broader musical field has had their work cut out. One of the great triumphs of this reference work is that one can read an entry on fado and find cross-references to entries on music from Coimbra, musical theatre, the modinha (a traditional music and dance genre), world music, the film, radio and phonographic industries, performance spaces and Lisbon festivals, along with a host of individual performers, poets, composers, musicologists, sociologists and historians of the genre.
The EMPXX is the result of a decade of work by a large team of scholars under the direction of Salwa Castelo-Branco. The main team comprised researchers at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa's Instituto de Etnomusicologia (INET, subsequently INET-MD, following the institute's addition of a centre for music and dance) and the EMPXX can be seen as a distillation of the pioneering work that has been undertaken at that institution in recent years. One of the reasons that a work of this type has not appeared previously in Portugal is that, until the last two decades, research into music in its broadest context (incorporating traditional [i.e. classical] musicology, folklore studies, ethnomusicology, popular music studies and many more disciplines besides) had not gained a firm foothold in the country. This has now changed, due in no small part to the work undertaken at INET-MD and its partner institutions, and there is now a thriving body of research at all levels, with a particularly notable cohort of postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers involved in ethnomusicology, dance studies and popular music studies. The EMPXX reflects the contribution of this new generation of scholars, with many of the entries having been researched and written by students connected to INET-MD. Unlike many encyclopaedias that offer a summary of existing knowledge, the EMPXX is notable for the extent of new research carried out for its publication. This was a necessity given the dearth of available published material on relatively new areas such as popular music. Much of the new research involved interviews between contributors and those involved in the music industry, meaning that practitioners have had an important role in shaping the knowledge surrounding their work. The encyclopaedia also benefits from the work of a diverse body of researchers from outside INET-MD. There is a strong emphasis on interdisciplinarity, with approaches taken from ethnomusicology, historical musicology, popular music studies, anthropology, sociology and history.
In terms of content, connections are made between music and dance, cinema, theatre and the culture industries, while many artists and composers are given lengthy profiles, complete with discographies. There are entries on producers, promoters, music investigators and the institutions in which they work. Archives, libraries and museums are also covered, emphasising the growing importance of the maintenance and mediation of the musical past (of which the EMPXX itself is playing an important role). From an organological perspective, there are entries on the instruments most obviously or importantly related to Portuguese music (for example, guitarra portuguesa, cavaquinho, bandolim, adufe). There are even entries on some of the contributors to the encyclopaedia. This might initially seem a rather self-referential exercise, but it is more than justified when one considers the role that individuals such as Castelo-Branco have had not only in changing attitudes towards the study of music in Portugal, but also in the official mediation of musical heritage (such as the recognition by UNESCO of fado as intangible cultural heritage).
The encyclopaedia utilises a three-fold structuring principle, including core ‘structuring’ or ‘anchor’ entries (for example, fado, the phonographic industry, tourism); second-level typologies (for example, ‘punk’, a second-order entry related to the anchoring ‘música popular’); and, by far the largest component, third-order entries on particular individuals, institutions, instruments, events, and so on. The systematic approach taken to the entries is telling of the quality of the overall work. To take one example, Rui Vieira Nery's extensive entry on fado (covering 21 pages) is structured as follows: general overview; historical development (divided into five parts); and repertory and interpretative practice (four parts). This allows for a comprehensive account of fado, its cultural and historical context and the ways in which it has both reflected Portuguese society and come to be seen as representative of Portuguese culture on a global stage.
The amount of detail provided for third-order entries on individuals reflects the general importance each individual is seen to have had in the broader cultural field. For example, the composer, critic and musicologist Fernando Lopes-Graça gets 14 pages (seven of which consist of a rather astonishing list of works), fado's greatest star Amália Rodrigues get six, post-punk rockers GNR and world music pioneers Madredeus both get two, popular entertainer Max gets just over a page, and the relatively obscure Brazilian-born, Coimbra-educated singer Lucas Junot gets half a page. While this is perfectly understandable, it does, of course, continue the inevitable process of solidifying a canon of artists. Scholarship in one area, or on a particular individual, begets more scholarship in that area, and the popularity of a particular artist begets more popularity of those artists. The EMPXX cannot really be faulted for perpetuating such processes – it is, after all, supposed to be an accurate reflection, or barometer, of popular and scholarly taste. But it does suggest the need for complementary resources to redress the occasional imbalances imposed by musical hierarchies. One such resource could be the PortMuse database (designed by the encyclopaedia's executive coordinator António Tilly), currently available to individuals working at INET-MD but presumably also with the potential to be made into a subscription-based Grove-type resource. Another database operated by INET-MD lists details of phonographic archives and, again, much could be made of this to help those involved in historical research.
As for the time frame, the focus on the 20th century (again, a perfectly understandable delimitation) means that there is still work to be done on preceding and succeeding time periods. Those interested, like myself, in the development of fado and fado-related música popular portuguesa since the turn of the millennium will no doubt wish for more information on some of the key figures involved. A fairly extensive, collaboratively written section in Vol. 4 covers a number of developments in the new century, including the role of new media, the ‘fado boom’ that brought performers such as Mariza and Ana Moura to the world stage, the bid to have fado recognised by UNESCO, new developments in folklore studies, the evolution of jazz and improvised music (a fascinating area of the Portuguese music scene that deserves more attention), and new popular music genres and scenes. Again, this seems an obvious area for expansion if an online version can be produced. There is a growing body of interesting work on the web covering this period, but it would be useful to have this information passed through the kind of rigorous quality control employed by the EMPXX team.
Another area of expansion could be that on music of immigrant groups. There is an excellent entry by Rui Cidra on music and migration, moving from the era of Portuguese colonialism to postcolonialism, globalisation and world music, with a particular emphasis on music associated with PALOPS (Países Africanos de Língua Oficial Portuguesa, or Portuguese-speaking African countries). As with the equally excellent entry on pop-rock (by Cidra and Pedro Félix), there is much to learn and many connections to be made here but, whereas many of the pop-rock performers have dedicated entries, a lot of those included in the migration section do not. This is partly due to the emphasis on music ‘in Portugal’, meaning that performers whose music has been popular with immigrant groups but who themselves did not reside in the country – such as the Cape Verdean morna star Cesaria Evora – are not given their own entries. Again, one understands completely the need to draw boundaries around a work of this scale and ambition and this suggestion of areas of expansion is only intended as a way of continuing in that ambitious vein.
The study of musics associated with particular regions might also be expanded and made easier to navigate in an online edition. If one is searching the EMPXX for information on music in Alentejo, the Algarve, or the islands of Madeira and the Azores, the thematic index in Vol. 4 provides the best way to locate it, although it also suggests that regional representation is uneven, with more emphasis placed on transregional genres, instruments, traditions and performers. That is a testament to the admirable ambition to attend to the wider musical field, although it also suggests some gaps to be filled. As expansive and inclusive as the EMPXX is, it seems there are aspects of Portuguese musical culture that are beyond the pale (you won't find an entry on pimba music here, although it's fleetingly referred to in Viera Nery's epic fado entry).
Overall, one cannot but be awed by the ambition, scale and rigour of the EMPXX, which also comes with two CDs of music covering a wide variety of styles and which make for excellent listening while browsing the four volumes. The work scores highly on that most enjoyable quality of encyclopaedias, the desire to lose oneself for excessive periods of time in a cross-referential world of fascinating information.
