canção da lousã

(2021) 3’30”
SATB choir a cappella (arrangement)

Program Notes

I learned the “Song of Lousã”, not in Lousã, in my youth, at that time I was much more interested in Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull, among others, but across the Atlantic, as an adult, from my father, Adelino “o Cacilheiro”. On saturdays, my brother-in-law and I would help my father in his carpentry work. Between cutting and hammering my father would sing songs from his youth, when the work was going well. If it wasn’t going well, then the tune was a different one.

When I started planning a choral concert in Lousã in 2021, I wanted to include the original “Song of Lousã”. I began looking for a choral arrangement of the song but found out there was none. I decide to make my own arrangement, in my own style, without functional tonal harmonies. This is the result.

Lyrics

Canção da Lousã

Ó minha terra bonita, garrida vila coimbrã,
com tua luz infinita e o teu nome de Lousã,
Lousã, Lousã, Lousã, Lousã.

És noiva do horizonte, toda de branco vestida.
Não há nuvem que te afronte neste ceu da tua vida.
Lousã, Lousã, Lousã, Lousã.

O teu arvoredo murmura em segredo, batendo-lhe o vento!
Tuas raparigas soltam as cantigas a todo o momento!
As águas nas fontes, as aves nos montes, tu do que é vivente,
sorri a quem passa, acolhe a desgraça e vive contente!
Lousã, Lousã, Lousã, Lousã.

Não és forte nem és feia, és pequenina e singela,
como uma casa de aldeia que só tem uma janela!
Lousã, Lousã, Lousã, Lousã.

Embora sejas pequena sabes tão bem cativar
que quem parte leva pena e pensa logo em voltar.
Lousã, Lousã, Lousã, Lousã.

António Victor

Score Excerpts