Fausto, a musician born at sea, who always followed his river upstream.

The musician and composer Fausto Bordalo Dias, who died this Monday in Lisbon, took up his viola and sang “This life is running”, as heard in “Behind the times come,” because it brought him happiness and peace of conscience.

The confession appears in a rare interview with Fátima Campos Ferreira, which he gave in 2021 to the Fátima Campos Ferreira program on RTP1, but it sounds from behind, it was already in his conversation with the journalist and writer Baptista-Bastos (1934-2017), published in the magazine Jornal de Letras, Artes e Ideias (JL) in 1986, where he sets out the priorities of his choice.

“I chose the professional activity of a musician […] “First, to ensure my happiness, second, to ease my conscience and third, to be able to look at myself and feel more useful,” Fausto told a veteran journalist in January 1986, shortly after the publication of the album “O Despertar dos Alquimistas”.

The choice was made for “the most difficult path”, “to survive as a musician”, we read in this JL. In the previous issue of 1982, when he published “Por Este Rio Acima”, there is another confession: “Perhaps what I think most defines my personality is the desire I have always had to prolong my adolescence as long as possible.”

The music was always present, from Angola, where he grew up, until the very end. His work reflects the assimilation of African rhythms, which he combined with the rhythms and modes of the Portuguese popular tradition.

He played with José Afonso, José Mário Branco, he appeared in the movement of the intervention song, when he already had the single “Chora, amigo chora” released, which in 1969 gave him the Revelation Award for the old radio program Págin Um, from José Manuel Núñez and Adelino Gómez on Radio Renascença.

From the very beginning, as noted on the page dedicated to him by the artistic agency Ao Sul do Mundo, “Fausto Bordalo Dias stands out for the insight with which he has always approached music”, “the development and stylization of the traditional Portuguese rhythm, which he has always combined with poetic and very careful writing”, which marked the beginning of “a unique journey through the Portuguese musical universe”.

“His songs are cinematic, they embody rigorous performances, they stand out like photographs or huge murals, being at once dreamlike and raw, popular and sophisticated,” we read on the same page.

Fausto was one of the greatest, as José Mário Branco (1942-2019), with whom he worked and staged the show “Três Cantos” together with Sérgio Godinho, once said.

Carlos Fausto Bordalo Gómez Díaz was born 75 years ago, on November 26, 1948, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, on board a ship called Pátria, heading to Angola, where he spent his childhood and youth. He grew up in the then city of Nueva Lisboa, on the Huambo plateau, but was registered in Vila Franca das Naves, Trancoso, in the district of Guarda, where his parents were from.

His first band was part of the pop movement of the 60s and was called Os Rebeldes. When he settled in Lisbon in 1968, there were other options. A student of the former Higher Institute of Social and Political Sciences, now ISCSP – University of Lisbon, where he graduated from the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, joins the association movement.

These are the years of the dictatorship. In 1973, when Fausto Bordalo Dias was already publicly speaking out against the colonial war, he was considered rebellious because he did not report for military service. “For this reason, he was forced to suspend his studies at the university, but remained unnoticed and secretly in the country. He even drove a Beetle across the country, without a license, which he only received in 1975,” says the report. biography of the musician, included in the “Encyclopedia of Music of Ligueira Portuguesa”, written by the brothers Luis and João Pinheiro de Almeida.

He turns to composers such as José Afonso, Adriano Correia de Oliveira, Manuel Freire, and later to José Mário Branco and Luís Cília, who were already living in exile. He appears as an accompanying musician and in the choirs of some of these albums, in particular “Coro dos Tribunais” by José Afonso, published at the end of 1974, for which he wrote the arrangements.

However, his discography began to make a name for itself. Pro que Der e Vier (1974) and Beco sem Saída (1975) appeared, two works marked by his revolutionary experience. Then came Madrugada dos Trapeiros (1977), which includes the theme of Rosalinda and marks his social intervention against the announced construction of a nuclear power plant in Ferrel, near Peniche.

1979’s Traveler’s Stories introduced the theme of discovery for the first time, paving the way for Por este Rio Acima (1982), based on Fernán Méndez Pinto’s La Peregrínasan.

The album marked Fausto’s career and Portuguese music. In 1988, he received the José Afonso Award, and in 1994, he was awarded the Order of Liberty by the then President of the Republic, Mário Soares.

In 2011, when JL celebrated three decades of existence and asked 30 musicians and music critics to name the 30 best Portuguese music albums of that period, the most cited was “Por este Rio Acima”.

This was followed by “Waking of the Alchemists” (1985), “Beyond the Mountain Ranges” (1987), “Black and White” (1988), “Chronicles of the Burning Earth” (1994), “The Magic Opera “The Cursed Singer” (2003) with a look at the history of Portugal after 25 April and most recently In Search of the Blue Mountains (2011).

In 2009, together with José Mario Branco and Sérgio Godinho, he performed the show “Três Cantos” about the repertoire of the three musicians, which later laid the foundation for the album of the same name.

He returned to the stage in 2022, 40 years after the publication of Por este Rio Acima, giving two concerts at the Aula Magna of the University of Lisbon. It was goodbye.

“Forty years after its release, there seems to be no doubt that it is truly a masterpiece of Portuguese popular music,” wrote Manuel Halpern, editor of JL, when these two concerts celebrated the 1982 double album: “No one like Faust has reinvented folklore with such grandeur and eloquence, and especially on this album,” the journalist continues, arguing that “Faust has given his folklore a harmonious basis and arrangements with a logic and richness close to erudition.”

Fausto did not like interviews and public exposure. “I’m used to being alone. I have a wonderful family,” said Fatima Campos Ferreira in 2021 in this rare appearance off stage. “I don’t feel lonely, but I use it.” This was important for the essay.

“I was born at sea, I grew up in Angola, and let’s say I was moved, at least part of the way, by those who, in the 16th century, left Portugal and discovered other worlds,” Baptista-Bastos said in 1986 to explain the need he felt “to know how this adventure of travel and discovery took place,” which he translated as “For that river above.”