Морна: Национальная музыка Кабо-Верде

Cabo Verdean music genre

The morna (pronunciation in both Portuguese and Cape Verdean Creole: ˈmɔɾnɐ) is a music and dance genre from Cape Verde. Lyrics are usually in Cape Verdean Creole, and instrumentation often includes cavaquinho, clarinet, accordion, violin, piano and guitar. Morna is widely considered the national music of Cape Verde, as is the fado for Portugal, the tango for Argentina, the merengue for Dominican Republic, the rumba for Cuba, and so on. The best internationally known morna singer was Cesária Évora. Morna and other genres of Cape Verdean music are also played in Cape Verdean migrant communities abroad, especially in New England in the US, Portugal, the Netherlands, France, West Africa and parts of Latin America.

As a music genre, the morna is characterized by having a lento tempo, a 2 beat bar (sometimes 4) and in its most traditional form by having a harmonic structure based on a cycle of fifths, while the lyrics structure is organized by musical strophes that alternate with a refrain. The morna is almost always monotonic, i. e., it is composed in just one tonality. Compositions that use more than one tonality are rare and generally they are cases of passing from a minor to major tonality or vice versa.

In its most traditional form, the morna obeys a cycle of fifths. The harmonic progression starts in a chord (the tonic) of a certain tonality, the second chord is the lower fifth (the subdominant), the third chord is the same as the first and the fourth chord is the upper fifth (the dominant seventh). These chords — tonic, dominant seventh, subdominant — have in Cape Verde the popular names of “primeira”, “segunda” and “terceira” (first, second and third) respectively of the tonality in question. For example, if the music is being performed in an A minor tonality, the A minor chord has the name “primeira de Lá menor” (A minor's first), the E 7th chord has the name of “segunda de Lá menor” (A minor's second) and the D minor chord has the name of “terceira de Lá menor” (A minor's third). However, this structure corresponds to the most basic and most primary harmonic sequence of the morna. First, this structure has been enriched later with the so called passing chords (see below under History). Second, this structure is by no means mandatory. Several composers, specially recent composers, employ different chord progressions.

In the beginning of the 20th century, the poet Eugénio Tavares was one of the main people responsible for giving morna the romantic character that it has today. In the Brava island the morna underwent some transformation, acquiring a slower tempo than the Boa Vista morna, the poetry became more lyricised with themes focusing mostly on love and feelings provoked by love.

In this period a new musical genre, the coladeira, reached its maturity and a lot of composers tried this novelty. Therefore, the years from the 1950s to the 1970s did not bring big innovations in musical techniques to the morna. However, some compositions with a “subtle and sentimental melodic trait” came up, and if movement against the Portuguese colonial policy began, in the morna it is made discretely with the thematic widening to include lyrics praising the homeland or beloved people in the homeland. The lyrics were also inspired by other music (bolero, samba canção, American songs, chanson française, etc.). In the 1970s, there were even political songs. In the 1960s, electric instruments began to be used and the morna began to be known internationally, either by performances abroad or records production.

Recent composers take advantage of more artistic freedom to give to the morna unusual characteristics. More recent mornas hardly follow the cycle of fifths scheme, there is a great freedom in chord sequences, the musical strophes do not always have a rigid number of verses, in the melody the reminiscences of the lundum have practically disappeared, and some composers try fusing the morna with other musical genres.

The Boa Vista morna is the oldest variant of the morna. It is characterized by having a quicker tempo (andante ± 96 bpm) and a rubato style, and by being structurally simpler. The themes often talk about jokes, satires or social criticism. The melody accentuation is very close to the lundum.

The Brava morna is in the origin of the most known variety of morna today. Besides having a slower tempo than the Boa Vista morna (lento ± 60 bpm), it has typical Romanticism characteristics, such as the use of rhymes, an accentuated lyricism and a more rigid metre. The Brava style is still practiced by composers from Brava and Fogo.

The São Vicente morna is a derivative of the Brava morna. Both have the same tempo, but in the S. Vicente morna, the chord sequences have been enriched with the passing chords. The thematic has also been widened to include not only romantic themes and the poetry is not so rigid. Neither makes use of rhymes like the Brava morna. Departing from the S. Vicente morna, one can witness from more recent and innovative composers to some other morna variants that have not been systemized yet.