Fado is Lisbon's song of saudade — that untranslatable ache of longing for something lost or never had. Its defining image is mourning black: Amália Rodrigues singing in her xaile preto, the black shawl, under candlelight in the dim taverns of Alfama and Mouraria.

Against that near-total dark, only warmth survives — the honey-mahogany wood of the teardrop guitarra portuguesa with its mother-of-pearl inlay, the deep red of tavern wine and velvet, and the slow gold of a single candle. The system is somber, intimate and literary, never cheerful, never gilded to excess.