If a song comes on the radio and there is no one around to hear it, does the song really exist? The original proposition contemplates a falling tree, we know, but the challenge is also adapted to music: what would a melody be without someone being able to appropriate it, give it a sensation, make it a soundtrack for their life? ? This is the philosophy of the new program by Miguel Esteves Cardoso and Maria João Esteves Cardoso: “The History of Music“, to listen to on Antena 1 on Saturdays, after the 11pm news (the program “Fala com Ela”, by Inês Maria Meneses, has a new time at 11pm on Wednesday).
“In the lives of each of us,” the synopsis reads, “there are two or three songs that transport us to the people with whom we heard them for the first time.” The inclination is biographical and the presentation is made with two voices, thus diverging from Miguel Esteves Cardoso’s previous formats on Antena 1, such as “SOS Vinil”, “Se as Canções Falassem” or the more recent “Música Triste” (issued between February 2022 and December 2023, and nominated for Best Radio Program at the Autores Awards 2023).
Photography by Miguel Esteves Cardoso: Pedro Pina
“We decided to start from the depth of each person and the experiences they choose to share with us”, says the author to Antena 1. “It’s risky, but exciting: each program is as if it were a person.” This logic already anchors the first episode, which starts from “Blister in the Sun”, single by the North American band Violent Femmes, to the story of a special concert and train journey, milestones in the adolescence of guest Sara Simão. But song number zero, of course, belongs to Maria João and Miguel Esteves Cardoso: “Foi Leonard Cohen’s ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’. It tells a mysterious story that you want to delve deeper into. Suddenly, we realized that we all have mysterious songs and that it would be nice to be able to talk about the ones that are part of our lives.”
Photography by Maria João Esteves Cardoso: Pedro Pina
The program is recorded in the Antena 1 studios, which Miguel Esteves Cardoso describes as “hotbeds of expressiveness and improvisation and we feel as if we were at home. The spirit that lives in the Antena 1 studios is one of intimate freedom and adventurous intimacy.”
You can listen to “A História da Música” on Saturdays, after the 11pm news, on Antena 1 — the episodes are also available on Spotify, Apple and Google Podcasts, as well as RTP Play.
Jorge Afonso spoke with Miguel Esteves Cardoso and Maria João Esteves Cardoso on the program “Uma Noite em Forma de Assim”. Listen to the conversation below, on RTP Play.