Portugal was represented by

António Calvário António Calvário da Paz (born 17 October 1938) is a Portuguese singer and artist from the late 1950s and 1960s. Life and career Born in Lourenço Marques, Portuguese Mozambique, in Africa, still as a child, he settled with his family in Portug ...

, with the song "Oração", at the

1964 Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest 1964 was the 9th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, following the country's victory at the with the song "Dansevise" by Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann. Organised by the E ...

, which took place on 21 March in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

. "Oração" was chosen as the Portuguese entry at the Grande Prémio TV da Canção Portuguesa on 2 February. This was Portugal's debut at the event and consequently the first time that the

Portuguese language Portuguese ( or, in full, ) is a western Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is an official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and ...

was heard at the contest.

Before Eurovision

Festival da Canção 1964

The Grande Prémio TV da Canção Portuguesa 1964 was held on 2 February 1964 at 22:25 UTC at the

Lumiar Lumiar () is a ''freguesia'' (civil parish) and district of Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Located in northern Lisbon, Lumiar is east of Carnide, north of Alvalade, west of Olivais, and south of Santa Clara and partially of Lisbon's border wit ...

studios of the

Radio and Television of Portugal Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

, hosted by Maria Helena Fialho Gouveia and

Henrique Mendes Henrique Mendes (January 2, 1931 – July 8, 2004) was a Portuguese television presenter and actor, he is best known for hosting several editions of Festival da Canção. Mendes joint Rádio Renascença in 1950 as a radio announcer and in 1958 he ...

. Twelve songs took part in the final and each artist sung two songs. Armando Tavares Belo conducted all the songs. The winning song was chosen by a distrital jury, composed by three members, each had 5 votes to be distributed among the songs it intended to award, making a total of 15 votes per district.

At Eurovision

On the night of the final Calvário performed 11th in the running order, following the

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

and preceding

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. Only an audio recording of Calvário's performance survives, as the video master of the 1964 contest is believed to have been lost in a fire at the Danish TV archive during the 1970s, and no other broadcaster had kept a copy. Voting was by each national jury awarding 5-3-1 to their top 3 songs, and at the close "Oração" was one of four songs (along with the entries from

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

and

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

) which had failed to pick up a single point. This was the third consecutive contest in which four countries had failed to score, and a first time a country debuts with nul-points. The Portuguese jury awarded its 5 points to

. The orchestra during the Portuguese entry was conducted by Kai Mortensen.

Voting

Portugal did not receive any points at the 1964 Eurovision Song Contest.

References

{{Eurovision Song Contest 1964

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch ...

Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 1964

Eurovision The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...