Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Fado Tradicional

Below is a review that I wrote for the CD "Fado Tradicional" by the internationally acclaimed Portuguese fado singer, Mariza. The review is accompanied by a poem I wrote to commemorate this great artist, and I thought it would be worth posting here because I was very humbled by having Mariza herself thank me for it. Below is the poem also in its Portuguese translation, as I would like to eventually have it set to music, as a fado, a singularly Portuguese and Brazilian tradition.


I recently bought a copy of Fado Tradicional and although I've already listened to it a half a dozen times I have just begun to savor it. Mariza at times devastates with soul wrenching poignancy, as in her first two albums, Fado Em Mim, and Fado Curvo, and at times grows on you like fine wine. Fado Tradicional belongs to the second category, that of a fine wine. Every time we listen we are more attracted, more entranced.

She is without doubt, in my mind, the great singer of this generation and I've asked myself at times - "What is the essence of her greatness?" I think it's her singular embodiment of the musical tradition she espouses. It is as if she were made for the fado, and the fado were made for her.

The fado tradition shines clearly as the world's greatest folk tradition. It surpasses the idiom of folk music and enters the realm of high art. It is perhaps the greatest expression of Portuguese culture, a culture still imbued with the spirit of romanticism, something singular and beautiful in our too often soulless, pragmatic age . . . something powerfully redeeming in its essential nobility.

Fado Tradicional explores the roots of Portugese fado and I appreciate these songs even more when I read the lyrics in translation as I listen to the music, because the words are important in this album. The lyrics of the fado surpass that of most folk traditions. They are poetry. And in this album the interplay of the poetry and music is the experience, and the experience is sublime!

Mariza

Your voice is like a freshening wind,
Like a storm from a frozen sea, in sultry Alfama,
Or the scent of a rose on a dark winter evening,
That fills the eyes with tears.

Those black grapes of the Douro.
Their succulent leaves against the dark earth, and the sun,
I long to know the taste of them, of their dark wine,
That fills the soul with peace.

Those winter nights in Mouraria,
The ragged peddlers, the Gypsies, and the faint accordion,
Everywhere the angelic mourning of the guitar,
And that restive yearning of the street.

In those dark streets of Lisbon,
I hear your voice with every step,
It is always with me;
It is the sound of my longing.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2015 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

Mariza

Sua voz é como um refrescar vento,
Como uma tempestade de um mar congelado, em sensual Alfama,
Ou o perfume de uma rosa em uma noite de inverno,
Que enche os olhos de lágrimas.

Essas uvas pretas do Douro.
Suas folhas suculentas contra a terra escura, eo sol,
Eu desejo saber o gosto deles, de seu vinho escuro,
Que enche a alma de paz.

Aquelas noites de inverno em Mouraria,
Os camelos pobres, os ciganos, e os fracos acordeão,
Em toda parte o luto angelical da guitarra,
E esse anseio rebelde da rua.

Nessas ruas escuras da cidade de Lisboa,
Eu ouço sua voz a cada passo,
Ele está sempre comigo;
É o som da minha saudade.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2014 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com