The voice which enchants
The sound which paints
Who could live on earth
If not for the sea...
(Luis Cernuda)
In the night of 28th of
September the milanese experience of Madredeus finished, the
portuguese group become famous for having inspired with their
music the last film of Wim Wenders, Lisbon Story. In the months
of April and May they came in Italy with their concert, they got
interviews and they showed in the television: though a friend yesterday, when I
talked enraptured about their last concert, asked me with a
perplexed glance "Who are Madredeus?".
In effects their music, even if passed
through the official channels, the promotional messages and the
tours, remains a solitary event, distant from the frenzied noises
of the discographic market, almost lost in
its ancient and deep rythms, suspended in
its cristalline armony.
A musical group born 9 years ago, in the
heart of Lisbon, between the alleys of Barrio Alto and the
remains of an ancient convent, that of Madre de Deus; and in
their music appears the fervid humanity of peoples, voices of men
and women, of shepherds and sailors, holy prayers and chants of
joy, run of meninos.
Small sounds that merges simply in
melodies: and suddenly this underground humanity, vivid profane
world, remains suspended in time, as if, without a reason, it
embraces every age, every place, every people. Even us.
But also a group of voyagers: they travel
the world with their concerts, Europe and Brasile most, and
everywhere the audience is enthusiastic; but everywhere they
pursue a precise poetic and musical project: a continue research
of rhythmic and vocal shades that could "paint" and
tell "nature and spirit", a wondering between sounds
and colours, shadows, brightnesses and silences that refind
mysteriously already signed paths,
scoured and lost. Strange destiny, or maybe
it is only fado.
Two guitars (Pedro Ayres Magalhaes and
José Peixoto), a cello (Francisco Ribeiro), an accordion
(Gabriel Gomes), keyboards (Rodrigo Leao and Carlos Maria
Trindade) and voice (Teresa Salgueiro), now accompanied by the
warm one of Francisco, compenetrates naturally and born an
intense music that have no definition: traditional, popular,
classic, erudite, new-age...
And the instruments tune to the voices,
sometime pursue each other, sometime weave, and accompany at
unison the words, short poems, done of few essential words,
sometime sweet, sometime bitter, with the own sonority of the
portuguese language, but always vibrant of a secret vigour,
sustained by a simple rigour: certainly it is not only music, or
better, the musical experience is feeled like a total experience
that embraces
all the perceptive and emotional levels. "It goes to the
soul!" Someone would say; but to what "soul"?
"The soul of the world", or better "The spirit of
the world", where we found ourself in a common feel, in
armony, where everybody gain his meaning and light in the others,
even if for a moment. It is an
indefinite dimension, indistinct the
borders, you perceive its power, you guess its strenght and the
intimate beauty.
Maybe only enchantment, where earth, irony
and hard, and ocean without limits, touch each other, and the
colours of the sun, of wind, of sea and of the entire life
confuse, which is warm rhythm of peoples, sorrows, passions,
researches, restlessnesses, silences, laughs, meetings, distances
and memories. And returnings: wave that call another wave,
windmills that pursue the same vortexes, suns that arise, time
rhytmed by the beatings of desires, of breathes, and we all would
want that everything started again, and this time without fear,
again.... ainda.
Paola Rossi
Literature
Institutional