Teresa and
The Fado
Many are the bonds between Madredeus and the fado. We will not explain here that fado is a root, not a prison, an ispiration, not the musical "rank" to which the music of Madredeus belong. It is a relationship of descent and, I would say, of prosecution, even if it will never be correct to define their music as fado.
We are now much more
interested to the relation, more intimate, more hidden and less
evident which is the one that link Teresa Salgueiro to fado.
Maybe not everybody know that recently (1996), the
"cantora" of Madredeus made a european tournee with the
master of portuguese guitar Antonio Chainho. In an interview to
RTPi, Teresa confessed to identify herself deeply with the
traditional portuguese music, which was also the one that she
sang before meeting Madredeus (toghether with song of bossa nova
and from the popular tradition of Brasil).
The relation of Teresa
Salgueiro with the fado, though, can't be explained like a mere
musical influence, like a pattern of melodies that influenced the
taste of the artist. I would distinguish neatly the figure of
Teresa Salgueiro as a fadist from the ones of the others singers
which are in the elite of the "chosen" of the fado
tradition. It is a formal difference, which become essential and
substancial when it is a applied to a musical genre like that
one, where rituality has a fundamental role.
I would
say also that even if Teresa Salgueiro is not a fado singer, she
is the only one real "fadist" of a certain relevance in
the Portugal post-Rodrigues. Teresa, as I have said, is not a
fado singer. She has not the technic of the fado singing, she
doesn't use any virtuosity typical of the Amalia's and Dulce
Pontes' singing. It is completely different the approach to the
lyrics, to way of linking it to the armony and the tone while
pronouncing it.
In the fado singing, the
approach to the lyrics is almost "aggressive"; they
"assail" the words, compressing them, transforming
them, altering them thanks to that vocal flourishings that are
part of the technic repertoire of the fadist. The Word is seen as
a "musical object" that have to be embellished to be
inserted in a musical background that, in the fado, tends to be
rhytmic and solid. The virtuosistic decorations are then only the
effect of a particular attitude in front of the lyrics.
Teresa Salgueiro, in this
sense, can be considered as an extreme innovator of the singing,
and by saying that I do not want to exaggerate. Teresa
objectively sings in a unique way. From her first album, her
vocal personality has always been so dominant that it has never
been altered. Infact, also in the consequent technical
improvement (1988-1990) due to the singing school, her
"natural" approach to the sung word has not been
altered; that "natural" approach which is so hostile to
the formal and classical musical education. Infact I have been
really surprised that the musical education of Teresa Salgueiro
didn't modify, as usual, the "typology" of singing,
succeding only in improving dramatically the more technical
properties of the voice of Teresa: the precision, the stability
of the note, the vibrato.
Many things have been
said on the "way of singing" of Teresa, without, as
always, succeding in giving a unique and complete definition. But
I have always been a man who likes danger and so I will face that
trial.
Teresa is unique. If the
singing has always been viewed as a form of embellishment of the
lyrics, Teresa use her voice to embellish the music that
accompanies her, using the words as notes, and the voice as a
supreme instrument.
But her singing marks also
a return to a more human manifestation of the voice. A return to
simplicity and to its beauty. It is a singing that, without any
technical intermediary, points directly to the communication of a
feeling thanks to the thin inflexions that happens to our voice
when whe feel that feeling inside ourselves; inflexions that
remains perceivable only if the singing mantains a complete
purity and immediacy. And it is for that reason that the singing
of Teresa strike and move us even if whe are not
able to tell why.
And it is for that reason
that the flourishings, the decorations, the virtuosities
disappear from the singing of Teresa, to leave space to the
purity and to the sculpturesque beauty of a single, lonely and
titanic note. I am talking about that "interpretation of the
string" that Maurizio Colonna, eccelse classical guitarist,
sustain for his instrument: the search for an interpretation of
the single note, of the most "simple" and
"primitive" expression of the instrument.
It is now completely understandable why it is not possible to compare the fado singing to the singing of Teresa. But is wrong to assume that as a reason to exclude the singer from the role of "fadist" which has a much more complex value than the one of singer. If you have ever listened to Teresa singing fado songs you certainly have noticed that the songs that you knew in their "official" version (Amalia) seemed completely different, completely changed by the refinement work of Teresa. But certainly you also noticed that you perceived differently the spirit of that songs that went much more directly to your soul. Maybe you feeled in a stronger way the magic of fado, its mystery and the greatness of the internal suffering that sings and hides.
But, in my opinion,
Teresa is "fadist" in the most traditional and popular
meaning of the term. The fadist, in the tradition, is near to
that emblematic and charismatic characters of the society that
holds the arcaic role of the sorcerers: holders of the rite, of
the mystery, of an arcane knowledge. And in fado, the ritual
component is not divisible from the mere musical one. The
exibition assumes all the iterative and obsessive peculiarities
of all the rituals.
But the fadist must be also
the symbol of a life conduct, of particular values. In this vest
of sorceress and of iconic figure, that Teresa Salgueiro assume a
unique relevance. The evocative strenght of her voice and of her
appearing are not known to the majority of the women
in the world of music.
I have been to concerts of Madredeus and of Dulce Pontes, but only in the one of Madredeus I have really feeled that feeling badly definite but exactly perceivable which is the soul of fado and heart of all the fadists: the saudade. Even if the technical difference among the two singers was enormous, existed a difference of tone, of authority, of emotional charge that flowed from the singing and that made the show of Madredeus a deeply incisive event in my sentimental life.
Teresa, so,
is for me a fadist, in the sense that her image is direct
manifestation of that collective imaginary which is bonded to the
figure of the "cantora". But her singing is placed on a
really superior level in a form of communication much more noble,
less flaunted, less theatral, more natural, more common, more
simple. Of a divine simplicity.
Literature
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