Various Artists
Fado: Exquisite Passion (Narada World, 2003)
Narada World presents this 13-track compilation of four female
Fado
singers: Amália Rodrigues and three of her modern-day followers. This is
Lisbon-style fado, and
Mariza,
Cristina Branco and
Mafalda Arnauth are very faithful to the tradition left by Amália Rodrigues.
There is no fusion with other musical styles here, nor is there any attempt to
modernize the received tradition. This compilation is traditional fado, plain
and simple.The voices of the three contemporary singers are very similar in sound: all
possess virtually the same pitch, timber and color. Unless you look at the track
listing, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between them. The three tracks
by the fado superstar, Amália Rodrigues, give the listener a wonderful taste of
the pinnacle of fado interpretation. Her voice and timing are exquisite, she
makes extremely effective use of dynamics and truly savors the lyrics. Rodrigues’
approach to music is to let the words of the songs dictate her vocal delivery,
requiring the musical accompaniment to follow her rather than the other way
around. This creates a marvelous tension between the lyrics and the music. The
younger singers, who all sound like reduced copies of the great Rodrigues, are
not able to recreate this magic, however.
No Portuguese lyrics are included, nor are there any translations or summaries
of the songs featured. This is disappointing, since fado is a ballad tradition
where each song tells a story. The words, just as much as the vocal delivery and
musical accompaniment communicate the tragedy recounted in each song.
In the end one wonders if this is all that fado has to offer its followers
today. Should contemporary fado so closely follow the established models as to
be virtually indistinguishable from recordings made 50 years ago? Surely there
is room for some evolution without denaturing or destroying the tradition. It
would have been nice to hear at least one example of a singer attempting to
modernize traditional fado to give a more complete picture of this music today.
[Purchase
Fado: a Exquisite Passion].
