Part one: We start our journey with a recently released album that I've been playing as much as when I was entranced by Antonio Carlos Jobin's 'the composer of desifinado plays' . It has a similar simple style with beautiful acoustic playing, but it does not derive its influences from the soft Samba sounds, but the more melancholic depths of Portuguese Fado.
Fado music has a strong reflective component to its narrative and its name is drawn from the Latin word "fatum" meaning fate, and the inexorable destiny that nothing can change! It is a music that looks back on history with awe, held strong in the belief that everything was wonderful once upon a time, and now it’s all gone wrong.
Having said that, what this album manages to achieve, due to the dexterity and skill of Mario Pachecho's finger plucking and the ensemble's collective mastery in their own instrumentation, and where so many other Fado albums might leave you reaching for the gun and family photo, is to throw a glorous ray of light over a music that by its own definition is sad. What's also impressive is the collection of soloists that have been pulled together and feature on this album; Mariza, Ana Sofia Varela and Rodrigo Costa Felix and just some of the heavyweights on board.
Mario Pacheko himself is a master of the Portuguese Guitar, an instrument with origins in taken from the Western European Cithern and comprised of 12 steel strings with a sound more akin to a harpsichord than anything else . Compared to the sunny tones of Modeste or the meditative Afel Bocoum, the Portuguese guitar has a much colder edge which is why it compliments Fado music so well, adding even greater historical distance to the music’s lyrical content, and the past it reflects on.
The album this is all featured on, is entitled, 'Mário Pacheco - Música e a Guitarra' and the recording quality of the performance is first rate and it also comes with a DVD of the entire concert. If you buy one Fado album, make sure it's this one.
Fado music has a strong reflective component to its narrative and its name is drawn from the Latin word "fatum" meaning fate, and the inexorable destiny that nothing can change! It is a music that looks back on history with awe, held strong in the belief that everything was wonderful once upon a time, and now it’s all gone wrong.
Having said that, what this album manages to achieve, due to the dexterity and skill of Mario Pachecho's finger plucking and the ensemble's collective mastery in their own instrumentation, and where so many other Fado albums might leave you reaching for the gun and family photo, is to throw a glorous ray of light over a music that by its own definition is sad. What's also impressive is the collection of soloists that have been pulled together and feature on this album; Mariza, Ana Sofia Varela and Rodrigo Costa Felix and just some of the heavyweights on board.
Mario Pacheko himself is a master of the Portuguese Guitar, an instrument with origins in taken from the Western European Cithern and comprised of 12 steel strings with a sound more akin to a harpsichord than anything else . Compared to the sunny tones of Modeste or the meditative Afel Bocoum, the Portuguese guitar has a much colder edge which is why it compliments Fado music so well, adding even greater historical distance to the music’s lyrical content, and the past it reflects on.
The album this is all featured on, is entitled, 'Mário Pacheco - Música e a Guitarra' and the recording quality of the performance is first rate and it also comes with a DVD of the entire concert. If you buy one Fado album, make sure it's this one.
A scene from the night is captured below...what an amazing night it must have been.
