Carlos Paredes

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Carlos Paredes

Carlos Paredes (born February 16, 1925 in Coimbra , † July 23, 2004 in Lisbon ) was a Portuguese composer and was considered a master of the Portuguese guitar (Guitarra portuguesa).

He had made the Portuguese guitar, which for a long time was only considered an accompanying instrument for Fado , famous. He was also known for his compositions for the fado goddess Amália Rodrigues, who died in 1999 . He integrated Portuguese folklore into his compositions in a very personal way.

Life

Carlos Paredes came from a well-known Portuguese family of musicians and began to learn the instrument at the age of four with his father Artur Paredes , who was also a master of the Portuguese guitar . In 1957 he recorded his first record. In 1962 he composed the music for the groundbreaking Novo Cinema film " Verdes Anos " (directed by Paulo Rocha ), which has become a kind of second national anthem in his country. He also composed the music for numerous other films. With the composer and singer José Afonso he released a few recordings in the early 1970s. Under the dictatorship of Salazar in Portugal Paredes sat for communist activities 20 months in prison.

Its popularity also increased outside of Portugal. In 1977 a selection of his works was published by the record company Amiga in the GDR under the title Master of the Portuguese Guitar . In 1983 the album Concerto em Frankfurt was created during a concert in Frankfurt am Main . In 1990 the album Dialogues , a duet with jazz double bass player Charlie Haden , was released.

His tombstone on the Cemitério dos Prazeres in Lisbon

In 1989 Paul McCartney included his piece Dança in the accompaniment music of his tour, and in 1991 Paredes played with them at the Coliseu dos Recreios at Madredeus' invitation . In 1993 he began recording a new album, but had to stop for health reasons. It was only with great effort that he performed in the context of the European Capital of Culture in Lisbon in 1994. His steadily worsening spinal cord disease (myelopathy) forced him to give up making music.

In 2003 the compilation "Movimentos Perpétuos - Música para Carlos Paredes" opened a cycle on the complete works of Carlos Paredes. It is a double CD on which Portuguese musicians reinterpreted works by Carlos Paredes, with names such as Mísia , Rodrigo Leão , António Pinho Vargas or Maria João with Mário Laginha , alongside well-known musicians from hip-hop , rock and trip-hop , and original quotes from Paredes. Books and an anthology with comic drawings on his work were subsequently published, and exhibitions and cinema cycles were organized on Paredes. In 2004 Carlos Paredes died in the Fundação Lar Nossa Senhora da Saúde care home in Lisbon, whereupon national mourning was ordered.

The Portuguese director Edgar Pêra made a film about him in 2006. "Movimentos Perpétuos - Cine-Tributo a Carlos Paredes" won 3 prizes at the Indie Lisboa Film Festival, including the prize for the best Portuguese film and the audience prize.

reception

Carlos Paredes' guitar in the Fado Museum

His inspired improvisations, his passion for the Portuguese guitar and, despite the constant enthusiasm of music critics, to appear modest, made him popular beyond the narrow limits of discerning music lovers. He did not take himself seriously and spoke to ordinary people with his modesty and simple language. At the same time, intellectual circles were drawn to his innovative and demanding guitar playing and his progressive ideological attitude. Characteristic traits that set him apart were, for example, after his return from custody, the calm greeting of his work colleague who had denounced him to the PIDE secret police (Paredes worked in the X-ray archive of a Lisbon hospital until he was retired, despite his fame). Even as a long-suffering communist and in the midst of the turbulent times of the Carnation Revolution, not appearing in a polarizing manner and, as a representative of high culture, cultivating distant contact with ordinary people, were characteristic features for him.

He was a world citizen and a representative of deeply Portuguese culture at the same time, was at the same time connected to the strict musical traditions of his academic hometown Coimbra and that of his beloved cultural metropolis Lisbon. This explains the unreserved recognition of his life's work from all sides. He described his relationship with his guitar in an often-quoted saying:

“If I die, the guitar dies with me. My father said you should break your guitar after his death and bury it with him. I wished the same. If I have to die, my guitar dies with me. ” (“ Quando eu morrer, morre a guitarra também. O meu pai dizia que, quando morresse, queria que lhe partissem a guitarra ea enterrassem com ele. Eu desejaria fazer o mesmo. Se eu tiver de morrer, morrerá comigo a minha guitarra. ")

Discography

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Guitarra - O melhor de Carlos Paredes
  PT 17th 31/2004 (9 weeks)
Platinum Collection
  PT 24 16/2005 (4 weeks)
A voz da guitarra
  PT 19th 51/2010 (7 weeks)
Carlos Paredes
  PT 48 17/2020 (1 week)
  • 1962: Variações em Si Menor (EP)
  • 1963: Guitarradas sob o Tema do Films Verdes Anos (EP)
  • 1967: Guitarra portuguesa
  • 1969: Espiral op.70 (with Cecília de Melo)
  • 1970: Meu País: Canções
  • 1971: Balada de Coimbra (single)
  • 1971: Movimento perpétuo
  • 1973: Carlos Paredes / José Afonso / Luiz Goes
  • 1974: É Preciso um País (with Adriano Correia de Oliveira )
  • 1975: Que nunca mais
  • 1983: Concerto em Frankfurt
  • 1986: Invenções Livres (with António Victorino de Almeida )
  • 1988: Espelho de Sons
  • 1989: Asas sobre o Mundo
  • 1990: Dialogues (with Charlie Haden )
  • 1994: O Melhor dos Melhores (Best of)
  • 1996: Na Corrente (compilation of unpublished material)
  • 1998: Guitarra: O Melhor de Carlos Paredes (Best of)
  • 2000: Canção para Titi: Os Inéditos 1993 (his unfinished last album)
  • 2002: Uma Guitarra com Gente Dentro (anthology)
  • 2003: O Mundo segundo Carlos Paredes: Integral 1958-1993 (8-CD work edition)

literature

  • Salwa Castelo-Branco "Enciclopédia da música em Portugal no século XX, L – P" 1st edition, Temas & Debates, Lisbon 2010 ISBN 978-989-644-108-1 (pages 968-971)
  • (Various) “Movimentos Perpétuos” comics collection, Artemágica, Barcarena 2004, ISBN 978-989-605-004-7 .
  • Octávio Fonseca Silva "Carlos Paredes - A Guitarra do Povo", MCAN, Porto 2000, ISBN 978-972-985-140-7 .
  • Paul Badde: "Musicians of the Third Kind: Carlos Paredes", Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazin , January 2, 1987, issue 357, pages 8-13

Web links

Commons : Carlos Paredes  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Salwa Castelo-Branco "Enciclopédia da música em Portugal no século XX, LP" 1st edition, Temas & Debates, Lisbon 2010, pages 968–971
  2. Supplement to Movimentos Perpétuos - Música para Carlos Paredes -CD, Universal 2003
  3. DVD booklet and cover Movimentos Perpétuos - Cinetributo a Carlos Paredes , Corda Seca / EMI 2006
  4. http://www.macua.org/biografias/carlosparedes.html
  5. ^ Carlos Paredes in the Portuguese Wikipedia
  6. Chart sources: PT