Songs for Voice and Guitar from South America (and Portugal, or Argentina, Brazil and Portugal?) Tyrone Landau tenor Geoffrey Morris guitar All tracks arranged for guitar and voice by Tyrone Landau James Atkins Producer/ Engineer/ Editing Susie Vickery Cover Artwork These arrangements grew out of a series of performances given at Argentine social tango events known as milongas. Since the early recordings of Carlos Gardel, Tango canción have been closely associated with male voices accompanied by guitar. Most of our selection comes from the extraordinary flowering of this genre which took place between the 1930’s to 1950’s. Juan Carlos Cobián is one of the composers credited with the creation of the romantic Tango-romanza style that fuelled this form, often incorporating the Lunfardo dialect of Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The compositional styles presented here range from Juan de Dios Filiberto’s use of Argentinean folkloric elements to the vedetismo cabaret style of Mariano Mores. As well as the social event itself, milonga refers to the dance form, often slightly faster and more rhythmically regular than tango. In the 1930’s Sebastián Piana and Homero Manzi produced a series of evocative songs in this style. Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), from neighbouring Brazil, proves a perfect accompaniment. He taught himself the guitar as a boy, when it was still considered condescendingly as an exclusively popular instrument. His Suite Populaire Brésilienne for guitar was begun in 1908, and already shows his melding of Brazilian indigenous musical elements with European twentieth century styles. His love of the guitar was spurred by his meeting with Andrés Segovia in Paris in 1924 which led to the composition of Douze Études. So it is fitting to adapt these exquisite songs in Portuguese for voice and guitar. The other Portuguese songs in this collection come from the academic tradition associated with the Universidade de Coimbra. In Coimbra, at the end of the nineteenth century, local Fado began to diverge from its Lisbon antecedent, and was adapted by students, in their black academic gowns, into this almost exclusively male bel canto form. They are traditionally accompanied by guitarra, from the cittern family, and the viola, akin to the classical guitar. Tyrone Landau March 2011 Tyrone Landau tenor Geoffrey Morris guitar All tracks arranged for guitar and voice by Tyrone Landau James Atkins Producer/ Engineer/ Editing Susie Vickery Cover Artwork Recorded at The Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre, December 2009 Guitar: La Tranquila by Liam Romanillos, Dorset 2008 1. MALENA Malena sings tango like no one else, pouring her heart into every verse. Her voice emerges like a w**d in the slums. Malena has the broken heart of a bandoneon. Perhaps as a child her lark’s voice acquired the dark tone of alleyways. Or maybe it’s a love she can only name when alcohol makes her sad. Malena sings tango with a voice of darkness. Malena has the broken heart of a bandoneon. Your song has the cold heart of a final encounter. Your song has the bitter salt of remembrance. I don’t know if your voice is the flower of a broken heart; all I know is that through the murmur of your tangos, Malena, you seem far superior to me. Your eyes are like oblivion; your lips are sealed like rancour; your hands, two doves that feel the cold; your veins have the blood of the bandoneon. Your tangos are abandoned creatures walking through muddy alleyways, where all the doors are locked, and the spirits of the song are howling. Malena sings tango like no one else. Malena has the broken heart of the bandoneon. 2. EN ESTA TARDE GRIS What a strong desire to cry on this grey afternoon! With its drumming, the rain speaks of you. It’s the remorse of knowing that it’s my fault I’ll never see you again, my love. With closed eyes I see you the same as yesterday, trembling, pleading for my love again. And now it’s your voice that returns to me, on this grey afternoon. “Come”, you’d sadly said to me… “My soul can’t exist in this loneliness. Come, take pity on my pain. I’m tired of crying, suffering, hoping, and talking alone with my heart. Come, I love you totally, and if you don’t come today I’ll drown in my own tears. No, it’s impossible to go on like this, with this love hammering at me like a curse!” I couldn’t see your desperation, and happily ran after another love. How alone and sad I feel when I see how distant I’ve become. 3. A MEDIA LUZ ‘Corrientes’, 3-4-8, second floor, elevator. There are no doormen or neighbours. Inside: cocktails and love. A loft furnished in maple: piano, rugs and a lamp, a telephone that answers, a phonograph that wails old tangos from my youth, and a porcelain cat that cannot meow for love. ‘Juncal’ 12-24. Dial without fear. On afternoons: tea with pastries. At night: tango and love. On Sundays: tea dancing. On Mondays: desolation. Everything is in this little house: pillows and sofas, coke, like a drugstore, carpets that muffle the sound; and a table set for love. And everything in half-light. What a sorcerer love is! Our kisses in half-light. Us two in half-light. Everything in half-light, an interior twilight. What soft velvet is this light of love! 4. !UNO¡ One searches, full of hope, the road that dreams promised to his desires. One knows the struggle is cruel, and too great, but one fights and bleeds in stubborn faith. One crawls over thorns, and in the urge to offer love, suffers and obliterates understanding. So one was left without a heart, the price one pays for a kiss that never came, or a love that was unfaithful. Empty from loving and crying, so much betrayal! If I had a heart, that heart I gave away… If I could, like yesterday, love without foreboding… It’s possible I could close your eyes, that call out with affection, with my kisses… Without thinking that like these, there were other, wicked eyes that destroyed my life… If I had a heart, that heart I lost… If I’d forget the woman that yesterday tore it apart, I could love you, embrace your hopes and cry out your love. But god placed you in my path without considering that it’s too late, and I won’t know how to love you. Let me weep, like one who suffers in life the torture of mourning his own death. Pure as you are, you could have salvaged my hope with love. It is so lonely in pain, so blind in suffering. But a cruel cold, worse than hatred, the soul’s moment of death, the horrendous tomb of my love, cursed me forever and stole all hope. 5. POR UNA CABEZA To lose by a head with a noble foal, slackens down the straight, and turning back seems to say: don’t forget, my friend, you know not to place bets. To lose by a head… passion for a day, for that coquettish and cheerful woman. Her smiling promise is a lying love, burning a bonfire of my longing. To lose by a head… all that madness. The kisses from her mouth wipe out the sorrow, calm the bitterness. To lose by a head… If she forgets me, what matter to lose my life a thousand times? Why live? So much deception… to lose by a head… I swore a thousand times not to keep insisting. But if a passing glance catches me, yet again I want to kiss those lips of fire. Enough of horses… an end of gambling… a photo-finish I don’t wish to see. But if some horse looks a favourite for Sunday, I’ll bet everything, that’s what I do. 6. CANÇÃO DO POETA DO SÉCULO XVIII I dreamt last night there was a heavy-hearted moon, And us two alone upon the moonlit street deserted, Clouds rushing in search of chimeras, And we, like clouds, ran seeking for illusion Of living as in heaven To be singing sweet songs That fill with light our love of life In these beautiful springtimes. 7. EVOCAÇÃO On this starry night in May I dream of kissing her mouth And the perfume of her warm breast Little by little makes me delirious. I feel in this sweet moment That life for me is the love of you. In her beautiful golden hair, Where the sun’s brilliance is reflected, I’m unable to grasp my treasure Between life and death. For me the sweet dream ends And I live to cry my love for you. In the blue horizon of this sky Lives a remembrance of my love. Always so distant From my sad watch, Like the illusion of this love. The memory lives, And is happy in the dream. In this love of illusion… Like this, living for you. 8. MANHÂ NA PRAIA As a red balloon Guided by invisible hands Burning with an inextinguishable flame, Rising slowly in the air, In that morning of grey and smoke, The sun rises to heaven over the sea. 9. FADO DE DESPEDIDA Ah, my old gown The will of destiny take Remove the ribbons Along with my illusions Now I’m robbed of my love Also of your dark look. My youth is finished Only for my heart to weep. 10. PRECE Lord, I don’t know how to recite Nor the same in thought. Give me faith to love you Alleviate my torment I am indebted to my home town And in my home I labour My home satisfies me in life And, dying, I repay my home. 11. GUITARRAS DE MEUS PAIS Guitarras of my country That sings without words, That speaks without language. My song, by enchantment, Keeps quiet while you speak. Guitarras of my country That sings when I don’t sing. So much of the past Is still held in your tone. The sound of silent voices, Voices of a people no longer here No longer fearing others’ swords No longer raising their voices in anger, Whose voices have fallen silent Guitarras of my country Strung with tears, Weapons of the Order of Aviz. In its transformed sobbing It bends its neck for us, Singing of new struggles. Guitarras of my country 12. FADO DOS PASSARINHOS Bird-catching on the river bank No-one would be my enemy Give me your wings Let me go flying with you Across the distant space Flies a flock of swallows. To hold you in an embrace Is all my longing 13. ADEUS SÉ VELHA Adieu old cathedral, that I’ll miss With the guitarras reciting My soul parts weeping On this day that I leave you Oh the adieu of farewell No more cruel moment Which will stay in my life Like a hundred years of mourning 14. ADEUS COIMBRA VELHINHA Adieu old Coimbra Of poets and of stars Of hands dedicated to song Ah, my Coimbra alone Melancholy roads and alleys Drunk to the moon I now leave, but in my life I will stay bound to you As the old cathedral in peace Ah, the adieu of farewell To my gown floating On the waters of the Mondego 15. NOSTALGIAS I want to drown my heart, to extinguish a crazed love that, more than love, is a suffering. Yes, I came to erase old kisses with the kisses of other lips. If her love was a “flower for just one day”, why it is still a cruel memory for me? I want to raise my glass for both of us to forget this obsession, but still I recall her. Nostalgia: for hearing her laugh and feeling her breath like fire on my lips. Anguish: for feeling abandoned, and imagining another will soon have her love. My friend, I don’t want the humiliation of begging, crying, and telling her I can’t go on. In my sad loneliness I’ll see my youth crumble like dear roses. Moan out your sad tango, bandoneon. Maybe you’re also in pain for a lost love. My soul cries for phantasms, alone and sad in this black and starless night. If drink brings relief, I’ll bring my sorrow and drown it at once. I want to make my heart drunk, and drink to “the failure of love”. 16. EL PAÑUELITO The little white handkerchief I offered you, embroidered with my hair. It was for you. You despised it, and I hold it now drenched on tears. That evening was so sad when I saw you, and your trembling lips said you no longer loved me and would part from me forever. With this little handkerchief my heart suffered. With this little handkerchief I lost hope. With this little handkerchief that cruel day came when you abandoned me weeping. The faithful little handkerchief suffered with me. The faithful little handkerchief felt my feelings. The faithful little handkerchief will accompany me the day I end my slow suffering. The little handkerchief was a companion in pain... How many times I kissed it for that lost love! Your name is embroidered on it, and I always keep it close… So much pain it gives by reminding me of you! A bird sang plaintively, my sweet darling, when you abandoned me. And for whom? Even the handkerchief drifted to the floor on hearing your disdain. 17. MILONGA TRISTE You came down the path, apron, braids hanging loose, your black eyes sparkling as a full moon. My lips hurt you as I kissed your fresh mouth. I was punished by your hand, but struck harder by your absence. Ah!... I returned on old roads, returning but unable to arrive. I cried out a great cry, singing unable to sing. You closed your black eyes, your face turning pale. And we lead your silence to the ringing of the bells. The moon set into the sea. The sadness struck my heart. With strings from a thousand guitars I was entangled in remorse. Ah!... I returned on old roads, returning but unable to arrive. I cried out your dead name, praying unable to pray. The sadness of having loved your shy blush on that path. The sadness of roads that never saw you again. The silence of the cemetery, the loneliness of stars. Memories of great mourning, apron and black braids. Ah!... I returned on old roads, returning unable to arrive. I cried out your dear name, weeping unable to weep. 18. LA ÚLTIMA COPA Come, friends, pour me a glass of champagne to the brim, that in this night of delirium and pleasure I can drown the pain in my soul. It's the final celebration of my life, of my life, friends, that is going… The better to toast the madness, following her who never appreciated my love. I loved her and still love her, and will never be able to forget her; I’ll get drunk for her. And her, who knows what she’ll do? Pour more champagne, waiter, to kill my sorrow. Drinking this way drowns it. And if you see her, friends, tell her it was solely of her love that my life has gone. As we drink the last glass, maybe she is also offering a toast from her lips, and another mouth is hungrily kissing her. Come, friends, pour me a glass of champagne to the brim, for my life is done, following her who never appreciated my love. 19. VOLVER I can just make out the flickering lights that will mark my return. They’re the same that lit deep hours of sorrow with their pale reflections. And though I didn’t want to return, you’re always drawn to your first love. The old street where the echo said: “Her life is you. Her love is you.” Beneath the mocking smile of the stars that gaze indifferently on my return. To return, with a withered brow, and temples whitened by the snows of time. To feel that life is just a puff of air, that twenty years is nothing. Roaming the shadows, feverishly looking for you, mouthing your name. To live with my soul grasping at a sweet memory, and weeping once more! I am frightened of this encounter with the past, that returns to haunt my life. I am frightened of the nights, with my dreams trapped in memories. But the traveller that flees will sooner or later stop… Though forgetfulness, that kills everything, has killed my old illusions, I still have a secret hope concealed. And that is my heart’s entire fortune.