The musician Fernando Alvim, 80, who for 25 years followed viola guitarist Carlos Paredes, died Friday, told Lusa close family source.
The musician who Amalia Rodrigues invited in 1969 to record the theme Ant bossa our , Alexander O’Neil and Alain Oulman, was hospitalized.
In recent years returned to talk to him a lot, especially after in 2011 was released the double CD The Fado and the Songs of Alvim , the all-interpreted his compositions, among others, by Camané, Ana Moura, Ricardo Ribeiro, Cristina Branco, Rui Veloso, Fafa Belém, Vitorino and Carlos do Carmo.
Fernando Alvim followed and recorded, over the years, with Antonio Chaínho, Pedro Jewelry, Misia, Adriano Correia de Oliveira, Filipa Pais, Isabel de Noronha, Vicente of the House, José Afonso or Manuel Freire (it is the guitar you hear in Philosopher’s Stone ), among many others.
Three years ago received the Medal of Honor of the Portuguese Society of Authors, who said at the time that it was a “form of recognition for decades of work in the service of the dignity of Portuguese music.”
For over 50 years the musician helped the others shine. In the middle of the song was, in fact, known as “the shadow”, in that accompany discreetly great figures of Portuguese music, especially Carlos Paredes. In 2011 told the PUBLIC in an interview: “. I was never very pretentious, always looked a certain modesty, follow without major juggling”
Fernando Gui San Payo de Sousa Alvim was born in Cascais, 6 November 1934. The mother played piano and habituated him since childhood, attending concerts, while his father wanted him to follow a university course.
He started his music through the cello and, as a youth, dedicated to the classical guitar study at Prof. Guitar School Duarte Costa in Lisbon, and later attended the National Conservatory Guitar Classical courses. At 21 career starts playing as an escort in amateur fado houses.
Although it is a reference within the instrumental line of fate, his interest extends to other genres such as jazz and bossa nova. As a young man becomes the Hot Club goer and promoter, first hand, the boss new program through the New Wave issued fortnightly on National Radio in the 1960s.
In 1959 then starts partnership with Carlos Paredes, who stepped stages around the world and with whom he recorded discs, participating in all creative work, helping to create harmonies and rhythmic accompaniments.
In the follow up to Carlos Paredes also account for many visits to the theater and cinema, especially the theatrical works Blood Wedding and The House of Bernarda Alba , Federico García Lorca, and, under the direction of director Paulo Rocha, movies The Green Years (1962) and Change Life (1966), among others.
Over the years, developed other activities. He has played with musicians from the Hot Club, was part of the group of the popular television show Zip-Zip musicians, founded the set of Fernando Alvim Guitars (1969), with Pedro Caldeira Cabral, António Luís Gomes and Edmundo Silva, and recorded an album with João Maria Tudela
He lived to illuminate the music of others -. particularly that of Carlos Paredes. Across the Walls discography, moreover, when we hear his genius to espraiar up by the strings of the Portuguese guitar, is almost always the viola Fernando Alvim giving you the floor. And you guess the paths.
“He did not play every day the same way, but from a certain point I began to have no difficulty in guessing his breath,” he told PUBLIC in 2011. And this , always discreet, was one of its most remarkable qualities: to intuit and support walls, anticipate leakage and variations where the hands of the guitarist were called at run time, on stage or in the studio, when he changed the turns what was previously tested.
“The way to play the chords, changed everything,” said the historical sound engineer Valentim de Carvalho Hugo Ribeiro in the book The Best Albums of the Portuguese Popular Music , adding that “the walls up excited and Alvim was genius to guess what he did.”
The ability to react in time and not let the walls of guitar move forward solitary confinement for phrasing virtuoso came actually a breadth of languages that Fernando Alvim always dominated perfectly and were rare combination.
That’s what Carlos Paredes delighted when, in 1960, he heard the musician act in the program New Wave of National Radio and was surprised by the ease with which jumped between fado records, bossa nova, jazz and light song, addressing all with a clear authority and a deep knowledge of each gender (when, years later, Paredes was called to recording with bassist Charlie Haden jazz, Alvim, who had frequenter of the Hot Club of Portugal, would, once again, the inevitable accompanist).
Shortly after, already Walls called him to challenge him to together monitor live viewing of the documentary about filigree Precious Metals Income , Cândido Costa Pinto, the Empire Cinema
This was followed by what is known:. albums that will always part of the larger history of Portuguese music. Is it the amazing follow you hear the disks Portuguese Guitar , Perpetual Motion , Concert in Frankfurt , Sounds Mirror , In the current and Wings Over the World , walls, usually born of long phone conversations with guitarist. But your brand is also on albums by Pedro Caldeira Cabral, Antonio Chaínho, Janita Salomé and even more amazingly some themes of fado approach in the discography of folk-pop beleaguered group.
He left little work on behalf own. In the 1970s, his guitars Set Fernando Alvim recorded two EPs and an album, but only the edit The Fado and the Songs of Alvim , released in 2011, revealed the excellence of its composition shaped in 35 authorship. One of the guitarists are to participate in the disk would be Ricardo Parreira, who in 2007 signed its own tribute to the violist with the album In Veins of A Guitar – Tribute to Fernando Alvim . More recently, in 2013, also a journalist Margaret Mello of Mercy leave the record of his admiration for the musician with the authorship of the documentary for RTP Blue Alvim .
Perhaps the low profile Fernando Alvim is especially exemplified in the episode, in 1964, where the return of a performance in Grândola, in the back seat of a car in which also followed Carlos Paredes, saw José Afonso humming a tune for the first time that had to call Grândola, Vila Morena .
In many defining moments of Portuguese music, Fernando Alvim was there with an unparalleled mastery, without seeking the role and without complaint a widely deserved attention . But it was time for everyone to know and not leave his name in the shade.
