Maria Teresa de Noronha

D. Maria Teresa do Carmo de Noronha, (November 7, 1918 – July 5, 1993) was a Portuguese aristocrat and a fado singer. Maria Teresa de Noronha’s particularity in fado is due to her voice, expressive force and her synchronization with the instruments. Her beautiful, natural soprano voice, rigorously tuned, was always superbly positioned either in low or high pitches and was provided with an unmatched agility and capacity to elaborate intricate melodic ornaments with precision. Her perfection is evidenced in her brilliant repertoire of some lower-pitched fados of Coimbra, generally a turf for male voices. The expressive force is a must for those rigorosos like M.T. Noronha, who interpreted almost exclusively fados castiços, in which the music is repeated four to five times. The challenge for the virtuous singer is to stylize, i.e. to vary the melodic design of each stanza according to the emotional suggestions of the lyrics themselves. Maria Teresa de Noronha’s style was to introduce the fados with a simple and clear melody and subsequently to insert a variety of dynamic nuances, hinting the main words with either more intensity, an intimate whisper or briefly suspending her voice. Generally it isn’t until the final stanza that the full climax is reached. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.