Reviewed: Mariza Vicar Street, Dublin and Chilingirian String Quartet RDS, Dublin

Mariza

Vicar Street, Dublin

What room does two centuries of tradition leave for someone of vast contemporary ambition? The answer, as demonstrated by the Mozambique-born, Lisbon-raised Mariza Nunes, is, surprisingly, quite a lot. Recognising that Portugal's traditional, melancholy folk form, fado (which translates as "fate" or "destiny") would remain caked in dust or nostalgia without brisk intervention, the demure diva comes to the music with a modernising drive.

The most immediately striking aspect of this 21st-century fado is not any tampering with its colour - its most distinctive instrument, the sweetly melodic 12-string Portuguese guitar, is ever-present - but the figure of Mariza herself. A theatrical concoction of culture and couture, Mariza begins with tightly crimped hair of acid-blonde, funnels down through a severe black bodice, and ends in a conspiracy of dark ruffles. She is how Vivienne Westwood might imagine a widow.

This may be why purists wonder whether Mariza is genuine or superficial - a fadista or a faddist? Paradoxically, she may be both.

But from the opening lament and imploring gestures of Poetas through the clap-along, hip-swinging manoeuvres of a skittish Maria Lisboa (improbably, a "happy" fado), Mariza's style and substance are not irreconcilable.

Meu Fado Meu (My Fado) resolves the conflict with elegant poise: in the solemnity of the piece's structure and the transfixing technique of Mariza's voice - dropping to such a hush that each intake of her breath is more audible - it's clear that the music and the personality have agreed to meet each other halfway.

If, at times, Mariza's well-honed displays are exquisite without being moving, she can be deeply affecting, as in a sparing Por Ti, performed like a slow, emotional implosion, and an especially melancholy Primavera.

Delivering another song without microphone or amplification, she does make delicate concessions to the custom of fado. But Mariza is going places with it. And she isn't going to let a little thing like fate stand in her way. - Peter Crawley

Chilingirian String Quartet

RDS, Dublin

Haydn - Quartet in G, Op 77, No 1. Ravel - Quartet

in F. Beethoven - Quartet in E flat, Op 74 (Harp)

It was rather like the good old days at the Royal Dublin Society when the Chilingirian Quartet, no strangers to the RDS concert hall, were on stage in front of a well-filled house playing a meaty mainstream programme.

The Chilingirians are one of those groups who don't usually raise their voices unnecessarily. Their approach to Haydn's Quartet in G, Op 77, No 1, allowed the music to communicate in an unforced manner which offered a striking contrast to the frequent over-statement in the performance of the Trio Fontenay the previous night.

Abandoning the convention of chronological programming, the Chilingirians offered a high-contrast shift from the Haydn of 1799 to the Ravel of 1903, capitalising on the extraordinary harmonic resonances that are to be found in the later work. And backtracking to Beethoven, they communicated the composer's Harp Quartet in a manner much more urgent and driven, missing none of the music's surprising turns and twists.

Not everything in the ensemble gelled perfectly. Levon Chilingirian is one of those quartet leaders whose naturalness of delivery seems to come at the price of some waywardness of intonation. On this occasion, however, this seemed but a small price to pay for music-making that so easily and unfussily conveyed the character of three such different and distinguished quartets. - Michael Dervan