CORPO ILUMINADO:

TOWARDS A NEW FADO

Third album of this 28 years old fado singer, the fourth one in fact, if one takes into account Cristina Branco sings Slauerhoff, released only in the Netherlands, Corpo Iluminado is already the album of Cristina Branco’s coming of age.

Coming of age for her voice, which has evolved in a few short years: she succeded in preserving the freshness and emotion of her first recordings. But with a new mastery: her low register has gained subtle colours, her ton fits marvelously with the atmosphere of the poem she sings, and she passes easily from sadness to merriness, from “saudade” to apparent off-handedness from one piece to the other.

Coming of age in the choice of the poems, for the songs are answering one another all along the album. Somehow as if the poem of David Mourao-Ferreira which gave its name to the album, with its sensuous, almost physical words, bore in itself questions about the existence, the other, questions the other fados all try to answer.

And finally, coming of age for her music, for Custodio Castelo’s compositions create atmospheres where fado never dared venture before. It is only to listen to Corpo Iluminado to discover it: a dark, mysterious music at the start, where the melody seems suspended to the interrogations of the singer, evolving into a more fado-like rhythm, to end at last in a long, final questioning. There never was such a structure in the fado. Take Musa, with its apparent light-heartedness, where the second verse is played, sung, hummed or pinched on the Portuguese guitar five times as author and singer are trying to understand their “muse”.

All this gives Cristina Branco’s fado a truly original, evolutive style, a new fado blending tradition and modernity. A tradition that Cristina claims openly as hers: many fados on the album are famous, such as Disse-te Adeus a Morri or Meu Amor é Marinheiro. The groupe in itself remains close to tradition, with Custodio Castelo playing the Portuguese guitar, Alexandre Silva the guitar and Fernando Maia the bass guitar. Moreover, Cristina chose to pay tribute to Amalia Rodrigues’ former musicians, who accompany her for a moving fado.
As regards modernity, it can be felt in every track of the album: in the choices of composer Custodio Castelo, in the words of many authors from the new generation of Portuguese poetry, especially women ; in the choice of guest musicians, in the singing of a fado in a dialect from Northern Portugal which has only been officially acknowledged two years ago by the Portuguese state.

All this gives Corpo Iluminado a major role in Cristina Branco’s career: a reflexion of the singer, her generation and a country that, since its integration in the European Community, aspires to be recognized both for its modernity and its tradition. Who other than Cristina Branco and the new fado could better express it?