The planetary adventure of Madredeus

The Ambassadors of Saudade

of Laura Putti

When the guitarist Pedro Ayres Magalhaes and the bass player Rodrigo Leao decided to create a musical group, the fado was in an open crisis. We are in the 1985 and, in Portugal the rock (and all the music comning from United States and Britain) dominates; the popular expressions became obsolete and disliked by young people. In four words: out of the trend.

But Leao and Magalhaes were very determined. What they have in mind is not an exclusively musical project; it is a true artistic path that starts from the work of the great portuguese poets to link to the tradition of fado. The two musicians are not beginners, but real celebrities of the rock enstablishment and this fact could give to theyr project the attention of the young public.

At the beginning of the Eighties Leao was the bass player of the rock band Setima Legiao and Magalhaes was part of Corpo Diplomatico, a punk group; he passed then to the Herois do Mar, rock and nostalgia, the look to the ocean and to the ancient glory of the past colonies. The ex-punk confesses monarchic ideas. He does also some vigils on the sites of ancient battles of portuguese kings. But, at the top of the success, the Herois do Mar separated. When Leao and Magalhaes decided to make a new group, rock and politics have disappeared and the interest for the portuguese poetry is present in their life.

They start to compose in a frenzied way, an loose papers, without a precise project and destination. The poetic visions of Magalhaes became words able to describe the portuguese land, the yellow of the burnt country of the south, the wet of the Estremadura’s plains, the solemn corners of the north and also the feelings of fado: love, memories, nostalgia, saudade. Leao, that in the meantime, has passed to the keyboards, creates a popular and the same time modern music, full of lyrism, sometimes folcloric and some others slow and harrowing.

The violoncellist Francisco Ribeiro and the accordeonist Gabriel Gomes joined the group. But something is missing: the voice of a woman. The legend tells that one night, in a street of Bairro Alto, where the night life is spreading, Magalhaes and company (they were Rodrigo and Gabriel, n.o.t) has been attracted in a bar by the magic sound of a voice: that voice was that of Teresa Salgueiro. In reality several trials had to be made in the home of the mother of Magalhaes. In a photo of that occasion Teresa is a twenty years girl, a bit fat, well far from the glamour of today. Even if very young, she had an incredible voice. It is the 1986 and Madredeus born. The group played in a theatre, the Iberic Theatre, in an ancient church of the Xabregas convent, in the Madre de Deus quarter. The name came from that, and it has nothing to do with the faith of the single musicians; even if Magalhaes has said several times that you can’t talk about Portugal without talking of its religion, and that the mother of God is the essence of the woman. The interest for the femininity will remain one of the main sources of inspiration for the leader of the group. "We are four musicians around the spirit of a woman, not around her body" will say Magalhaes to explain the role of Teresa in the group.

In the 1987 was released Os Dias da Madredeus, the days of Madredeus. It is a double album (it will be a single CD), an ambitious release for the first album. It contains the marvelous A Vaca de Fogo, narration of a popular feast, which will become one of the most famous songs of Madredeus. In the ’88 they partecipated to the "Biennale dei Giovani Artisti del Mediterraneo", in Bolonha, and Leao composed Tardes de Bolonha, afternoons of Bolonha, an instrumenal: two years later it will be contained in the album Existir, the first great success of Madredeus.

In the ’92 was released Lisboa, a double CD with 22 songs recorded live during a concert in the Coliseu dos Recreios in Lisbon with the partecipation of Carlos Paredes, great master of the portuguiese guitar. The authority of the group rose with its fame. Fame that passes the borders of Portugal and arrives in Germany, in the home of Wim Wenders. The director was already thinking about a film on Lisbon and he discovered that the music of Madredeus have the poetic narration, the spirit of the city. In the meantime Magalhaes and company were in a recording studio near London and they recorded a great quantity of material. There is the material for a double album, but it would be the third double album of a group which has some difficulties to export their music. The music of Madredeus is not a commercial one and such a rigour can be also a flop. That are obviously cautions of discographics, but Magalhaes did not care and made his own proposal: two albums at the registration price of one.

In the 1994 is released O espirito da paz, the spirit of peace, and after few time also Ainda, again, that Magalhaes reveals to be one of his favourite words. It is in fact the great curiosity of the leader that, toghether with the magic of the voice of Teresa, makes this group something really special.

The story of Madredeus is also the story of six travelers (in the meantime Jose Peixoto joined the group), in the greatest respect of the tradition of the portuguese people. Lisbon Story is released, Ainda became its music and the film of Wenders became a great publicity. Their fame explode: as the main character of the film Winter-Rudiger Vogler, all the spectators fell in love a bit for Teresa Salgueiro, for the first (and, until now, last) time in the role of actress. Ainda is a great commercial success. Wenders wriote the notes of the booklet defining the music of the group "strong and calm and passionate and peaceful". For the portuguese musicians starts a voyage without any end, that will bring them to play in front of the entire world. In the meantime, though, Rodrigo Leao decided to leave - a so nomad life is not for him - to try a solist project. Carlos Maria Trindade, one of the best names of the portuguese musical avanguarde, substitute him.

The formation changes completely the last year: Gomes and Ribeiro leave and Fernando Judice, a bass player, joins the group. In august they close themselves at the Condumer studios, near Venice, and also this time they recorded a lot of songs with Matt Butler, sound technic of great rockstar like Paul McCartney. There is material for a double album, but it will be only a long single CD with 14 songs entitled "O Paraiso". The change is light, but O Paraiso is an true album of songs, each one with its own completeness and no more part of a single concept (I have already seen that opinion, hehe n.o.t.). The voice of Teresa is less solemn, popular, it flies like the Andorinha da Primavera, one of the best songs of the album. This album has a tepid reaction from the public, maybe because from Madredeus, simbol of exportation of a country divided between modernity and tradition, are not accepted great changings.

But the group, object of devotion all over the world (oh yes n.o.C.), goes on its path that now it will stop for a short time to allow to Teresa to have her baby.

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