Why? There's a certain fusion?
JS: Exactly, because for many years in the 40's and 50's a priest from Amareleja studied the Alentejo music and said it needed to renew itself, open to other universes. As also stressed Miguel Torga, the universal place is the place without walls. It needed to be touch by other experiences and other instrumental forms without losing sight of its origins. We wrote new traditional songs, more demanding in terms of a melodic and a interpretive point of view, because nowadays, the Alentejo people has another ear and other kinds of knowledge that allows them to be more demanding. It is necessary to give a boost to Alentejo singing and to leave that "dullness" of the primitive. It is important to mix it with other songs that enriches it, to turn in other ways, always taking as a starting its roots without losing sight of it. All this is possible, with all the risks that entails, we know that yes, we go by attempts, this is one more.
But, you think the Alentejo people will not like this new album?
JS: Many stick and I've had that experience in 2000, I did an album on the Alentejo music with various groups entitled "Voices of the South." Even won awards with this work for which I invited my brother, the choir's home town of Serpa and ethnographic peasant choir of Castro Verde. This work revealed the female singing of Alentejo, because following the April 25th, 1974 emerge the groups of women; they also know the songs as there is a great oral tradition and music is mostly about labor sang by the peasant. In the past, the man of the village, even intellectuals were interested in promoting Alentejo music, I can give the example of a magazine published in the nineteenth century, it was called "tradition" with people connected to the culture that was seduce by this musical trend and old songs that had poems, is too elaborate to be oral creation. Currently, we have the case of António Lobo Antunes fascinated by Alentejo music, who wrote the lyrics specifically for us, we added music and he adapted the language to the Alentejo style.
How many songs were written by this author?
JS: There are four, two music for each of us. The album has eight themes and one new, which was a big surprise to me. In Ponte Sor, in Alto Alentejo I discovered a harmonic orchestra. The Portuguese, as a rule, are outstanding performers in international competitions for accordion and harmonica and compete with the great masters of central Europe. This group has over 20 musicians and that was a very pleasant surprise. They play classical music and have very peculiar notation for harmonica, the musical written for this instrument is a work of art is impressive and it is also revealed in this album. There is a theme I sing solo accompanied by the orchestra is crop song. All this is handled with tweezers, because the Alentejo music is a very delicate and our dedication is very large, so we had all the care and instrumentally are not tampered in any way.
With a career full of successes do you felt some trepidation in creating different songs, when there still remains a great resistance from purists in the transfusion of other musical influences?
JS: Purists will always be purists. But, I had a pleasant experience in a song that was accompanied on the piano. First we recorded the choir in the studio and then a German pianist, fascinated with the music of Alentejo, conceived the whole instrumental accompaniment and when I heard it for the first time I was nailed to the chair not knowing what to think. But it was brilliant, it is an album that I recorded twelve years ago, at the time I took the recording to Serpa and gave them to listen, over 50% of people liked it and that left me satisfied, others were against the wall with the same shocked expression that I was when I first heard. We cannot think about purists, they also end up giving in; nonetheless any form of expression is an attempt to sensitize them.
