Angelo Branduardi
Branduardi canta Yeats

Poetry and music: it is beautiful to see them emerge together, already perfectly fused, yet it is also a very rare phenomenon. It is easier to find excellent poets or storytellers who use music as a mere background for their stories, like most Italian singer-songwriters, or pure musicians for whom the lyrics are little more than commentary on the suggestions already created with the notes. Angelo Branduardi undoubtedly belongs to the latter category, although he personally has always cultivated a passion for fine verses, as demonstrated by the wonderful ballad titled "Confessioni di un malandrino", a translation of a poem by Sergei Esenin, dating back to his early days.

In 1986, when the great popular success of his famous, too famous, nursery rhymes was declining, he came out with this somewhat ambitious but fully realized project of a union between music and poetry. "Branduardi canta Yeats" is an anthology of 10 poems, converted into as many ballads, by William Butler Yeats, a great Irish symbolist poet, also much loved by Van Morrison, who has taken various cues from him for his most deeply Celtic lyrics. Had such work been accomplished by someone with a name like Angus O'Branduaird, perhaps originally from Kilkenny, instead of Mr. Angelo Branduardi from Cuggiono (MI), it might have been hailed as a miracle. But another Irishman, by the name of Oscar Wilde, not coincidentally wrote a delightful comedy, only apparently frivolous, on the importance of having the right name (Ernest).

The fact is that this precious album, musically Irish in every respect, was penalized by the language and Italian name of the author, as well as by being released a few years ahead of the commercial boom of Celtic music. And to say that this time, the main "culprit" of Branduardi’s often somewhat childish lyrics, his wife Luisa, had done an excellent job with translations respectful of the original. The music is among the best Branduardi has ever composed, even if the most beautiful, the visionary "Canzone di Aengus, il vagabondo", belongs to Philip Donovan Leitch, a sort of his Scottish alter ego, in short, another "minstrel." All the rest by Branduardi is with various peaks of excellence, like "Quando tu sarai...", inspired by the tender memories of an elderly woman, lightly flowing, supported by a melancholic classical guitar.

Those who know the masterpiece "Gulliver, la luna e altri disegni" will find similar atmospheres and the same extraordinary ability to paint enchanted landscapes, partly lost in the more popular albums. For example, "I cigni di Coole", a perfect autumn picture with the lake and its swans about to fly away to who knows where "on their sonorous wings." Certainly starting from verses like Yeats' is no small help, but the music is perfectly tailored to these poems. A glaring example, "Ad una bambina che danza nel vento", not even two minutes of delicate music like a light veil seemingly created by a fairy to gently envelop the verses. But it can be said that in every ballad at least a part of this harmony shines.

The undeniable Celtic charm of the entire album is due to a skilful use of the two acoustic guitars of Branduardi himself and his faithful Maurizio Fabrizio: the dense dialogue between their arpeggios doesn’t make one miss the absence of a real harp, and it’s further enriched here and there by violin and flute interventions, always by Branduardi, and where necessary, supported by the percussion of the Brazilian "Papete" de Ribamar, always contained and discreet as such a record demands. The last track, "Innisfree, l'isola sul lago", stands alone, employing a real strings orchestra and closing this kind of idyll with verses that evoke nature, which never leaves the depth of the heart, even (and especially) of those in the chaos of a gray city. But the entire album seems made for those who love nature: its sound is "green" like the meadows, like the woods, like Ireland.