Divina Estampa

AMG Review of Divina Estampa

Alvaro Neder
All Music Guide

In 1994, Caetano Veloso released the Cd Fina estampa, singing boleros. The huge success of that album conduced him to conceive the live show, where this album was recorded. Fans of Caetano will welcome his wonderfully sensitive and energetic interpretations for Brazilian and Latin classics, after roughly one decade and a half dealing with mostly commercial albums. In magnificent acoustic orchestral arrangements where there is room for minimalistic performances, accompanied by a single pandeiro or violăo and even alla capella, he covers sambas, boleros, valses, march, bossa nova and samba de gafieira. Deserve mention, among other superb renditions, his "Haiti," the beautiful sambas (performed as bossa) "Cançăo de amor" (Chocolate/Elano de Paula) and "Suas măos" (Pernambuco/Antônio Maria), the valse "Lábios que beijei" (Álvaro Nunes/Leonel Azevedo), the samba "Vocę esteve com meu bem?" (Joăo Gilberto/Antônio C. Martins) interpreted in the gafieira style, the fundamental bolero "La barca" in a sensitive violăo rendition, the vanguardist "O pulsar" (written together with the concrete poet Augusto de Campos), and the tropicalist "Soy loco por ti, America" (Gilberto Gil/Capinam).