Antonello Venditti - Francesco De Gregori
Theorius Campus

There is a small, new Rome making its way forward, post-economic booms and finally ready to question itself, free to breathe again, to think and reflect in the current new era. From those lower-middle-class neighborhoods, children finally emerge who have been able to study, afford the luxury of dedicating themselves abundantly to their muse, or at least to follow their passions. From these suburbs, two brave, sensitive, and talented young men emerge. They are simple young people, light-years away from their foreign peers, from their idols, whose songs they try to play at home after school. They are inseparable friends, complementary to each other. Antonello Venditti has been playing the piano for many years, he has a crystal-clear voice and a popular poetics, vulgar but for this very reason genuine, he confronts loves and problems head-on, he is a little romantic hero who faces every obstacle without fear, unbothered by doubts, double meanings, and ambiguities. Francesco De Gregori is a Tonio Kroger who roams lightly with his guitar, plays with words on his delicate arpeggios, his voice is still unripe, undecided, but he is the one who risks the most, he experiments fearlessly with his certainties. The stories they tell are different but drawn from the same life. Each has their magnifying glass. Venditti observes a woman during evenings spent smoking in the cellars, desires love and freedom, stumbles over broken branches as he walks alone along avenues whitened by winter. He challenges reality, questions the values of modern man, wonders about politics and seems to trust it (I see a star, better follow it).

De Gregori does not speak of loves and direct feelings like his companion, or at least he does not want to: he prefers small impressionistic portraits of the mentally disturbed, priests, drunkards, enigmatic ladies who fascinate him and leave him in prey to dreams, poems, confessions to the wind and the sky.
"Theorius Campus" is a nursery of Italian music, where the two make their debut and introduce themselves. Venditti is already at his peak, for those who love him, the beauty of these early compositions is undeniable. “Roma Capoccia” is the most overused yet enchanting portrait of a metropolis, his own. No one can appreciate, love the caput mundi like Antonello, for him the identification between his own life, the beloved woman, and the city where he lives loving the latter is natural. How big Rome is when it’s at sunset, when the orange blushes still on seven hills, and the windows are so many eyes that seem to say how beautiful it is... Only a few other artists like Pino Daniele with Naples or Jannacci and Gaber for Milan have devoted themselves so passionately to giving us such an infatuated image of their homeland. The song is a ride between the beauties of the eternal city (almost a tourist guide in the Roman style) on which the magic of Francesco's guitar combined with the solemn piano of the other gives an air of epicness and a promise of fidelity. This flagship song still manages to pass (if that’s ever possible) almost unnoticed next to the invective in defense of the righteous, the poor, and the weakest of "Sora Rosa," a manifesto of commitment and homely irony (Those with healthy big eyes will tell us to come down to hell at least you'll have the fire for the winter). The love songs are impeccable, heartfelt, engaging, between falsettos that will soon be abandoned by the singer and almost progressive suites that ennoble even the most bare stories (yet unapproachable compared to the subsequent famous trivial Vedittianness). De Gregori, youthful and restless, moves from the almost rustic-bucolic portrait of "Signora Aquilone" to the evocative hallucinations of "La Casa Del Pazzo," the dark-folk of "Vocazione 1 e 1/2" (in your room under the portrait of Sturzo the crucifix winked at you... what language does the lamb speak that today will die...) to the pure beat escape of "Little Snoring Willy," in an imitated but very fun English. Yet it is when the two friends do not limit themselves to playing for each other but sing the pieces together that the acme of the project is reached: two visions that seemed unblendable like oil and vinegar come together and almost miraculously seem incredible, perfect, sublime, and mature. "Dolce signora che bruci" is the portrait of a middle-aged woman who, in addition to beauty, is losing her family, the “dear geraniums“, the old photo albums: "the precious lover" left an hour ago and all that remains for the woman is tears and broken mirrors. And the two voices return in what is perhaps the true gem of the album: "In mezzo alla città" is the unsurpassable symbiosis of the two talents, an exceptional level of poetry. In the background, only the folk guitar of De Gregori.

Venditti begins the story (Streets of gray houses of dirty snow you go away… it's eight o'clock, Standa is already closed, and my bed says goodbye) of a love that just ended on the streets of Rome. The reactions and destinies of the couple are different, and while Venditti identifies with the boy (I’m getting more and more alone, and around my city... silk ties of poor people living inside the metro...), De Gregori sings overlapped with him the voice of the girl’s new life (You're already climbing the stairs, where a body will smile at you, and the sun will change you...). The girl wonders that right in the places where she had lived with her old partner, she can awaken one morning, drinking coffee with a new man. The protagonist instead loses himself among marvelous snapshots of the past (a dressing gown, wines from Crete, Leonard Cohen records... my songs, my scenes, Charlot's comedies...). The old love goes away, despite the painful memories, a new life concludes the delicate tale and leaves us moved and involved.
These young men know nothing of their future yet, they do not know that - in different and sometimes almost opposite ways - they will become the heroes of a generation, they do not know that millions of young people will hang on their words for years, for decades, eager to know their opinions, to be guided by them. If the affection between the two precious friends will never die, the musical path of the two will drastically separate, more and more, until making the two careers almost incomparable. Venditti here was already a complete artist sure of his great talent, but after less than a decade he will make almost all his creative qualities vanish, while still remaining a commercial protagonist of the most sugary and unpretentious Italietta. De Gregori will increasingly leave behind this initial fragility and strengthen himself in his commitment, in his task of rewriting the singing poetry of the most intellectual Italy.
Two heroes of our time, still crawling on all fours, playing with history and with their idols (the magnificent cover without even the names of the songwriters but only with the Pre-Raphaelite Ophelia by Millais, who knows with which curious personal similarities) and they deliver us "Theorius Campus." Let the novel of the new Italian music begin.