Casa del Vento
Sessant'anni di Resistenza

The Memory. A more or less distant figure that nestles somewhere in the human mind. The memory which is a willed or unfortunate evocation of the past. The memory that makes you smile, anger, unsettle... and sometimes, to say the least, understand. The designs of the past nest everywhere, hidden on films, paper, tapes, photographs; and more often among the throats of our fellow humans. The stories of yesterday inject a testimony into human reason, which by aging becomes memory. Here then is an unearthed sound album of memories, introduced by a solitary accordion walk and the clapping of hands hinting at the theme Bella ciao, before the ghosts of Modesta Rossi, Licio Nencetti, Pio Borri, and all the other heroes of the Italian Resistance, peek from the notes of this musical fresco that paints a portrait of an Italy ravaged, humiliated, oppressed by the Nazi-fascist dictatorship, and by its ideals of domination, heroically opposed by partisan actions. The atmosphere is raw, tragic, heartbreaking, and above all traditional, in the sense that in an hour of music the electrophones remain just a hypothesis. Instead, acoustic guitars, violins, accordions, and all those instruments capable of shaping a genuinely popular environment are insinuated. The whole is told without the known poetic concoctions that characterize the songwriter's song; the language is therefore rather simple, at times even elementary, as if to emphasize the direct and powerful tones of the oral narrative, as if the words were dictated by a war hero, or by a true eyewitness. The fifteen tracks thus narrate the desperate and courageous oppositions of the rebels against totalitarianism, which is why the praise to the red flag, or the reaction against subservience, cannot be considered a pretext for corruption towards the listener, that is, an exhortation towards a certain political alignment, first for the truthfulness of historical sources, second because the album exalts something much greater: the exaltation of human rights, the desperate pursuit of a freedom that could lead mankind towards a better future.

But did this better future ever exist? That dimension which has now become the present, and is offered to the gaze of each of us? The answer, logically, is purely subjective. But if on one hand, it might be gratifying to criticize the political and social management of the present, on the other, one should not make the mistake of blaming the past, as it holds the myriad stories of those who fought in the hope of gifting us a Beautiful Italy.

“If you want to go on a pilgrimage to the place where our Constitution was born, go to the mountains where the partisans fell, to the prisons where they were imprisoned, in the fields where they were hanged. Wherever an Italian died to redeem freedom and dignity, go there, young people, in thought, because there our Constitution was born”.

(Piero Calamandrei. Speech to the youth on the Constitution born from the Resistance. Milan, January 26, 1955)

Federico “Dragonstar” Passarella.