Fabrizio De André
Fabrizio De André In Concerto - Arrangiamenti PFM

THE REVIEW

The first thing that comes to mind is the musicality of that name and surname, and the impression it made on me the first time I read it:

"Fabrizio De André".

Perhaps I compared it to "Ὠς ο μὲν ἐνθα καθεῦδε πολύτλας δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς," which I was probably studying back then (*).

A name with the musicality of the ancient Greek language.

The second was a Christmas at my uncle's house in the year when almost everyone in Italy had discovered him.

My cousin, who had always been the family's troublemaker, had also become passionate about his songs, particularly about that "bocca di rosa" who "put love above all else."

To the great dismay of my aunt, who considered that song so immoral and absolutely inappropriate for the education of a fifteen-year-old girl.

Apart from these memories, I don't remember exactly how I practically got to buy and hold the first vinyl of the concert with Premiata Forneria Marconi. Perhaps my sister helped me, but I can definitely say that I knew De André only by name, and PFM not even by that.

Anyway, just as Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians, visited on his island by Ulysses in the Odyssey, I made Fabrizio De André land in my small world.

And he began to tell me his stories, his adventures, his journeys, the people he had met.

About the fisherman who reminded him so much of his friend Riccardo Mannerini, about the two quarrelsome shepherds he had met in Sardinia ("Zirichiltaggia"), about the soldier who died in the war and the soldier's companion, who committed suicide ("Andrea"), about his nights lost in alcohol ("Amico fragile"), about the grudge-bearing and vindictive judge ("Un giudice"), about a love story that inevitably ended ("Giugno '73").

About Marinella and a resourceful and altruistic prostitute ("Bocca di rosa").

After so many years, almost fourteen, of navigating, he had finally arrived on my island, and in parallel on many other islands on Italian soil inhabited by quite ordinary people, telling his stories.

All accompanied by the most important Italian prog group, even before prog became one of my greatest musical passions.

Was it due to PFM that great success?

Definitely a lot, it must be acknowledged to the band of Mussida (his guitar solo within "Amico fragile" is one of the peaks of his live performances), Di Cioccio, Flavio Premoli, Patrick Djivas, new member Lucio Fabbri, creators of arrangements that were sometimes folk and medieval-like, sometimes rock-jazz, always exquisitely prog.

But it was thanks to Fabrizio De André who changed Italy a little with that record and those stories.

Since then, even as we shortly entered the most hedonistic decade in most recent history, the eighties of the last century, it was still possible to talk, between one drink at a disco and a laugh at a Drive In sketch, without being completely out of place, about another humanity, to be looked at with indulgent eyes, with benevolence, and never with hypocritical condemnation.

Or at least, certainly, it changed me, but perhaps I was predisposed.

Thank you, my ancient and lost, indispensable, bad teacher.

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(*) Without the accents, it is difficult to understand the beauty and musicality of that verse from the Odyssey, so I have included them. As far as its meaning is concerned, if I remember correctly, it should be something like "The same divine Ulysses, who bears so much, then slept."