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Rating: "One of the most successful works, if not the best" - Bertoncelli
"The most beautiful album ever made in Italy" - Branduardi.
A work inspired by the apocryphal gospels, 1970?
With a record like this, I fall into a trap. I will try to be subjective too. But it's going to be very tough...
Let's start with the collaborators: impeccable, considering maestro Reverberi, Quelli (future PFM, prog-rock band), and Angelo Branduardi (yes, him...), and the choirs, which correctly mix the "sound" while always varying the register. Folk music (via della croce), sacred (the songs dedicated to Mary), ethnic (return of Joseph), some touches of gospel and experimental (Maria in the carpenter's shop, but not only). Never anything excessive, so balanced. Like in Il testamento di Tito: the instruments accompany guitar and voice and, like actors on stage, come and go. Only Faber's guitar and voice are the main actors, omnipresent in the song.
Now the lyrics. On the first side, there is the pre-nativity, but also, in my opinion, nature appears as a fundamental actress. Poor Mary, for the tribute to the priests (menstruation) is given in a lottery to men, after living alone in the temple ("melts the snow in the sun...the wind and the season return to play", and we are already at 1). Joseph sees the "desert, a vast expanse of sawdust/tiny fragments of nature", and "the men of the sand" with "assassins' profiles, locked in the silence of a prison without borders", returns to her after 4 years (and 2 times where nature appears).
The annunciation is a dream of almost carnal love in The Dream of Mary (the angel counts her vertebrae, while they go to see the "color of the wind"), with the harmony of nature ("the olive embraces the vine", "in flowery valleys"). The priests are silenced and transfigured -"faces of stone, arms of branches" - they become beings of nature themselves....
After the airy, relaxed Ave Maria, we turn the side.
On side B, on the other hand, there is the evil of man as power over other men...the passion of Christ with jabs at religion - the priests are defined as power of human semblance (Via della croce), which kills when it shouldn't, unlike Jesus who taught to desert the war (Maria in the carpenter's shop). Not to mention Tito's criticism of the commandments. He learns the importance of love on the cross with Christ, at sunset: "now that evening comes and the darkness takes me from my eyes/the sun slips [...] to violate other nights".
A fundamental album for Faber and - in my opinion - for all Italian music. The Serious one.
P.S. About how I did the review ---> In general, I admit that I may have omitted probably important and/or essential parts, and I apologize to all DeBaser users. Furthermore, if by chance I had similar ideas compared to other reviewers, well I apologize - but it was not my intention to steal them and I apologize...In any case, I also published the review on Instagram (page @antonio_mazzanti)
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
08 Tre madri (02:55)
"Tito, non sei figlio di Dio,
ma c'è chi muore nel dirti addio".
Madre di Dimaco:
"Dimaco, ignori chi fu tuo padre,
ma più di te muore tua madre".
Le due madri:
"Con troppe lacrime piangi, Maria,
solo l'immagine d'un'agonia:
sai che alla vita, nel terzo giorno,
il figlio tuo farà ritorno:
lascia noi piangere, un po' più forte,
chi non risorgerà più dalla morte".
Madre di Gesù:
"Piango di lui ciò che mi è tolto,
le braccia magre, la fronte, il volto,
ogni sua vita che vive ancora,
che vedo spegnersi ora per ora.
Figlio nel sangue, figlio nel cuore,
e chi ti chiama - Nostro Signore -,
nella fatica del tuo sorriso
cerca un ritaglio di Paradiso.
Per me sei figlio, vita morente,
ti portò cieco questo mio ventre,
come nel grembo, e adesso in croce,
ti chiama amore questa mia voce.
Non fossi stato figlio di Dio
t'avrei ancora per figlio mio".
(ej)
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