Ivan Graziani
La città che io vorrei

LA RECENSIONE

Talking about Ivan Graziani for an Abruzzese (present!) can be both simple and difficult: difficult because one might fall into a "conflict of interest," into parochialism (perish the thought); simple because, well, Ivan's music is so beautiful and enchanting that listening to it and talking about it is just a pleasure. I could talk about it for hours, for months, but I believe the good Debaser wouldn't quite agree.
And why is Graziani's music so fascinating?
The reasons can already be found in this first work, "La Città che Io Vorrei" (1973). Once the play button is pressed, one is catapulted into a magical world, at times fairy-tale-like, which includes common individuals but seen from another perspective. Like a modern bard, Graziani recounts stories and events of sui generis characters, sometimes confined to the margins of society, who come to life before our eyes through the use of a palette, composed with great finesse and taste, made up of colors, music, emotions, and words, shifting from melancholy to frivolity. And so here is Tom Sawyer with his jar of jam, the cripple of Campo della Fiera, the staggering drunk, the dreamy and dramatic Luisa… a cast of characters worthy of the best Grimm brothers' fairy tale. Everything seems so poetic, bucolic, it almost feels as if observing a delicate watercolor lost in everyday life, provincial life. The music often spills into wonderful arpeggios and enveloping sounds full of pathos that, on one hand, evoke the listener's emotions and, on the other, enhance the portrait of this world filled with fantasy and genius.
...and then Ivan's unmistakable high-pitched voice, sharp like Cupid's arrow, a distinctive feature of the Abruzzese singer-songwriter. Not to mention his right hand; if the pick had a child, it would name it Ivan.
Now, however, a small invective.
But I say... how can one relegate this Masterpiece, this Wunderkammer, to the category of "negligible episodes," "minor episodes," "immature episodes," etc… (many, alas, have done so), How?! But what have you done with your sensitivity and your ears? Cassœula?!
Here we are crossing the limits of blasphemy, I'm telling you...
Ivan Graziani, fortunately, is not just "Lugano Addio"! (though beautiful).
Listen to believe... but do it, okay!