Lucio Battisti
Don Giovanni

After the disastrous outcome of "E già" (1982), Battisti begins to collaborate seriously with the poet Pasquale Panella. Their collaboration won't last long, just eight years, but it will be intense and rewarding, precious and interesting. From this union, the first substantial offspring will be "Don Giovanni," perhaps the most overrated album of the entire Panella period. Battisti and Panella have a single purpose: to break with the past, establish the present, build the future. That is, to break away from the classic and canonical schemes of the Italian cultural tradition (at that time Albano triumphed at Sanremo with "Nostalgia canaglia"), to approach the American punk and dance atmospheres; to use classical and melodic musical instruments (guitars, pianos, violins) as little as possible. The task is arduous and will only materialize a few years later, precisely in 1990 with "La sposa occidentale" and then even better in 1992 with "Che cosa succederà alla ragazza".

For now, there is "Don Giovanni," an album of breaking away but not too much. The music is still quite classical (pianos dominate from the first to the last song), but the words are a shock: complex, hermetic, difficult, obscure, refined, archaic, many do not understand what Lucio is exactly singing. The same "Don Giovanni" is hermetic at the maximum level, very difficult to understand, decipherable (perhaps) only on the tenth listen. The atmosphere is vaguely retro but seasoned with that touch of arrogant modernity that will be the keystone of the collaboration between Battisti and Panella. Thus archaic sounds, but also extremely familiar sounds: often reserved melodies are contrasted with orchestral surges worthy of the best '70s Battisti (the long musical openings of "Le cose che pensano") while the melodies flow smoothly without heaviness or uncertainties. "Don Giovanni" is a beautiful piece, perhaps the best song of the entire 1980s. It starts very softly, almost without strength, but just two chords and a voice always clear and crystalline are enough to raise the tone and conclude beautifully with a very interesting overlap of voice a delicate and melancholic song. Don Giovanni is a wounded man, probably a former dandy: lonely and broke, tired and experienced, now suitable for any endeavor (as long as it is humiliating: "Rivesto quello che vuoi, io son l'attacapanni") he decides to detach from the world and earthly things after meeting, for the last time, a neighborhood whore ("Qui Don Giovanni ma tu, dimmi chi ti paga"). However, the piece is not all there: Panella inserts in the text some polemical hints (evidently suggested by Battisti) about Mogol's sometimes too melodic work: "Che ozio nella tournée, di mai più tornare, nell'intronata routine del cantar leggero, l'amore sul serio". In short, a purely invented "Don Giovanni" not devoid of almost purely referential authorial probes. Very incisive also "Madre pennuta" yet another allegorical variation on the theme of loss and vital distance. Great poetic surges, immense musical expanses: very few concessions to experimentalism, many concessions to classicism. But it is an extremely modern classicism, very different from that proposed, very weakly, in Italy by Albano and Ricchi e Poveri, it is an innovative musicality as it involves furious melodic hints mixed with furious mystical hints.

A vocal and musical deconstruction that unfortunately will not have successors: from "L'apparenza" (1988) to "Hegel" (1994) Battisti and Panella (first with the orchestra, then with electronic sounds) will cut and sew the music at will to delve into its soul and spirit. The task will be titanic, and only Battisti might succeed. "Don Giovanni" is nevertheless the first of these experiments, and thus it is the least successful. Many songs seem to travel on slightly predictable tracks ("Equivoci amici", "Il diluvio") and the finale veers towards cumbersome and pompous tones. No problem: just wait four years to listen to the real musical revolution (four years, believe me, is not much). "Don Giovanni" meanwhile, jumps to the first position in the hit parade. It'll stay there for a very short time, and it will be, for Battisti, the last time. Too bad: the white covers (a classic example of how minimalist music can also create bare but essential covers) would certainly have deserved more fortune and success. Perhaps, in the future, they will be re-evaluated and finally, loved.