Paolo Conte
Paris Milonga

THE REVIEW

When, on the Ariston stage, Roberto Benigni stepped up and began to hum "Via con me", many turned up their noses and mercilessly asserted that 'ogni ofelé el sò mesté' (every job requires its own skills). In reality, Benigni (not yet an Oscar winner) had interpreted this eclectic composition by Paolo Conte (soundtrack, let's remember, of "Tu mi turbi") brilliantly.

"Paris Milonga", Paolo Conte's masterpiece album, contained, among other things, this beautiful and famous track, "Via con me". From Paris to Milonga (a non-existent city, sweet music) a journey, just to change, amidst women and sounds as ancient as they are extremely modern. As in the previous "Paolo Conte", memory is the main theme of this album: this time, however, Conte makes neither errors nor smudges: an impressive series of tracks all oscillating between the epic and the extraordinary.

A very refined album, of high school and high class, a success with critics and, for once, also with the public (almost a million copies sold). "Via con me" is the emblem of a career, perhaps of a lifetime: a woman (a Goddess?) falls in love with a man (a mortal?) and with him makes an inexorable, destructive, perhaps redeemed journey towards hope and magnificence ("Via via vieni via con me, entra in questo amore buio, non perderti per niente al mondo..., via via non perderti per niente al mondo, lo spettacolo d'arte varia di uno innamorato di te") and concludes explicitly ("Via via entra e fatti un bagno caldo, c'è un accappatoio azzurro, fuori piove un mondo freddo"). The piano travels superbly on almost celestial notes and the basses deeply penetrate into dark and threatening musical zones. Between Paris and Milonga, funny characters are encountered, happy faces, sad faces. Places and locations of the soul, meetings, and often platonic or, most of the times, asexual loves. But there's also the gamble, the challenge. "Alle prese con la verde milonga" is a vertiginous track, perhaps the most risky experiment ever heard in Italy. Seven minutes of pure madness: Paolo Conte grafts, into the harmonious sounds of a 19th-century milonga, the rhythms and sounds of a modern jazz ballad. It doesn't matter that the lyrics are little more than nonsense ("E mi avrai verde milonga che sei stata scritta per me, per la mia sensibilità, per le mie scarpe lucidate"), it is the music that is the true soul, the true essence of a masterpiece too often labeled merely as a pompous and baroque musical experiment. And, once again, the piano seems to perform literally regal miracles.

There is also "Parigi", another beautiful track that Conte, as a seasoned master, distills slowly verse by verse, note by note, sensation by sensation. Romance turns into nostalgia, and the ending is as melancholy as it is genius ("Io e te, scaraventati dall'amore in una stanza, mentre tutto intorno è pioggia, pioggia, pioggia e Francia"). This time, in addition to the piano, the miracle is performed by the flute: exceptional.

The journey from Paris to Milonga has just begun or perhaps never even started. To quote Manzoni: to posterity the arduous sentence.