Pooh
Parsifal

Splendid. Monumental. Minimalist. Epic. As moving as few works can be. Suggestive, evocative, and lyrical in the most "simple" moments as well as in the most "demanding" ones. Pure in its beauty, already timeless.

"Parsifal", the fourth work after "Opera Prima", "Alessandra", "Un po' del nostro tempo migliore", presents the band with a revised lineup: no Valerio Negrini on drums (replaced by Stefano D'Orazio), no Riccardo Fogli in the group, where he had a sort of "leadership" (in reality, everyone is a "frontman" due to their alternation in singing and harmonies, modeled after some post-Beatles British rock). Honestly (for the writer), it's difficult to separate the level of feeling from a more "rational" examination of the record in question. Certainly, it is an extremely inspired work, so far the most (musically) challenging and ambitious project of the group of Dodi Battaglia, Red Canzian, Roby Facchinetti, Stefano D'Orazio.

Difficult because it sounds like a challenge, a confrontation with the current of "progressive" rock (the world leaders are Genesis), a genre that in its name already includes the idea of "opening horizons," of "looking beyond," of "change" towards more "advanced" creative forms, etc.; ambitious because from the commitment and perfectionistic care that shines through the entire work one can infer that the perceivable lyrical tension is also partly the result of the hope of succeeding in such a union. I'll say it right away: it's not important (in my opinion) to determine whether this experimental attempt at "internationalization" in a stylistic and commercial sense and "innovation" in an artistic and compositional sense has been more or less successful. Because (again in my opinion) beyond the strongly innovative character of this album compared to the previous ones, there is something more important, not entirely translatable into words.

The two singles that serve as the album's forerunners are already two songs of extraordinary level, (and this does not always happen, since the 45-rpm record is more aligned with the idea and practice of the "launch" that takes place through a studied choice of what is more "simple" and "direct" without neglecting quality). "Io e Te per Altri Giorni", the first of the two singles, is an orchestral song, rhythmic according to a narrative cadence, (i.e., as if the rhythmic section highlighted the various passages of the story told and the emotions experienced by the narrator) alternating two similar moments, more "sustained" and fast (almost like an instrumental "fugue") that enclose a more reflective and suspended one: "you destroy a man who believes only in himself, I accept all this, one does not live again". Suffering, in its own way risqué, and realistic, this song, with its articulated and complex arrangement and orchestral openings, already sounds like an epochal piece. "Infiniti Noi", the second track drawn from this album, is instead a song (with a capital C) where breadth and slowness dominate: very sweet melodies, a little melancholic, a little dreamy, a little illuminated by a sense of hope, devoid of percussion, with an orchestra of 50 elements, it's "only" a beautiful love song, almost an anthem, almost the musical setting of a "letter to an infinite beloved", almost a tender consoling lullaby. Romantic and very sweet, ("scream if love screams loudly, cry when you are put aside") it seems played and thought specially to let pure emotions flow without further comment. In the album, it's placed almost at the end. It follows "Dialoghi", almost an interlude before the theatrical finale.

The conclusion and the theoretical climax are entrusted to the very long progressive suite that gives the title to the (concept) album, "Parsifal". A more erudite term than Percival, although more known, it is the narrative by frames of the Legend of the Holy Grail, of "Celtic" origin (and ancient). The narrative time is marked by the piano chords, on which the words of vocalists alternate, while the dramatic time of the story dilates to tend towards an ideal infinity (eternal, i.e., timeless) which is roughly the implicit meaning in the very idea of progressive (progression towards overcoming the horizon, beyond the boundary of the circle, towards an infinite space and time and therefore towards the dimension of timeless classicism). The slowness and ascending character of the harmonic structure marks the various transitions from one scene to another making this piece an opera within the opera: the knight in search of the Holy Grail, symbolically interpretable as the quest for the Absolute and Immortality, decides, when encountering a more "true" and "close" aspect of life, (the beloved woman, and what she represents), decides to abandon his mission and donate himself to life and his beloved ("your arms to the sun and dew you have now given away, sacred you will not become") and for that reason, he will also remain "unblemished".

As everything would seem, it is the perfect epic conclusion and at the same time romantic of a narrative entirely centered on the concept of love placed in opposition to the sacred and the absolute, like the two surfaces of Earth and Sky that ultimately meet. So it is according to the album's scheme, but not according to the emotional crescendo. Because the true, absolute lyrical, epic, and romantic summit is reached right there where the listener would least expect it, right with the piece placed at the opening of the opera:

"L’anno, il Posto, l’Ora…” is truly something that goes beyond any possible consideration, even beyond the words that one might try to find to describe the emotion, pure and overwhelming, that it evokes. It is a song, with a sweet piano and delicate acoustic guitar arpeggios at the beginning, and yet, as if it were involuntarily wrapped in a symphonic grandeur, as if those notes were extraordinarily in harmony with the listener's soul, and the music just a thin veil allowing such beauty to show through. The song is divided into two parts, the first more dreamy, arcane, almost oneiric, metaphorically depicts the encounter with an impossible love, and the lyrical vertigo is its perfect transcription, even in the harmonic scores (“the year seventy-three, the place the Arctic sky, the time what does it matter, in summer it's always dawn, the daily encounter with immensity I think ends here”) the verses, extraordinary, blend into the music like a stream carving its valley in the earth and shaping its geography; the gradual crescendo of increasingly daring images is felt in the sense of anticipation and suspension flowing beneath the sounds: "sounds of wind and water that I would like to stop... but there is no time anymore", up to the summit, the chorale of such a climb through images, which without further distinction between words and music, creates an indescribable effect "and don't tell her: you will not see him again, say: it is not known, maybe he will return", it really feels like hearing the scream of a lashing wind. A song, seemingly simple, a grand anthem and parabolic tale of love touched, of beauty caught in the slit of an instant and fixed in the eternal mind of the lived experience. I do not know, returning to my initial personal consideration, how important it is for this album to succeed more or less in the ambitious goal it sets. Perhaps, however, a partial "certainty" can be grasped between the lines of the second part of the memorable song that opens it, and that tells of everyday life in a real world: the interruption brings the inner gaze back to the images dense with absolute from the initial journey: "on the horizon there, the sun is an immobile eye, it is night but the night here in summer is only a word" up to the conclusion, before the poignant and lashing chorus like the icy air sweeping the eternal ice "entranced and tired, my soul heads toward freedom".