Roberto Vecchioni
L'infinito

LA RECENSIONE

"Not twelve songs, but one long song divided into twelve moments." This is how Roberto Vecchioni describes his new album "L'infinito," released on November 9, 2018, a tribute to the last Leopardi and to life. Five years after "Io non appartengo più" the Professor returns with an album available only on CD and vinyl and not on digital platforms, as an attempt of "cultural resistance." And indeed, the album sounds homogeneous from start to finish. It begins with "Una notte, un viaggiatore," a nod to Calvino where spoken and sung parts alternate, followed by "Formidabili quegli anni," a title borrowed from Mario Capanna, where Vecchioni recalls his '68. The third song is also the first single released: "Ti insegnerò a volare (Alex)" dedicated to Alex Zanardi and for which Vecchioni managed to coax even Francesco Guccini, who in 2012 had announced his retirement! Then there is "Giulio," dedicated to Regeni, in which Vecchioni imagines him first as a child, then a teenager, and finally an adult, and the title track, also featuring spoken parts, quoting two letters written by Leopardi to his father Monaldo. The introduction of this track is perhaps the best on the album, for an infinity found within us, on this side of the hedge... There's also "Vai, ragazzo," somewhat the "Sogna, ragazzo sogna" of our days. The second part of the album centers around love songs: "Ogni canzone d'amore" is defined as "a madrigal," while in "Com'è lunga la notte" there's the second guest of the album, Morgan alias Marco Castoldi. Another love song is "Ma tu," slightly melancholic, while the next, "Cappuccio Rosso," returns to dedications to people like with Alex and Giulio. The dedicatee is Ayse Deniz, a Kurdish girl who died fighting ISIS. The penultimate song is "Canzone del perdono," dedicated to Padre Francesco, even though he's never mentioned, and the closing track is "Parola," an elegy on the death of the word. Vecchioni notes that nowadays young people know six hundred words, whereas ten years ago it was four thousand.
The album is produced by Lucio Fabbri, who also plays multiple instruments, with Massimo Germini and Roberto Gualdi, the latter on percussion, which is really used very sparingly in an almost entirely acoustic album.