Mantovani and His Orchestra
Charmaine

To whoever would have told me, I would have spat in their eye. Me!

I who felt so strongly the revenge against society, I who identified with nothing that was offered to me, neither by the establishment nor by my peers! I would have stuck to my ideas, listening to my revolutionary music. Nobody would have tamed me.

I read, yes, that generations succeed in power, and even the young people I belonged to, who acted so cocky, would become capons like their fathers. And I was one of them. I couldn't believe it. How could it have happened? It has been noted that those born round cannot die square. The music I listened to was that of protest, music by voiceless singers, bands of musicians who could barely handle an instrument...

Mantovani? Orchestra music? How could it ever have happened that I would have listened to, out of all those banned, Mantovani, the most filthy, the most vulgar, the most laughable, the one who made music to which fifty-year-olds exchanged a kiss, mmm darling!, the only thing they could still exchange at their age? Oh, it took time, but I got there. Close the door and leave the kids outside because, if you want, I'll tell you how it went. It went that "Swedish Rhapsody" was the theme of grandma's radio news. These things leave a mark on you when the ten-year milestone seems so far away. Then you go to Scotland, and it's impossible to even take a pee in that country without entering the Middle Ages and listening to "Greensleeves" half a dozen times. You happen to see “The Wizard of Oz,” which means nothing to us Italians, but it’s a myth in the Anglo-Saxon countries, a film embedded right into the fabric of popular culture with so many proverbs that everyone understands, and "Over the Rainbow" is a memorable melody.

You go to the States, rent a metallic eggplant-colored Lincoln, drive through Death Valley and rest assured that "Charmaine" will be broadcast eventually. Then a hop to the Big Apple, if only to see the Metropolitan Museum, and inadvertently you saturate yourself with the sugary American goodism, of which "True Love" could be the anthem. Hideous, but... Think about it, they still believe in the homeland! You hear so much about the French chansonniers (Jacques Brel was Belgian but we assimilate him), and some of their tunes are served up in all sorts of renditions in EU countries—and rightly so. "Les Feuilles Mortes" is one of these, very much a 1940s black-and-white movie. To do something new, perhaps one year you buy a subscription to the Opera: you want to participate in your city's cultural life. So, show after show, you begin to understand the mechanism, to recognize who sings well and who doesn’t, and you see different stagings of the same opera, appreciating the differences. Here "Love is a Many Splendoured Thing" surprises you, with its intro and outro straight out of a Turandot. Wow!

“Moon River” is the soundtrack to fifteen hundred and twenty-three films and just as many TV commercials. Instead, "Begin the Beguine" you know because you were fascinated that day when they explained to you what swing was, and you understood it immediately. It was not an intuition but a revelation: you bought one Artie Shaw divine CD after another, and finding that track on this CD makes you dance, tails and top hat, in a ballroom, one of those from the auteur films you would religiously watch at the art-house cinema. An Indian and cowboy saga seen somewhere likely had a desolate finale to the notes of "Londonderry Air." "Summertime" has been recorded in this world and the next (I collected 215 versions when WinMX was free). And don't tell me you've never been offered a seat at a ballet because your sister-in-law had the flu: here’s "The Skater’s Waltz." And to finish, "Three Coins in the Fountain," i.e., “Fontana de’ Trevi,” and you still see the beautiful forms of Anita Ekberg, a bit silly and a bit of a stunning goddess, refreshing herself in that square that not even a Taliban could evacuate.

When you have experienced all this, dear Mr. Never I, every melody means something to you. This live performance is a Greatest Hits of the life you have lived or imagined (it makes little difference) over all these years. And, one Easter Sunday, still a bit dazed from the excesses of the night before, you put it in the player, because silence is too present and another kind of music would be just as intrusive. The trumpets with the mute, the pure spirals of Mantovani's strings—damn it, Mantovani, I’m embarrassed just to write the name—take by the hand the few neurons you have left, make them comfortable and delight them for an hour, as sweet as the memories they bring back. Where you have spilled a bit of your blood, you find it, because nothing is lost in the economy of the cosmos: nothing is created, and nothing is destroyed. You remember those fifty-year-olds kissing, he plump and she with freshly done peroxide blonde hair, permanent waves? Ting! A wave of a magic wand, fast forward a few dozen years, and YOU ARE HIM!

Look at yourself: in this universe where nothing is lost, that fifty-year-old has been dead for some years, and another was needed to replace him. Do you like this album? Enjoy, my child, for the party is about to come for you too. And do you know how much the experience you stubbornly drag around every (arduous) moment of your existence is worth? This CD, from “The Entertainers” series, live recordings snatched here and there, adds up to the nice sum of five euros give or take. Get a grip. Next time, think ahead: Ash Wednesday is celebrated 40 days before Easter.