Marisa Terzi - Songs of Melancholy

After fifty years of silence, Marisa Terzi has decided to give the world her lost songs. Tracks written back in the Seventies and jealously kept in her drawer before her encounter with Jacopo Leone and the Frittflacc label. Terzi is among the greatest hidden songwriters and poets in the history of our country; before "abandoning" music to devote herself solely to poetry and fiction, she was a true beacon of Italian song. In 1963 she took part in the Burlamacco d'oro with the track "Federico", one of the first Italian songs arranged in bossa nova style, included in her first and only album "In memory of an unforgettable evening", which also featured a few covers of foreign songs with Italian lyrics written by her, alongside three songs destined to become classics of Italian pop music: "E se domani", "Mi sono innamorata di te" and "Roma nun fa' la stupida stasera". Countless songs were presented at the Sanremo Festival and given to artists of the caliber of Orietta Berti, Peppino Gagliardi, Armando Savini, as well as songs written by Terzi and performed over the years by the likes of Renzo Arbore, Mina, Joe Sentieri, Salvatore Vinciguerra, Tony Dallara, Nilla Pizzi, Luciano Tajoli, Iva Zanicchi, Bruno Martino, Fred Bongusto, Peppino Gagliardi, Rosanna Fratello, Piero, Gilbert Becaud. But it is above all the great and tormented love affair with the celebrated composer and record producer Carlo Alberto Rossi, who later became her husband, that deeply marked her life and her writing. We reached her for an exclusive interview, in which she recounts herself with the timeless elegance that has always set her apart, amid triumphs never fully celebrated, sad farewells, sudden escapes to the Brera family's home, rediscovered passions, and an unconditional love for jazz music and, last but not least, poetry, the supreme vehicle of her infinite melancholy.

Inside the record's splendid box set, at the foot of the painting "Cerere" by Giovanni La Cognata, there is a poem: "Melancholy caught my eyes by surprise, sad thoughts, bitterness, hopes, illusions". Listening to the songs on the record, that same melancholy acts as the work's lifeblood. What is your relationship with melancholy?

It's a subtle streak in my character that never leaves me; on the contrary, it makes me feel less alone. My relationship with melancholy, which by temperament tends toward sadness, is captured in a short poem I never wished to write: "I told you enough when I had to invent the best of you myself. And it caught me by surprise as my eyes grew misty, so much that they could no longer see you".

A dream twenty years in the making, a full three years to bring it to life: how did this record come about, and why?

The record came about by chance, while Jacopo was waiting for me and I was waiting for him. I was 50 and a bit, and Jacopo was in Milan finishing his degree in Architecture, while I was about to separate from Alberto, whom I had married on May 6th, 1977 in Milan, in Don Paolo Liggeri's chapel — though for luck I would have preferred the 7th, and indeed, after thirty-nine years together, I finally agreed to a consensual separation. Carlo Alberto was a widower with two grown children, and it took sixteen years to reach the divorce he wanted. In the meantime I looked for a room to rent, and luckily found lodging with a friend of mine, the wife of the famous sports journalist Gianni Brera. A few months later, Gianni died in a car accident. The Brera children lived not far away; Rina was left alone, so I stayed with her for a couple of years. Later I rented an apartment for a few more years, but by then many of my dear friends had already died, and my mother died too, in Chiavari, where she and my father used to spend two winter months every year. Two years later my mother's brother died, a doctor who practiced in Berceto; a year after that it was my father's turn, and I found myself alone in Milan. So I decided to go back to Berceto, where I was born. I didn't drive, so I bought a small apartment in the heart of the town, which I furnished with great care, since it was all I had left, and luckily I've always been very much a homebody. One evening Jacopo heard me singing and remembered the words of a song called "La vacanza è finita"; he got in touch with me right away, but I took more than a month to answer him. Jacopo lived in Catania, but when I finally decided to call him, I rang his mobile and he answered from Paris, where he lived for a few months each year. I introduced myself, saying: "This is Marisa Terzi, the lady who sings the songs of Malinconia." There was a long silence, then we arranged to meet in Berceto. It was autumn, but not yet cold. I lit the fireplace, and luckily Jacopo had a cotton jacket, though he still ended up catching a bad cold. Berceto is a small town near the Passo della Cisa, about twelve kilometers away. During dinner — cappelletti in broth Bolognese-style, boiled meats with various sauces — I realized I'd basically made a Christmas dinner, and the heat was stifling, so without a word I went and opened every window in the house. By two in the morning we were still at the table: I got up in a hurry, called the lift, and walked Jacopo to the Room and Breakfast just a few steps from my house. The next morning I went to the hotel; at 10 he was having breakfast, and I waited for him so I could show him our Duomo, then a taxi took him to Milan. I waited a long time before answering the wonderful letter he had written me. I was unsure whether to take on such an unusual adventure at my age, after fifty years without singing. I've always been shy, so I decided to just make the record.

You've lived through five decades of Italian music, stepping away from the scene at a certain point in your life. Your husband, Carlo Alberto Rossi, was one of the most important Italian composers, publishers and record producers, as well as the arranger of many of your songs. Why did you decide to give it all up and devote yourself only to words and writing? What was your artistic relationship with your husband like?

Alberto had three state-of-the-art recording studios. Many people came from abroad, and I wrote a lot of song lyrics for both Italian and foreign artists. There were no singer-songwriters yet, and I was among the first female songwriters of that time. The recording studio was my ideal habitat, just like the kitchen — I've always had a passion for cooking, being a proper Parma girl and the daughter of a Bolognese woman. My husband was a composer, publisher and record producer, but not an arranger. I left the scene so as not to enter into artistic competition with him: being a true Romagnolo, he was very possessive of his music, but I was just as much so, so I decided to pay and record in other studios I knew, both in Milan and in other cities, and everything seemed to work out — but it didn't: the consensual separation came, and sixteen years later, so did the divorce.

Tell us about your musical beginnings...

In 1963 I took part in the Burlamacco d'oro, a carnival event in Viareggio, where I sang "Federico", one of the first Italian songs arranged as bossa nova, by Renato Sellani and his trio; and since I chose the songs myself, I also sang "E se domani", "Mi sono innamorata di te" and "Roma non fa' la stupida stasera", three pillars of Italian singer-songwriter music. That was my only LP, and it was even released abroad: "In memory of an unforgettable evening".

Many of your songs were presented at the Sanremo Festival over various editions — what memories do you have of that period?

Yes, several of my songs went to Sanremo: "Se tu non fossi qui" in 1966, performed by Peppino Gagliardi and Pat Boone, and later also sung by Mina. "Quando vedrò" in 1967, sung by Los Marcellos Ferial and The Happenings. "Tu che non sorridi mai" in 1968, performed by Pier Giorgio Farina and Orietta Berti. "Che vale per me" in 1969, performed by Eartha Kitt and Gagliardi. "Non c'è che lei" in 1970, performed by Sonia and Armando Savini, then by Tom Jones on the album "This is Tom Jones", taking it around the world — and yet not a lira ever reached us composers. We could have sued, but our own satisfaction was already more than enough. I experienced the Festival from behind the scenes, with acceptance and goodwill toward my husband.

Other songs you wrote were performed by Joe Sentieri, Rossano, Salvatore Vinciguerra, Tony Dallara, Nilla Pizzi, Luciano Tajoli, Iva Zanicchi, Bruno Martino, Fred Bongusto, Rosanna Fratello, Piero, Gilbert Bécaud, Renzo Arbore and Mina — the latter recording, in 1985, a song for which you wrote both the lyrics and the music: "You Are My Love". Could you tell us an anecdote or two about these various collaborations? Among them, which musician do you feel most artistically close to? What do you think of Mina and this third youth of hers alongside Celentano, or as the face of brands like Tim?

The musician I know best of all is Victor Bacchetta, to whom I feel very close, since he made all the first demos of the songs I wrote — I consider him almost my mentor. One anecdote concerns "You Are My Love": we arrived in Paris by train from Milan at dinnertime, and the trip was relaxing, but I was forced to keep my leg stretched out on the empty seat in front of me, because the day before, while doing exercise, my exercise bike had fallen on my left knee and torn my meniscus, and I had no time for a check-up, let alone an MRI. I just kept an eye on the bruise as it quickly grew bigger, but carried on as if nothing had happened. We absolutely had to get to Paris from Berceto (where the hotel and recording studio were already booked), and the chance to record a CD in Paris after 50 years still felt like a dream to me. Once we got to the hotel, we went straight out to dinner. We were in the Latin Quarter, where the restaurants sit one right next to the other, and we went into the one closest to the hotel. I lingered over the menu, and while the waiter waited for our order, I stood there enjoying the soft background music, and as I looked around, I noticed a little player on the floor with a stack of CDs — and while the waiter kept waiting for the order, I made him wait the full 3 minutes of my song "You Are My Love", which wasn't sung by Mina but by Augusta, an artist I didn't know, who performed it in perfect English. I asked the owner to show me the cover of that record: it was a double CD entirely in English, and my song was the first track on side A, recorded in Saint-Tropez. I was trembling all over with emotion, thinking of what I would have missed had we walked in ten minutes later. It was one thrill after another, and I thought I would faint. I love every single track Mina and Celentano sang together, and I never tire of listening to them. As for Mina's third youth, I wouldn't know what to say: I'm only a year older than her, and having been kissed by fate myself, I can't have regrets. Perhaps just one: alone for thirty years and without a child, I would have liked to remarry.

"Amore, amore mio" is, in my view, a timeless gem, a song that captures in its words and structure the purest, most moving nature of Italian song. How did this song come about?

"Amore amore mio" was the first song I wrote for Carlo Alberto, marking, emotionally, my first great love, while "Avevo vent'anni" was the last love song, again for Carlo Alberto, which sadly marked the definitive end of our love.

From your musical experience you later moved into poetry, proving with your very first collections ("Profilo di donna", "Autografo", "Lasciatemi pensare" and "E la sigaretta brucia...") that you possessed genuine artistic worth, something critics have repeatedly acknowledged, earning you the Premio Lerici-Pea in 1984, before moving on to fiction with "La cugina". What is your relationship with writing and poetry in general?

I feel I've always drawn the lyrics of my songs less from extravagant or fantastical situations than from my own lived, concrete human experience, adapting the language of my lyrics to the musical language of the notes. But then I realize that, in order to free myself from that particular language subordinate to music, I find myself reaching for the more ambitious step into poetry and storytelling.

Accompanying you on the record are first-rate musicians, such as José Luis and Victor Herrero, Cheneaux, Neilson, and Gravner: an arrangement with a jazzy stamp, both composed and vibrant. How did you find these musicians?

The four musicians who accompany me on the record were discovered by the Catania-born genius Jacopo Leone: a master of the brush and of every kind of outstanding art.

What does Marisa Terzi listen to today? Does she follow the new generation of singer-songwriters? What advice would she give to a young singer-songwriter?

Marisa Terzi has stayed loyal to Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughan, Diana Krall, Gilbert Becaud, and I could go on forever. To a young singer-songwriter I'd suggest studying only what she likes or feels she can sing well. But for me it's a matter of moods that suddenly appear and inevitably drag me into writing, and the same thing happened to George Simenon, who was capable of writing a book in a single month. It happened to me with "La cugina".

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