Premiata Forneria Marconi

La carrozza di Hans / Impressioni di settembre

by Federico Romagnoli

Premiata Forneria Marconi – “La carrozza di Hans“/”Impressioni di settembre“

(1971 – 7" single, Numero Uno;

re-recorded versions included on the album “Storia di un minuto”, Numero Uno, 1972)

In October 1971 the record label Numero Uno released the debut single by Premiata Forneria Marconi, featuring “La carrozza di Hans” on side A and “Impressioni di settembre” on side B.

Both songs were re-recorded shortly after for inclusion on the band's first album, “Storia di un minuto”, released in January '72. The album versions, however, turn out to be markedly inferior to those on the 7-inch: “La carrozza di Hans” loses much of its electric verve, and “Impressioni di settembre” is weighed down by a choral coda entirely disconnected from the rest of the track, not to mention a mediocre mix on the vocal line, clogged with reverb and pierced by an annoying sibilant “s”.

The album-centric mindset of rock music fans – a tendency that is further amplified when talking about progressive rock – has nonetheless meant that these were the versions to remain emblematic, despite the fact that the general public of the time was more familiar with the 7-inch versions.

Unfortunately, in the gap between the single going out of print (its last pressings dating from May '72) and the arrival of streaming, the only way to hear the 7-inch versions – for anyone who hadn't bought it at the time – was by chance, catching them on the radio, at least until 1986, when they were finally included on the compilation “L’album di Pfm”, echoed in 1995 by “P.F.M. Story”. Neither of these two anthologies, however, achieved satisfactory sales, nor did they develop any collector's appeal over time, thus failing to restore the memory of the single's versions.

On the contrary, “Storia di un minuto” has become one of the most widely collected progressive rock albums in the world, with several reissues even on the Asian market. It never occurred to anyone to include the 7" single versions of the tracks as bonus tracks on those reissues (or rather, almost no one: in 2014 a Japanese reissue did include them, but it remained an isolated case, and one that came decidedly too late).

There's plenty of documentation online, largely drawn from interviews, about how the band came to record the two tracks, but it can be summed up as the growing credibility the various members had earned as session musicians, following the commercial failure of their previous project, Quelli.

While working on albums such as “La buona novella” by Fabrizio De André and “Amore e non amore” by Lucio Battisti, veteran producer Alessandro Colombini convinced them to move to Numero Uno, a label he had just founded together with the Mogol–Battisti duo, after a series of disputes with Ricordi.

Franco Mussida, guitarist and singer, has said that he composed “La carrozza di Hans” in his head, while driving the van back from a concert.

The track is a kaleidoscope of remarkable complexity, all sudden bursts and slowdowns, a frantic hybrid of hard rock, folk, classical music and jazz fusion that alternates the classic 4/4 time (albeit with highly irregular accents, as in the introduction) with sections in 6/8 (starting at 0'45'' and again at 3'14'') and in 3/4 (from 1'33''), not to mention occasional free-time breaks, atmospheric bridges where any rhythmic reference point disappears, and a central riff (if it can even be called that, since it appears only a couple of times) that resembles an aksak, that is, built from the juxtaposition of independent rhythmic-melodic cells.

What's striking, in such a fractured structure, is the near-total absence of odd time signatures (save for a couple of brief passages, which are not repeated). In essence, a track emblematic of progressive rock manages to avoid one of the genre's most stereotypical traits, even though on the surface it seems to embrace it (amid that maze of shifting tempos, an untrained ear would easily bet on the presence of a compound time signature).

When it was transposed onto the album, as mentioned, the electric component was reduced to a brief introduction and the grand finale, leaving the middle section entirely given over to drowsy pastoral atmospheres that partly lose the sense of adventure of the original.

On the B-side, “Impressioni di settembre”, the best-known song by the Italian prog. Its structure is much simpler: two sung verses, two instrumental choruses dominated by the sound of the Moog, and a brief final variation.

The lyrics were written by Mogol, who tried to stay as close as possible to the atmospheres evoked by the original draft, penned by Mauro Pagani, the band's flautist and violinist. But even more than the lyrics - with their simple yet effective metaphors blending inner searching with fog-shrouded landscapes - it's the Moog that made the track iconic.

The band managed, through a stroke of luck, to rent the legendary keyboard from the Monzino company, after meeting its owner at a musical instruments exhibition: it was the only unit available in Italy at the time. The idea of using it came from the drummer, Franz Di Cioccio, who fell in love with it after hearing “Lucky Man” by Emerson Lake & Palmer.

Flavio Premoli, the keyboardist, played the famous riff that way after learning to handle that groundbreaking electronic marvel, adapting a composition Mussida had originally written on guitar.

The LP, “Storia di un minuto”, would nonetheless make up for the partial disappointment of the reworked versions of the two already-known tracks, thanks to five excellent unreleased songs (particularly “È festa”), setting the stage for what would become the band's masterpiece, “Per un amico”, released in November of that same '72 and now ranked among the best prog albums of all time, both by niche outlets like Progarchives and mainstream publications like Rolling Stone.

From then on, throughout the Seventies and into a brief stretch of the Eighties, Premiata Forneria Marconi would be the most important band in Italian rock alongside Le Orme, before a series of tectonic shifts in the dynamics of the music market pushed them into the background.

Guarda, cerca, corri lontano, vola

Hans il mercante aspetta lontano, vola

Piccolo uomo, signore del mondo, vai

La carrozza attende già, non ti fermare

A cassetta sali e va, non ti voltare

Strade e strade correrai, senza contare

Cieli e cieli finirai, tu sai volare

Suona un corno da cocchiere

Lustra l’abito da re

È la carrozza di Hans

***

How many drops of dew around me

I look for the sun, but it's not there

The countryside still sleeps, or maybe not

It's awake, watching me, I don't know

Already the smell of earth, smell of wheat

Rises slowly towards me

And life in my chest beats softly

I breathe the mist, I think of you

So much green all around and further still

The grass looks almost like a sea

And light, my thought flies and goes

I'm almost afraid it will get lost

A horse stretches its neck towards the meadow

Stays still like me

I take a step, he sees me, he's already fled

I breathe the mist, I think of you

No, what am I? Now I don't know

I'm a man, a man in search of himself

No, what am I? Now I don't know

I'm alone, just the sound of my step

But meanwhile the sun already filters through the fog

The day will be as it always is

Ride the wave of great music

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12/04/2026

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Federico Romagnoli, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition

Premiata Forneria Marconi on OndaRock

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Discography

7-inch single
Release: October 1971

Side A: La carrozza di Hans
Composer: Franco Mussida
Lyricist: Mauro Pagani
Duration: 5'40''

Side B: Impressioni di settembre
Composer: Franco Mussida
Lyricists: Mauro Pagani and Mogol
Duration: 4'20''

Production: Premiata Forneria Marconi

Line-up:
Franco Mussida - vocals (side A and B), guitars
Mauro Pagani - vocals (side A), violin, flute
Franz Di Cioccio - vocals (side B), drums
Giorgio Piazza - bass
Flavio Premoli - keyboards

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