Saverio Simonelli

Author: Saverio Simonelli

Title: La musica è altrove. Cielo e terra nelle canzoni di Angelo Branduardi

Publisher: Ancora

Pages: 176

Price: 16 euros

“I've always considered music to be something that isn't found here and now, but happens somehow elsewhere, it happens somewhere else.” There could be no more fitting opening than this preface, written personally by Angelo Branduardi for the book Saverio Simonelli has devoted to the musician from Cuggiono.

“La musica è altrove” is also the title of the book, which sets out to analyze the singer-songwriter's poetic symbolism.

The first part of the book retraces Branduardi's personal and artistic journey, a sort of flowing biography, almost a book within the book, which alongside episodes already well known to most, recalls lesser-known moments, such as when, at just eighteen, he was arrested in Prague during the unrest of '68. Our man is already an attentive reader, with a clearly defined taste for poetry. The book covers his musical studies and the very early 1970s, when Angelo worked as a session musician, even taking part in the recording sessions for Fabrizio De André's “La buona novella”.

1974 brought his solo debut, in which the future troubadour of Italian song still shows himself to be somewhat unripe, lost in prog improvisations, with music critics tending to snub him. These are difficult times for Italian singer-songwriters: there aren't many venues to play, and on top of that, political unrest looms large. Branduardi is chosen to open a Lou Reed concert at the Palasport in Rome, but ends up performing under a hail of steel marbles and jeers from the stands.

He then begins collaborating on songwriting with his wife, Luisa Zappa, and from 1976 onward come the works that will bring him to widespread attention: “Alla fiera dell'est” (1976), “La pulce d'acqua” (1977), and the lighter “Cogli la prima mela” (1979) will become bestsellers, not only in Italy. A towering success achieved through refined means (learned references, the use of ethnic instruments); popular magazines shower him with praise, the top-rated TV shows host him again and again, tours in Italy and abroad follow one after another without pause, and the triple (!) live album “Concerto” stands as a fitting portrait of this period.

Starting with “Branduardi '81”, he embarks on a more minimalist path, which reaches its peak in 1986 with the wonderful tribute to Yeats, an album in which the lush, erudite yet earthy imagination of the great Irish poet marries a clear, modest musicality, extremely discreet in lending a hand to the poetry, confident that the poetry could easily stand on its own, but that with the support of two guitars and carefully weighed percussion and horn parts it can reach places and people it would hardly have reached on its own. “Branduardi canta Yeats” will be met with enthusiasm by critics, and will also achieve very good commercial results.

What follows are projects that will no longer be in the media spotlight, but will consistently maintain an excellent level of quality. Any textual analysis cannot avoid considering some of his most famous compositions, such as “Alla fiera dell'est”, a nursery rhyme that doesn't directly teach or explain anything, but encloses an infinite world that any listener can inhabit and begin to explore however they please.

In the second part of the book, the author writes about Romantic poets, symbolic animals, dreamscapes, saints and shamans, seas, faraway places, herons and vanishing islands, in order to enter the world and the era that Branduardi sets out to represent. A culturally rich and varied universe, marked by breadth of vision, a plurality of references, and the construction of a world of symbols rich in nuance, in which characters and stories point to deeper meanings even when they appear light and playful. A welcoming, engaging universe, in which the listener always has the impression that beneath the surface of music and lyrics there is something more to discover and much to share. A world that neither teaches nor explains, but offers itself to listening as an experience.

Thanks to Simonelli's work, we end up pleasantly losing ourselves among mice, clouds, forests, and unknown seas; we meet children building sandcastles, wizards and butterflies, circus performers and night-owl poets, hunters and bar patrons, cherry trees bending their branches, apples still to be picked, and hares that end up on the moon: a gallery of symbolic figures and universal characters who play themselves while stirring deep associations in us, evoking feelings that, at least once in our lives, we have all felt.

The volume closes with a concise biography and an essential discography of the Lombard musician.

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02/11/2025