Patty Pravo

“Oggi”, the historic Italian weekly magazine, interviews a sound engineer from the record label Rca: “A few weeks ago, while recording ‘Concerto per Patty’, she burst into tears. What's wrong, Patty: what's the matter?”, we asked her. “I don't like this song”, she said. “But it's beautiful. Yes, it's beautiful. But it's too sad…”.

There, in these few lines, lies the essence of one of the most revolutionary compositions ever delivered to the history of Italian music, beautiful precisely because it's sad, melodious, superbly arranged and already classic progressive. Battisti hadn't gone that far yet, nor had New Trolls. What's certain is that “Concerto per Patty” will go down in the history of Italian pop as a one-of-a-kind experiment, which is no small feat… A 12-minute experiment, taking up an entire side of the good old vinyl.

She was already famous and adored, or maybe not - it hardly matters in 1969, the year this work came out: what remains immortal is this 12-minute orchestral feat, truly unthinkable at the time for frilly Italian pop and beyond, plus a second side featuring gems like “Il Paradiso” (Mogol–Battisti), “Un’ora fa” and “Tripoli 69”, penned by Paolo Conte, plus further covers of hugely famous songs, from the Beatles to the Bee Gees, to Vangelis's Aphrodite's Child.

Nicoletta Strambelli, known as Patty Pravo, had been "Prava" ("bad girl") since birth. Born into the Venetian upper-middle class, she grew up in a cultured, stimulating environment, devoting herself to the study of piano and classical dance. By 1969 she had already shaken up Christian Democrat Italy with her look and her beat songs, poised between melancholy, joy and transgression, aimed at a generation dissatisfied with the frivolity of Rita Pavone and eager for torments to identify with — and to wallow in a little, for pure self-indulgence, why not! — but also eager for change, and hungry to act and to fight.

Her performances at Piper club in Rome (in 1968 Pink Floyd — in their Barrett era — also played on that same stage) are now part of Italian cultural history, as indelible as Mina's appearances on Studio Uno.

"Concerto per Patty" is her second album and, although still little known and underrated today, it's one of the works that will make her immortal.

With the help of her mentor and guide, the lawyer Crocetta, the true padre-padrone of Piper, who had discovered her dancing by chance in his club as an ante-litteram go-go dancer, Patty recorded for the legendary Rca, which in the early '70s would also be the label of artists comparable to her in class and transgression, namely David Bowie and Lou Reed. The record was thus produced — in the financial rather than the musical sense — by Crocetta (the executive producer was Lilli Greco, a classically trained musician who graduated in piano from Rome's Santa Cecilia conservatory), and it's bold, revolutionary for the Italian pop landscape.

Side one is a single 12-minute composition featuring a 90-piece orchestra: "Concerto per Patty", with lyrics by Gianni Meccia and music by Bruno Zambrini, superbly orchestrated and arranged by maestro Franco Pisano. No better title could have been found for the former conservatory student... This A-side actually shocked the lawyer Crocetta, who certainly didn't want to turn Patty into a tragic, existentialist heroine, but rather into a more reassuring and marketable made-in-Italy singer — and indeed, this work marked the end of their partnership.

Looking closely, signs of a certain ennui — a constant element throughout her entire recording career — were already visible on her beautiful 1968 debut album, simply titled "Patty Pravo". Among the young Venetian's readings, Rimbaud was certainly not missing.

Patty and her "À la recherche du temps perdu"

"What I'd give to remember things from the past... what I'd give to erase things from the past": so begins and so ends "Concerto per Patty", her coming-of-age novel, suspended between the memories and bitterness of a love that's gone and never found again. The story unfolds around three central movements: the hours of the past, the air of a country, my thought becomes you.

A harp intro opens up the memories, with the orchestra unfurling a wonderful melody that is then picked up and expanded, before giving way to the violin — the saddest instrument of all — which introduces the second theme: the air of a country. Franco Pisano does truly outstanding work here with the orchestra he conducts, never overdoing it: the music hovers lightly, following the story's shifting moods with skill and sharp insight.

In the third movement the 90-piece orchestra falls silent, with the final solo entrusted to a cello and a guitar, accompanied by a Hammond organ, opening the mind to memories gone by (Patty comes in: "Yes, suddenly my thought becomes you, because you're the subject born from my heart..."). The overall effect is one of openly exposed romanticism, without false modesty, with nothing mawkish or trite about it: therein lies its strength.

The structure of the story is circular, with a flow of overlapping events; the desire to recover the past turns, in the brutal finale, into the desire to erase it once and for all. The longed-for peace is only achieved by erasing the failed love.

Side two seems to follow more traditional lines, but there are surprises here too. The choice of songs is perfect (the record manages the feat of having no filler), the idea being to create a kind of concept album linking all the tracks with a single, eternal theme: romantic love that torments and destroys.

It opens with a track written by Mogol-Battisti: "Il Paradiso". The tone lightens, the breezy melody with its faint beat flavour would become one of Pravo's signature songs, reminding us that "Paradise" is always right in front of our eyes: you just have to open them wide to see it and grasp it. We keep sailing through these dreamy, ethereal worlds with "Sola in capo al mondo", an abrupt return to the loneliness of "Concerto per Patty" — a truly pessimistic song, a cover of Aphrodite's Child's "End Of The World", with the harp playing with "electronic" effects to create those sidereal spaces so dear to Vangelis.

The next track, "Un giorno come un altro", is another gem written by the Gibb brothers, aka the Bee Gees, and is magnificently sung by a deeply moved, absorbed Patty; here too, time destroying feelings ("...and you'll understand that time passes and goes, someone else will come along for you") is the recurring theme, the thin thread linking all the songs on the album. Friendship comes to the rescue, a feeling that seems to escape this "curse", with a Beatles-esque cover of "With A Little Help From My Friends", which Patty performs on piano without singing, with the backing vocals acting as counterpoint to her precise, crisp pianism.

"Tripoli '69", also released as a single, with lyrics by Vito Pallavicini and music by Paolo Conte, sees Patty tackling a boldly anti-feminist lyric, at a historical moment that was instead moving along quite different tracks of gains for women. In a vaguely exotic atmosphere, with a martial, march-like rhythm, a well laid-out horn section and trombones underpinning the melody, Patty embodies the fighting woman, a modern Penelope, faithful to her role, waiting for the return of her Ulysses, off conquering other loves ("...and when a man goes off to live it up, women are just tears, but if he comes back wounded he knows he'll find me here") — perhaps it's the same unlooked-for man from "Concerto per Patty". The ending is a real showstopper: "But outside it's winter/ the fog is fog/ in this room/ warmth returns/ warmth, warmth/ warmth/ at home, me and him/ and he never noticed how much I cried/ Tripoli".

The album closes with the famous "Un'ora fa", written by the great Franco Intra and performed by the band backing Patty: The Cyan Three.

"Concerto per Patty" stands as a story apart within the Venetian artist's discography. It's her "Tapestry", a concept album tied - like Carole King's masterpiece - to the eternal themes of time's inexorable passing and the loves that fade away with it into nothing.

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21/06/2009