Angelo Branduardi | |
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 Branduardi in 2008 | |
| Born | 12 February 1950 (age 74) |
| Years active | 1974–present |
Angelo Branduardi (born 12 February 1950) is an Italian folk/folk rock singer-songwriter and composer who scored relative success in Italy and European countries such as France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Greece.
Branduardi was born in Cuggiono, a small town in the province of Milan, but early moved with the family to Genoa. He was educated as a classical violinist in the Genoa music conservatory, Niccolò Paganini. At the age of 18, he composed the music for the Confessioni di un malandrino (Hooligan's Confession) by Sergei Yesenin.
He is married to Luisa Zappa, who wrote the lyrics for many of his songs. They have two daughters, Sarah and Maddalena, both musicians.
Branduardi's first album was never released, and resulted from a co-operation with Maurizio Fabrizio, composer and gifted performer. The first released album, Angelo Branduardi '74 was arranged with Paul Buckmaster.
La Luna ("The Moon"), including "Hooligan's Confession" (translation of a poem by Esenin) and the fine, delicate song giving the LP its name, was a prelude to the success of the following works. Alla fiera dell'Est (English edition: Highdown Fair, 1976) was Branduardi's first vastly popular album, followed by La Pulce d'Acqua (English version, Fables and Fantasies 1978) and Cogli la prima mela (English edition, Life is the Only Teacher, 1979). Lyrics for the English versions of Branduardi's albums were written by Peter Sinfield, also lyricist for King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
In those albums, Branduardi exploited themes and patterns from early music, mostly Renaissance and early Baroque. The song "Alla fiera dell'Est" ("At the Eastern Fair") is still popular among Italians of every age, who test themselves committing to memory all the fable-like, repetitive lyrics. It is based on an old Jewish song in Aramaic ("Chad Gadya" – One Kid Goat) sung at the end of the Passover Seder night service. In 2007 "Alla fiera dell'Est" was covered by Israeli singer Shlomi Shabat for a Passover time commercial for cellphone company Pelephone.
Lyrics had a broad spectrum of inspiration: a Danse macabre, the theme of Satan's mistress, Chinese, Native American and Druidic tradition, the apocryphal Gospels. Concertation owes much to the talents of Maurizio Fabrizio, and exploits unusual instruments for pop music: dulcimer, Pan flute, lute, clarinet, among others – mixed with more standard guitar, bass and drums.
Subsequent albums showed an increasing desire towards experimentation and differentiation. Branduardi (1981) had a more intimate tone, Cercando l'oro ("Searching for Gold", 1983) had very sophisticated and delicate arrangements (starts with a String Quartet), Branduardi canta Yeats ("Branduardi sings Yeats", 1985) was a tribute to William Butler Yeats. Pane e rose ("Bread and Roses", 1988) was a still inspired, but increasingly dark picture of life and death. Il Ladro ("The Thief", 1991) marked a very delicate point of Branduardi's life, edging on depression, echoed in a dark, almost cemeterial, style of singing.
The album Si può fare ("It Can Be Done", 1993) brought back Branduardi to normality, but the artist is now struggling to evade the minstrel character which was now too tight for him. In 1994, he published Domenica e lunedì ("Sunday and Monday"), dedicated to the Italian poet Franco Fortini who was one of Branduardi's professors in his school years.
In 1996, during the celebrations for the restoration of the Duomo of Spilimbergo after the catastrophic 1976 earthquake, he recorded the album Futuro antico ("Ancient Future"), in which he, as an early Baroque musician, keeps reusing, mixing, wording pre-existing material along with his own. This experience, accomplished with the aid of musicians and musicologists, continued with Futuro antico II and Futuro antico III. The same year he performed "Te vojo 'bbene assaje" ("I love you so much" in Neapolitan) with Italian pop singer Eugenio Finardi.
In 1998, Branduardi teamed up with Italian stand-up comedian and writer Giorgio Faletti for Il dito e la luna ("The Finger and the Moon").
He subsequently reworked earlier musical themes with writings of and about St. Francis to produce L'infinitamente piccolo ("The Infinitely Small"); he wrote a musical on the same topic (Francesco).
In 2003, a new album, Altro ed altrove ("Other and Elsewhere"), in a time period marked by a rise of racism and intolerance, brought together (mainly) love stories from several cultures.
For the last 10 years, his band, on stage, has been composed of Davide Raggazoni (drums), Michele Ascolese (guitars), Leonardo Pieri (keyboards) and Stefano Olivato (bass and harmonica), or with Ellade Bandini (drums) and Maurizio Fabrizio (guitars and keyboards).
Peter John Sinfield was an English poet and songwriter. He was best known as a co-founder and lyricist of King Crimson. Their debut album In the Court of the Crimson King is considered one of the first and most influential progressive rock albums ever released.
A cumulative song is a song with a simple verse structure modified by progressive addition so that each verse is longer than the verse before. Cumulative songs are popular for group singing, in part because they require relatively little memorization of lyrics, and because remembering the previous verse to concatenate it to form the current verse can become a kind of game.
Fabrizio Cristiano De André was an Italian singer-songwriter and the most-prominent cantautore of his time. He is also known as Faber, a nickname given by the friend Paolo Villaggio, as a reference to his liking towards Faber-Castell's pastels and pencils, aside from the assonance with his own name, and also because he was known as "il cantautore degli emarginati" or "il poeta degli sconfitti". His 40-year career reflects his interests in concept albums, literature, poetry, political protest, and French music. He is considered a prominent member of the Genoese School. Because of the success of his music in Italy and its impact on the Italian collective memory, many public places such as roads, squares, and schools in Italy are named after De André.
Mina Anna Mazzini or Mina Anna Quaini, known mononymously as Mina, is an Italian singer and actress. She was a staple of television variety shows and a dominant figure in Italian pop music from the 1960s to the mid-1970s, known for her three-octave vocal range, the agility of her soprano voice, and her image as an emancipated woman.
The Bagutta Prize is an Italian literary prize that is awarded annually to Italian writers. The prize originated among patrons of Milan's Bagutta Ristorante. The writer Riccardo Bacchelli discovered the restaurant and soon he regularly gathered numerous friends who would dine there together and discuss books. They began charging fines to the person who arrived last to an appointed meal, or who failed to appear.
Giorgio Faletti was an Italian writer, musician, actor and comedian. Born in Asti, Piedmont, he lived on Elba Island. His books have been translated into 25 languages and published with great success in Europe, South America, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.
"Lascia ch'io pianga", originally "Lascia la spina, cogli la rosa", is an Italian-language soprano aria by composer George Frideric Handel that has become a popular concert piece.
Cogli la prima mela is an album by Italian singer-songwriter Angelo Branduardi. It was released in 1979 by Polydor.
Cercando l'oro is an album of the Italian singer-songwriter Angelo Branduardi. It was released in 1983 by Polydor; in the same year a French version was also released, entitled Tout l'or du monde.
Fonoprint is a famous recording studio located in Bologna, Italy, founded in 1976. Owner Leopoldo Cavalli, CEO Giacomo Golfieri, sound engineers Maurizio Biancani, Enrico Capalbo, Claudio Adamo and Pietro Giolito. The facility is Dolby Atmos Music certified.
La pulce d'acqua is an album by Italian singer-songwriter Angelo Branduardi. It was released in 1977 by Polydor. A French edition, entitled La Demoiselle, was released in 1979; an English edition, entitled Fables and Fantasies and with lyrics written by Peter Sinfield, was released in 1980.
Alla fiera dell'est is an album by the Italian singer-songwriter Angelo Branduardi. It was released in 1976 by Polydor and won the Italian Music Critic prize that same year. In 1978 it was released in a French version with the title "A la foire de l'est" and in an English version, entitled "Highdown Fair", with lyrics by Peter Sinfield.
Maurizio Trifone is an Italian linguist and lexicographer.
Ellade Bandini is an Italian drummer.
Maurizio Fabrizio is an Italian composer, conductor, arranger, producer, musician and singer-songwriter.
Blu S.p.A. was an Italian telecommunications company operating in the mobile telephony sector.
Marco Filibeck is an Italian lighting designer.
Nuda is the seventh solo studio album of the Italian singer-songwriter Annalisa, released on 18 September 2020 by Warner Music Italy. On 12 March 2021, a new edition of the album was released, titled Nuda10, containing five previously unreleased songs, including the single "Dieci" which was presented at the Sanremo Music Festival 2021.
Mia Maestà is the fourteenth and final solo studio album by the Italian rapper and producer Bassi Maestro, released on March 31, 2017. The record includes the participation, among others, of artists such as Fabri Fibra, Vegas Jones, Gemitaiz, Nitro and Cricca Dei Balordi.
"Luna" is a 1980 song composed and performed by Gianni Togni. Togni's signature song, it topped the Italian hit parade.
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