Franco Battiato, from the meeting to celebrate him at the Verona Arena to the live album: the journey through the “voice of the master”
“I invite you to travel / In that country that looks so much like you / The languid suns of its clouded skies / They have enchantment for my spirit / Of your eyes when they shine dim / Down there everything is order and beauty / Calm and voluptuousnessSo he sang Franco Battiato in his “Invitation to travel” in the album Flowers.
Just the voyage was a fundamental theme of all the artistic production of Battiato, who together with his friend and philosopher Manlio Sgalambro wrote that immortal piece in 1999. The Journey to Salvation, so dear to Baudelaire (whose album title is clearly inspired by his Flowers of evil) and of which he was the main model Dante Alighieri.
The invitation to travel is nothing more than an exhortation to an inner journey, a journey towards the deepest desire through a pure spirituality that exhorts the soul to know its own unknown, to rediscover order in the cosmic chaos. Just that journey that the September 21, 2021 led the Verona Arena to become the setting for a unique show: “Invitation to travel – Concert for Franco Battiato“Which now becomes a live album available from today December 3 in a double special version: double cd and box with 4 vinyls license plate International Music and Arts and distributed by Universal Music Italy.
Yesterday 2 December, with affaritaliani.it we crossed the road of this path, in the panorama ofAnteo Milan cinema building, Astra room where we met for the presentation of the double CD “Invitation to travel – Concert for Franco Battiato”.
Many guests present starting from Francesco Cattini, CEO of IMARTS and historic manager of Battiato, Pino Pinaxa Pischetola, Carlo Guaitoli (video) and Stefano Senardi (video), Arctic directors and producers of the work, who explained the birth of this huge project and their friendship with Franco Battiato. On the occasion, the release date of the concert was also revealed on television, broadcast on January 5, 2022 on Rai channels.
Also present were many artists who performed at the Arena interviewed by Daniele Bossari presenter of the day, also a friend of Battiato, who among stories and anecdotes talked about what Battiato meant for their artistic production: come on Building site, a Vasco Brondi, Eugenio Finardi, Cristina Baggio, Carlo Boccadoro, Giovanni Caccamo, Cristina Scabbia, Davide Ferrerioh Saturnino.
Invitation to travel – concert for Franco battito: the interview with affaritaliani.it to Francesco Cattini, CEO of IMARTS and historic manager of Battiato
Franz Cattini: “the message that Battiato left us all is to dare”
Franco Battiato, the journey through musical genres and experience
The most surprising thing about the performance that is presented in this live album, and that also stood out in its purely visual, emotional, physical part, is the embrace with which Franco Battiato went through her artistic experience: embracing electronics, the experimentation, orchestral music is that more pop and melodious not anticipating the times, as is sometimes written about great personalities, but rather bringing them closer together, prefiguring them, making them all incredibly contemporary.
The many inclinations of Battiato, its many voices, supported by an orchestra like the one formed by Philharmonic of the Italian Opera Bruno Bartoletti directed by Carlo Guaitoli and the musicians they accompanied Battiato in the last tour: Angelo Privitera to keyboards and programming, Osvaldo Di Dio e Antonello D’Urso to guitars, Andrea Torresani to the bass, Giordano Colombo to the battery. The rest is the history of the music that has accompanied us in Italy for decades and that has found itself on a prestigious stage to tell its best, an uninterrupted flow of music, capable of crossing decades with the gift of continuous relaunch, of the challenge always in place.
It is not meant to be a tribute to Franco Battiato, what was “enclosed” in the album, but a encounter between one of the most important composers of the last fifty years and many artists who have come looking for him, or who have always sought him.
Since last May 18th also the trip of Franco Battiato he veered for other seas, and in this collection there is everything that his earthly journey has given, to dare and experiment by listening to the soul and the sound of silences. The interpreters of the concert at the Arena recounted it while remaining faithful to its notes, its arrangements, to return to the cyclical nature of his art and show silence the way.
“Life does not end / It’s like a dream / Birth is like waking up / Until we’re free / We will come back again / Again and again / You know / That the dream is reality / And an inviolate world / It has always been waiting for us” Franco Battiato, We will come back again last single of the latest album of the same name left by his spirit to our unconscious.