A. R. Luciani's Allarme Ecologico (1973), at last

I had been dying to hear this one for so many years, since I first discovered A.R. Luciani's trilogy series with Melchiori, and I was so excited when last month it finally became available-- until I listened to it.  Mostly it's in the classical modern music vein, but not as inspired and creative as so much else he created.  There's just not a lot to hang on to.  You can see on the right I've posted a lot from him already, notably my rip of his oceanic work.  His discography, probably incomplete, on discogs.

Really, it's an odd mix of dissonant atonal Hitchcock Psycho-like music, classical borrowings, the usual Stravinsky cameos, plus a couple of relatively generic soundtracky theme songs.

Ultima Migrazione:





The music on Difacimento della Natura is great-- minus the odd sewer bubbling sounds in the background, perhaps a fatberg of wetwipes:

A. R. Luciani: Eau. Mer. Profondeur-- finally a complete and lossless !

I guess there are already four records I posted from this amazing composer (Eventi, Divertissement Baroque, Nature et Montagne and the amazing Aspetti).  He was very prolific however and it's doubtful we will see the end of them.  Without more ado then here's another very classically-influenced record which was available in truncated form earlier.  At least it was enough that it convinced me I had to buy a copy of this to hear the totality in its enlightening glory.  The two sides are somewhat different, with the first being mainly full-on orchestral borrowings from classical composers (the Rite of Spring makes an odd appearance with polytonality on one track) while side two is much more accessible featuring harp or vibraphonal backgrounds and chamber or woodwind instruments playing melodies above.

Example, Lumiere sur la mer, which showcases the always-plaintive melancholy sound of the oboe atop a harp and synthesizer or electric piano, thereafter building more with flutes and strings. Really quite gorgeous, and as I said multiply in the past, the sort of stuff I wish were played in concert halls throughout the world instead of the usual old boring programme that draws such apocalyptic hordes of hearing-aid-eared nonagenarians whom I often see drinking the cream from the tiny little free cups they place beside the sugar for those who buy cheap coffee...  such is old age (and mine and everyone's future), I guess...

More Library and more Luciani with Divertissement Baroque (Kaleidoscope No. 6) -- Lossless Available!

I don't know what possessed me to buy another baroque outing from Luciani.  Maybe because of their great popularity out there in the ''blogosphere" or perhaps "blogtopia."

Anyways, what you see is what you get here for sure.  A little too light for my tastes.  A typical sample, B2, Clementina:





Notice the famous whistling of the composer.

Gelmetti,Luciani,Turicoli - Nature Et Montagne (Sonimage ‎– SI 802)

While scanning the Luciani discography I came across this album with appealing titles relating to European sights.  Subject lines include the Dolomites (big disappointment for us, just some mountains, and not very tall either), Cypres (are we allowed to go there still??  don't get into any arguments with the locals!), Muletier Corse (no desire to visit Napoleon's hometown, wasn't he pretty much the French Hitler?), Vendanges (are you kidding-- French wines are the worst in the world!! only old men with no taste buds still drink that stuff, and even their worst vintages are overpriced), Cimes (let's all hang out with some eurotrash ski bunnies? sure, sorry, but I'll be in Colorado myself, where the women know how to shave, or, in the best cases, wax), etc., etc...  I was particularly curious about his treatment of the Chateau de la Loire (A2) (magnificent, recommended to all):





Unfortunately it's a little too baroque for my taste, unlike the superb compositions of the earlier Aspetti della Natura.  Having said this, there are some interesting pieces.  The B3 Glaciers of Gelmetti is one:





Too bad said glaciers will be all gone in a couple of decades thanks to European inaction in the climate change department.  We'll see what happens in Paris this fall with moving forward on cutting greenhouse gases as opposed to government spokesperson gases.

A disappointment not to discover a gem like the aforementioned treasure.  But the hunt continues.

An upgrade of Melchiori and Luciani's Brilliant Aspetti Della Natura in lossless (Library, late 70s)

To me this is one of the most beautiful of all library records-- at least, side b is.  It was posted previously, in fact the trilogy from these two composers was completed (for me, at least) when I posted on prognotfrog their "Inchiesta sul Mezzogiorno" (which can be reuploaded by request, in mp3).  The other album was on the dusty shelf blog long ago and was called "Atmosfera" and to me was the least successful (can be upped again in mp3). Oddly enough as separate composers I never found their material to be as good as this set.  Although it always struck me as annoying that the Luciani compositions, which are far superior, were in mono whereas the Melchiori electronica are stereo.

The standout track for me is the legend of the lake, which reminded me of the north of Italy and the gorgeous castle Scaliger on Lake Garda and the Roman ruins in the north of the peninsula.  I mentioned this before here with Luciani's Eventi.

Here's the upgraded version of the song:




The beauty of the song lies not only in the use of a cello to play the melody, which as mentioned innumerable times sounds plaintive and sad to us, but in the high-treble chords with plenty of second intervals the piano is playing, without any bass addition to detract from the bell-like percussiveness and quasi-dissonance, and the downward pattern of these chords evokes rain.  Notice also how interesting and well-composed the bridge is, taking it away from the simplistic (I - IV - V) chord progression of the stanzas.  Sheer genius.

Does anyone know where it was used, as doubtless it must have been being such a heavenly composition...   For when I think of music, I have repeated before (over and over in fact) that, as an atheist, music is the closest I will ever get to heaven or to put it differently it's the closest to heaven we mortals will get while we are here on earth.


P.S. Apologies for the warped tracks (A4, A5) which we can safely blame on the Italian jerk who sold me this and overcharged me by 50 euros...  anyways to compensate I threw in the old mp3 rips of those tracks...

A. R. Luciani - Eventi (Italy, 1978)

A very Mahleresque, sometime baroque, purely orchestral entry from this master of library music whose discography I will try sporadically to complete.  Note that a large no. of these have already been ripped, albeit poorly, for mp3 listening, which I appreciate since it allows us to decide whether spending 50-100 dollars on a record is a waste or not.  Specifically I became interested in his music when I heard the shockingly gorgeous "Leggenda del lago" on the Aspetti della Natura collaboration with Melchiori which I will reproduce here for those who don't know it:





I was always puzzled as to whether this particular song was used as a soundtrack theme on a movie somewhere, and if so, where exactly, maybe someone out there knows and can clarify.  It will always remind me personally of driving through the North of Italy when we decided to stop to see the gorgeous Castle Scaliger on Lake Garda.  At the end of a little peninsula there stretching into the lake like a finger are the ruins of an immense roman villa which I ran through quickly as we were in a rush to get to Milan.  I will never forget the beauty of those ruins on the lake and the sadness of loss it represents.  The pictures you can see here don't quite do it justice, particularly with regards to the extended scope of them, but you can see why the song reminds me of this trip.

Evidently some of these library LPs are still quite rare, like the interestingly titled "Allarme Ecologico" which I hope will not be too pricey if and when it turns up, considering I have just returned from a long sojourn on a road trip to the beach where my family spent a lot of money, not just on toys for the children and toys for my wife (like her Louboutin shoes).  Expecting it to be cheap to stay near the ocean proved overoptimistic of course, as I found the concentration of tempting amusement parks and arcades too much for my young kids who were attracted like moths to outdoor lights (as always it was father moth who got most burned there in monetary terms) to the loud sounds and stuffed animals that broke after one day's handling and the rides they were far too scared to enjoy but which nonetheless cost plenty of money for a few tears and an anxiety attack-- maybe next time I can just feed my kids coffee and cigarettes till they get a much cheaper panic attack?  And of course no family holiday is complete without my wife going shopping to those damned outlet malls in the United States where you can easily spend thousands of dollars on the basis that you're saving money by getting great deals, and I have to listen to my wife saying each time "I'm just looking in this store!!" each look of course costing me a few hundred dollars, after a few hours, I'm begging her to stop looking, those looks are just too expensive-- like the way a porn star needs constant plastic surgery maybe... I guess that's what being married is all about... daddy better work hard and overtime too when he gets home and stop buying those expensive records...

Here's a really beautiful track:

A. Riccardo Luciani avec April Orchestra Présente RCA Sound Vol. 9 (1977)

I felt I should make an attempt at completing some of his huge discography, because the three albums he did in conjunction with Marco Melchiori were so beautiful.  Compositions here are baroque, medieval, slightly adventurous but not excessively or predominantly so.  There is less of the crystalline textures that made the three albums referred to above such masterpieces.  When I posted the missing of the three on prognotfrog (Inchiesta sul Mezzogiorno) I mentioned the other two had been posted on the dusty shelf blog, sadly now in slight hibernation.  Of course if you don't have a taste for classical music, you should not listen to these records.

By the end one is overcome with the sense we are in the court of King Arthur, but oh well-- the search continues, as I always say.  And anyways we'll be hearing more from Luciani soon, like it or not.