You all certainly know NOTTE STELLATA, the beautiful song on music by Saint-Saens, and that is part of the CD, BUON NATALE.
My dear friend, Maura Pucci, wrote her impressions on her first listening, I translate them for you, they are very beautiful.
I want to share with you the emotion I felt when I first heard NOTTE STELLATA (Starry Night). I immediately rushed to pour my feelings, my impressions, onto a piece of paper. I saved that sheet. I realize now, rereading it, that it is not a great example of good Italian style. It was my “outburst” and was not intended for the reading of others. I cover it as such, imperfect but genuine!
I look for IL VOLO on you tube and I come across a video screen with the same title: Notte Stellata. I do not know this song and I never heard of it. I try with the first video and, from the first notes, I immediately recognize the famous motif of Saint-Saëns. Evidently, I think, someone composed a text for this wonderful melody. I do not see the guys that are singing but only moving images.
Although disappointed, I still listen, already fascinated by the first notes of the orchestra. I listened to the song for the first time, then a second one wearing the headphones to catch every detail of the music and the voices of the boys. The musical arrangement, where strings and piano are the masters, is of an incredible sweetness.
It is a song of great lyricism, evoking dream landscapes (night, lake, stars, moon) whose text the “experts” of Sanremo would not hesitate to define trivial. It is narrated, the story of a love in progress: at the beginning love is hidden and therefore it is ignored. Then, love is declared …. This phase is without words, but it is understood from the context, because, in the end, there is the awareness of mutual love. The words of the text are not thrown at random. The author wanted to highlight the “before” and the “after”, with a studied exchange of contrasting terms: you do not know / now you know it; you in my thoughts / I in your thoughts.
The boys offer a masterly interpretation. Gianluca opens: “ Guarda che lago, che luna c’è, le stelle in cielo brillano per …………” and then, in a breath “…. noi!”.
Well, here I stopped breathing, I felt a dip in my heart and I exclaimed aloud, even being alone: “Mamma mia!”.
I wondered: that fabulous “noi”, is it really Gianluca? How could he pull out of his register, deep, virile, that line of voice soft and thin as a sigh?
Piero enters. Starting from low notes, unusual for him, but faced with skill, his voice unfolds upward, word by word, or rather syllable after syllable: “la mia serenata canterò per …” until it culminates in a clear, acute “te!”, powerful but sweet at the same time, so as not to disturb the idyllic tone of the songs.The voice of Piero arrives in fact gradually and with the utmost naturalness.
Ignazio continues that, pronouncing his words of love (and, knowing him I imagine it with his eyes closed ..) he manages to transfer his emotion to those who are listening. His voice is so rich in nuances that it allows him to transform his high and high-pitched tone into a very sweet confidential whisper: “quanto ti amo ora lo sai …”
Then their voices come together. First low, then in a “crescendo” shivering, alternating with Gianluca (which in the last stanza, fades to the utmost tone, still “sighing” the words of the happy ending “io ti amo sai, …. tu mi ami ..) and all together “già”, so quiet as to seem a single voice. And the orchestra follows them ending “very slowly”, musically speaking, the arrangement and the orchestra that accompanies, without ever overwhelming them, their voices In particular I have in mind the violin that follows “ti cercherò tra la gente” of Piero, and the ringing notes of the piano that accompany Ignazio’s second stanza.
I realize that almost all their other songs can be of greater impact on the general public. They are the ones that end up with the guys who sing together to their full potential, with the orchestra at full capacity, those with an overwhelming finale. NOTTE STELLATA is of another kind, an intimate, atmospheric song! I do not get tired of listening to it.
I have nothing to add, Maura has well described her feelings with even technical details.
I would very much like to read Myron’s opinion on this long comment, and of course also all your thoughts.
Daniela
Credit to owners of photo and videos.