Rimini, Wednesday 19th August – Question on music but not only at the Meeting, in the talk show “A season to remember”, that saw Massimo Bernardini in connection and in comparison to Brunori SAS, winner of Tecno Plate 2020 and Malika Ayane, one of the most educated and estimated feminine voices of the last decade. Connected were also Michelle Brambilla, director of QN-Quotidiano Nazionale and cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, archibishop of Bologna, personal friend and great estimator of the bolognaise songwriter, for a tribute to Francesco Guccini’s 80^th birthday.

The dialogue started with the question concerning the difficult crisis situation due to the pandemic, that has put the show business into crisis. The two artists expressed their concern on the matter due to the very long duration of this health emergency, showing how close they feel to many technicians and workers who had to stop, just like their tour and concert programs. A job, they reminded, that also has a cultural significance.

« How do two famous and educated artists such as yourselves» asked Bernardini « feel provoked by a reality that “enters without asking for permission”»?

«At first I reacted with a sort of paradoxical happiness» said Brunori « by doing projects. But the forced solitude made me realize that the desire for loneliness is positive only when there is a situation of normalcy around us». «At first» added Malika «it was like we all felt captains on the deck of the Titanic. Luckily the neighborhood florist used to give people flowers…»

In the evening of the 27th of March, reminded Bernardini, Pope Francesco just in St Peter’s Square combined in his prayer the voices of everyone, as an invite to rediscover, the ones and the others, the reasons of mutual support. According to Brunori, it was nice to comfort each other, receive phone calls from various parts of Italy: «I think that all of us asked ourselves what it meant to be alone for such a long time». Malika, together with her “historical” listeners opened a dialogue blog page “Decameretta” in order to make everyone feel less alone: «A world to not lose touch first of all with ourselves».

The voices of cardinal Zuppi and the journalist Brambilla joined in connection.

«All of us noticed» said Zuppi «how the situation increased in us the awareness that we need each other, of how feeling connected to a screen is a “deception”, because existing is a matter of the flesh, body and senses ».

Brunori and Malika, reminded Bernardini, were part of a group of artists who recently recorded the album produced by Mauro Pagani “Note di viaggio”, dedicated to Francesco Guccini for his 80^th birthday, by choosing the songs “Vorrei” (Brunori) and “Canzone quasi d’amore” (Malika). Interpretations, he observed, that return to underline Guccini’s contemporaneity, for too long confined by the critics as a kind of exhibit of the 60s-70s Italian song – but Guccini went way beyond the 68^th, careful to human stories, even in the famous “Locomotiva”.

Bernardini reminded that recently don Julián Carrón cited a verse from “Vorrei”, “non sono quando non ci sei” (I’m not when you are not here), wondering of whom we can talk like this in life, interpreting the concept as “sono più io quando tu ci sei” (I’m more me when you are around), when I come into relationship with “you” person.

Does a love song, asked the presenter to his interlocutors, become the reading key of the world?

«It exists », answered Zuppi, «that university that Dario and Malika talked about because they both want to express something deep - feelings. The deeper feeling, that human love that is the closest to express the love for God, the relationship with the Lord: “Io sono quando Tu sei” (I am when You are), which means learning to respond to love with love ».

(M.T.)