Canzona [There Will Be Time] (Osanna, 1972)

The Italian band Osanna met the composer and orchestra director Luis Enrique Bacalov in 1972 in order to provide the original soundtrack for the film Milano Calibro 9, an action movie directed by Fernando Di Leo. All the materials were included in the album "Preludio, Tema, Variazioni e Canzona", released in 1972 and including a prelude and a theme written by Bacalov, plus a series of variations by the band and the song I'm introducing here. The only sung track are "My Mind Flies" and "Canzona", also known as "There Will Be Time". 

 

"Canzona" was written by Baldazzi, Bacalov and Bardotti.

It's a beautiful, melodic song, apparently belonging to the Italian easy listening tradition, but actually charged with special and deep prog roots. To begin with, a Canzona is a XVIth Century composition based on a theme and some variations on it, including tempo and mood changes. That's exactly what Lino Vairetti's band do here, with their usual acoomplished taste. The way Vairetti sings it is highly emotional and the instrumental sketches enrich and empower the big picture. A song is just a song, but...

Oro caldo (Osanna, 1972)

This is the first track of "Palepoli", one of the best and most original Italian prog albums throughout the '70s. Osanna start here a three-track concept about old and new citizen life, comparing modern and traditional habits and also modern and traditional music. In fact, the suite's title Palepoli means "old town", while the the name of the band's home city - Naples - comes from Neapolis or "new town". So, electric guitar solos follow flute passages, heavy riffs interwine sweet melodies and jazzy jams break acoustic plots.

A recent Lino Vairetti's photo. With Neapolitan masks, of course.

Contrast being the main subject of the song, the listener faces many changes and plunges into different worlds, all of them carefully drawed by a variety of instruments and especially by an ubiquitous Mellotron. If the latter provides many lunar atmospheres along with flute and acoustic guitar, the rythm section and the electric guitar duo are responsible for the roughest moments. In addiction to all this, a Mediterranean flavour (Neapolitan, but also Arabic) features the track and justifies its title, as "Oro caldo" meaning "Warm Gold". Last but not least, this track was gaced live by Lino Vairetti's theatrical performance including masks and fancy dresses.