Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Orme, Le
Label: Philips Records
Release: 1979
Length: 31:35
Rating: 4/5
Italian symphonic prog rockers Le Orme (Slovenian for “Footsteps”), one of the few Italian prog outfits that managed to make it beyond their home country and on both sides of the Atlantic, changed their style quite a bit in the late seventies, right when interest in this kind of music was starting to plummet. It all began with the album »Florian«, named after the famous café on Venice’s St. Mark’s Square. Here they waded into fully acoustic waters and swapped their traditional symphonic rock approach, noticeably influenced by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, for elements of chamber music and folk, trading their electric instruments for classical and acoustic ones.
Aldo Tagliapietra swapped his bass for acoustic guitar and cello, Germano Serafin ditched the electric guitar for violin, bouzouki, acoustic guitar and mandolin, while Giussepe ‘Michi’ Dei Rossi apparently decided that glockenspiel, vibraphone and marimba were the best things to ever happen to the percussion world. Suddenly there were almost more string arrangements than the keyboard wizardry you’d normally associate with this band. The driving force behind the new direction was keyboard magician Antonio Pagliuca, who understandably wanted to try something new to keep Le Orme relevant in a changing musical landscape, while he himself mostly stuck to piano and harmonium this time around.
On »Florian« we get a markedly different, somewhat more sentimental Le Orme than usual, and not every change went down well. Still, it was a short and interesting stylistic experiment, the kind that didn’t happen all that often in a positive sense at the end of the seventies. Most of the tracks on the album are marked by their instrumental nature and a distinctly pastoral mood, with that signature Mediterranean melodiousness and ambient warmth that has always accompanied most Italian prog bands.
The music on »Florian« has practically no connection to rock, as the band members’ longtime love of classical music takes over completely. Already on the title track, the opening instrumental and one of the few livelier moments on »Florian«, you can hear how chamber music elements suddenly become dominant, with baroque strings and subtle percussion building a romantic, almost medieval atmosphere.
»Jaffa« is a melancholic heartbreaker where Le Orme, in a socially critical lyric full of vivid metaphors, rail against commercialization, ever-worse distribution and the quality of citrus fruit. Instrumentally there isn’t much going on here, as the violin and piano stick to one monotone melody throughout. Taglipaietra’s nostalgic soprano ramps up the romantic mood while baroque string arrangements follow him in the background. A far more rhythmically dynamic piece is »Il Magio« (in our language ‘The Wizard’), where Le Orme play around with percussion that sounds minimalist at times, before the lively string section once again takes over instrumental duties.
»Pietro el pescatore«, which in our language means ‘Peter the Fisherman’, is a relatively simple but touching pastoral ballad, with gentle vocals backed by baroque strings, while the lyrics reference St. Peter. »Calipso«, which sounds like an ode to the nymph of the same name from the Odyssey, is another nostalgic track with delicate arrangements, its central melody built from dreamy acoustic guitar chords and Tagliapietra’s idealistic vocal approach. »Fine di un viaggio«, which can be translated as ‘The End of a Journey’, has an ethereal intro and rustic string flourishes, followed by a cheerful chorus that already hints at the increasingly commercial sound of the next few years. »El Gran Senser« is a great, practically ideal closer. Fiery arrangements courtesy of the ‘little orchestra’ set the stage for a bombastic finale in an extremely subtle way, and along the way they even allow themselves a few scattered improvisations that stand in sharp contrast to the otherwise strongly melodic nature of the whole album.
»Florian« was a pretty fun and unique stylistic stunt with some seriously interesting results, even if Le Orme are barely recognizable in places, since this chamber-leaning effort has nothing to do with rock music. Overall, »Florian« was still a very interesting album, and you couldn’t fault its top-notch execution and arrangement colors. It also brought a welcome sonic refresh, but at times, with the overly pretty, almost ‘sugary’ and somewhat monotone nature of some of the arrangements, you still missed that epic sweep that made Le Orme one of the best Italian prog bands of the seventies. They didn’t stay with this chamber direction for long after the next, stylistically similar album »Piccola rapsodia dell’ape« (1980), because it was followed by an almost fatal and not exactly well-thought-out turn toward pop, and it took them quite a few years to recover and climb back up to their former songwriting and arranging standards.
Lineup
Aldo Tagliapietra – cello, classical guitar, vocals
Antonio Pagliuca – piano, harmonium
Giuseppe (Michi) Dei Rossi – vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel, percussion
Germano Serafin – violin, acoustic guitar, bouzouki, mandolin
Production
Gian Piero Reverberi and Le Orme
Track List
1. Florian (6:40)
2. Jaffa (3:05)
3. Il mago (3:00)
4. Pietro il pescatore (3:20)
5. Calipso (3:40)
6. Fine di un viaggio (4:40)
7. El gran senser (7:10)
