SOGNO DI UNA NOTTE D'ESTATE

Bought this in the mid-eighties as an import record.Did not at the time know it was music for a stage show and was somewhat disappointed.I guess I thought it would be similar to PFM.IT IS NOT.

You do totally feel the music is indeed created for a show with a dance troupe dancing along to the melodies/songs acting out the storyline,with the band playing at the back of the stage on the right hand side.There is a picture of the gang inside the gatefold and it looks like it could have been a slightly wacky take on the Shakespeare story they are taking on here.The whole package may have been great at the time.

The songs aren't bad ,but not really that good either.Musicianship is very good,but only once does it taste a bit of prog,but we mainly stay in the rock spectrum of things.

So if you are tempted to buy this as a Japanese import cd,be careful,cause like me, you would feel the money could be spent better somewhere else.

Its actually a good album, from the same pop vein that Peter Gabriel was going through, about the same period.

The idea apparently was a soundtrack to a movie, based in the classic play with the same name from William Shakespeare. The result is a tricky but accesible pop work, with changes in tempo and with more vocals. The album cannot be compared with with the first solo album (a folk masterpiece) or Pagani's work with PFM, although we can se the versatility of this great musician and his good musical production. And is, curiously, a short album.

I guess Pagani made something that has a limited aim, without pretension to be something else, which is fine. We know, by his recent re-recording of "Creuza de Mä", that he still is the Mauro Pagani we all fall in love for.