Oltre (album)

In summer 1988, Baglioni began to compose a new album three years later the release of La vita è adesso. First recording sessions were made in the Real World Studios near Bath, under the direction of Celso Valli and Pasquale Mineri, while Peter Gabriel was recording his soundtrack for The Last Temptation of Christ. The collaboration with Pasquale Minieri, which would become central to the genesis of the project, had its roots in the immediately preceding years, particularly during the period of the Assolo tour. Minieri, who had studied at the conservatory under the guidance of Professor Franco Sbacco — an expert in electronic music — was already working extensively with synthesizers and computers, while also developing a strong passion for early twentieth-century classical music, particularly Stravinsky and Mahler. From this background emerged the idea of conceiving sound itself as a compositional element, a continuous search for timbral elaboration made possible by new electronic machines. This approach fascinated Baglioni and contributed to the development of a relationship of mutual respect that strengthened during Assolo, initially planned as a single-date show and later expanded into a tour of sixty-five concerts. Throughout the tour, the two worked daily to improve the performance, experimenting with new sonic and musical solutions even during the breaks between shows. It was in this context that the idea for a new album, profoundly different from the previous ones, began to take shape. On Topolino n. 1703, Baglioni implicitly revealed in an interview that his new album would be entitled A presto. Mineri said in an interview: The preliminary work took place mainly in Ansedonia, where Baglioni and Minieri spent about a year and a half composing, recording, editing, and preparing the musical material. During this phase, Baglioni wrote numerous fragments of about twenty seconds that were later assembled as structural elements of the songs — introductions, hooks, verses, or musical bridges — eventually resulting in around forty compositions complete from a musical standpoint. Only later were twenty tracks selected for inclusion on the album. On 8 September 1988, the Italian leg of the Human Rights Now! tour took place at the Stadio Comunale in Turin, featuring Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Youssou N'Dour and Tracy Chapman. Baglioni was chosen as the Italian representative, performing songs related to the theme of the event and declaring his decision to take part in the concert in support of the human rights cause. During the performance, in contrast to the stands of the stadium filled with fans of the singer-songwriter applauding him, a section of the audience gathered under the stage began to contest Baglioni. Contemporary reports mention tomatoes and small bottles thrown at the singer, who responded by recalling the importance of the humanitarian cause behind the event, which went beyond the simple “desire to be together.” The situation became so tense that Peter Gabriel was forced to go on stage during the performance and improvise a duet with Baglioni in order to calm the protest. Despite this, Baglioni completed the concert. The episode had a strong impact on him, leading him to withdraw from public appearances for a period and to focus exclusively on the album. Meanwhile, recording session proceeded in different studios located in Europe, with the collaboration of international artists and collaborators of Peter Gabriel, like Tony Levin and Manu Katché, as well as Italian stars like Pino Daniele and Mia Martini. An emblematic episode concerns the song Io dal mare: the piano part originated from an idea spontaneously proposed by David Sancious — a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band — who was working in the same studio with Peter Gabriel. After hearing the song during a break, he suggested a musical solution that was retained in the final version. In October 1989, pre-orders for the album began under the provisional title Un mondo più uomo sotto un cielo mago. CBS, however, postponed the album’s release to 1990, which fueled rumors that Baglioni was not satisfied with the work completed up to that point and had therefore decided to completely rewrite the album, delaying its release. When the project reached the final selection stage — from the initial forty compositions to the twenty that would be included on the album — Claudio Baglioni began writing the definitive lyrics. However, it was a difficult moment: he did not feel convinced by what he was writing and sensed a gap between the project’s original idea and the form it was taking. During 1990, as media pressure grew rapidly due to the anticipation surrounding the album — with about half a million copies already pre-ordered — the artist went through a period of profound personal and professional crisis. Beyond the events connected to the Amnesty concert in Turin, he distanced himself from Rossella Barattolo, a manager from Taranto whom he had met in 1986 and who had become a key figure in coordinating his professional activities. The singer-songwriter had begun a romantic relationship with her which, although initially kept secret, had already become the subject of gossip in journalistic circles. When paparazzi managed to reveal and publicize the relationship in 1989 — publishing photos and reports about their secret affair — the couple came under intense pressure from the public and the media. This escalation of attention contributed to their temporary separation in 1990. The emotional instability was reflected directly in the work: once again Baglioni tore up the lyrics he had already written, reconsidering the entire project. The situation also became delicate from a contractual perspective. Since the record company had already begun pre-orders and distribution planning, the delay risked exposing it to penalties and legal action for missing the scheduled deadlines. The turning point came through a discussion with Fabrizio Intra, a longtime friend and CBS executive, and a clarifying conversation with his wife Paola Massari, who had always collaborated on his work and who — despite the marital crisis and the extramarital relationship — continued to support and assist him. Having regained a new sense of focus, Baglioni decided to return to work with a different, more inspired and radical spirit. The first words he wrote during this new phase were “The immense breath of the ocean”, a line that would become the opening of the album’s final track, Pace. From that point he resumed the entire lyrical structure by drawing from a large poem previously written in stream-of-consciousness form, titled Guscio: a kind of primordial nucleus of the concept, the original container from which all the songs would develop. From a musical standpoint, the project was already defined. Baglioni rewrote the lyrics several times without altering the musical bases previously completed with Minieri. The only subsequent step was the selection of the songs to be included in the double album and the definition of their final order, a crucial decision for the narrative coherence of the work. Once the definitive writing of all twenty lyrics was completed, Baglioni returned to that first poetic fragment from which the creative process had resumed — which in the concept corresponded to the final narrative moment of the album — and added the concluding phrase: “now I am free, a man, beyond”, destined to become the final words of the work and to symbolically close the existential journey told in the album. In August 1990 the album was finally completed and the final recordings took place. Claudio Baglioni, Pasquale Minieri and Paola Massari then established the definitive tracklist, carefully choosing the order of the songs that would give narrative shape and structure to the entire album. == Concept ==