Lino Straulino – Lino Straulino cjante Ermes (Nota, 2023)

by Salvatore Esposito – blogfoolk.com
A profound connoisseur of Friulian culture and tradition, particularly that of Carnia, Lino Straulino has often combined his songwriting with the poets of his homeland throughout his forty-year artistic career, dressing their lyrics with the elegant musical textures woven by his guitar. This is the case with his debut solo work, La Faire, released only on cassette in 1990 and dedicated to the lyrics of Emilio Nardini, later reprised on the 2005 album Al Soreli, but also with other subsequent works such as Tieri Neri in 2001 with the poems of Maurizio Mattiuzza, Ogni sera. Lino Straulino al cjante Leonardo Zanier’ in 2018, in which he set to music the ‘multifaceted narrator of Carnia’, to use the words of Valter Colle, who edited the publication. A central album in what is now a veritable strand of his extensive discography is certainly the album “Lino Straulino cjante Ermes” from 1997, the result of intense study and research on the work of Ermes di Colloredo (1622-1692), in which the Carnic singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist reinterpreted eight compositions in the Friulian language by the poet-soldier, adapting them into music. The album came ten years after his debut as a solo artist and echoed the musical approach of the latter, as he told us in an interview a few years ago: “It was the beginning of my career, because in 1990 I released a cassette at my own expense with Nardini’s songs, which then became an album. A few years later, ten to be precise, because it was 1997, this experience also led to the album dedicated to Ermes di Colloredo, which was something I had been working on for some time, but it was very quick to produce because for me it was like tackling Dante, he is in fact the greatest Friulian poet. I was very pleased that Rienzo Pellegrini, who is a university professor but also a great scholar of local literature, greatly appreciated my reworking of the material, because despite being an album for guitar and voice only, it received great acclaim, and not only in Friuli. Considered one of the most significant poetic voices in Friulian literary history for his poetry, which is dense with realism and not without satirical and burlesque accents, Ermes di Colloredo used a wide variety of expressive registers, ranging from love lyrics to theatrical texts in dialogue form in prose and verse, in which he often recounts the customs and society of the late 17th century with pungent irony, all permeated by a strong sense of realism. On the occasion of the fourth centenary of the Friulian poet’s birth, the distinguished label Nota has reissued the album in CD-book format with the addition of a substantial booklet containing all the texts revised and translated by Rienzo Pellegrini, based on the first Murero edition of 1785, appropriately revised and annotated. Returning to listen to this album is an opportunity to rediscover it in a new light thanks to the valuable work of Remastered by Luca Brunetti, curator of the 1996 recording, allowing us to appreciate all the poetic nuances of the songs, enhancing the guitar textures and Lino Straulino’s voice. “Seventeenth-century poetry does not claim authenticity of feelings, freshness, or sincerity of emotions,” writes Rienzo Pellegrini in the album’s introductory note, “Instead, it demands technical skill, a display and proof of virtuosity. I tend to insist that writing should be considered in relation to the time in which it was produced. Lino, his voice, and his music adopt a different perspective: an Ermes di Colloredo in relation to the time in which we live, to the human constants that do not change. These are two approaches that can coexist: complementary and not antithetical.” All this can be fully appreciated in this reissue, with the music enveloping the verses of the Friulian poet, enhancing at times his lyricism, at times his pungent irony, and at times his ability to recount the chiaroscuro of the late 17th century. The album opens with the poignant “Niccolò, lassi al fin l’amor tiran” (Niccolò, let love be tyrannical at last), in which the Friulian poet recounts his lovesickness to the young Niccolò Madrisio (1656-1729), framed by Straulino’s guitar arpeggios evoking Baroque music. It continues with a reflection on art in “Che al cil presumi d’innalzà” and the enchantment of nature sung in the invitation to his friend Girolamo in “Jaroni, i rusignui dal mio boschet…”. While the refrain song “Mè saltat in tal capriz” presents a brilliant musical architecture that highlights the peculiar structure of the verses, the following “E un arbolät cu dis” is striking for its metrical construction and the irony of the text, which Straulino renders in music in a brilliant and engaging way. The bitter reflections on a world full of presumption and arrogance in “Tas plen di presunzion, tas arrogant” and those on life in “Cappi, copari, cheste sì chè grande” lead us to the long, intimate ballad “E ben reson, s’hai di chiantà dal sec,” which closes the album. Credit where credit is due, then, to Nota for giving us this new version of the album, which can rightly be considered one of the high points of Lino Straulino’s discography.