The last studio album
Fabrizio De Andre recorded before his untimely death to cancer in 1999,
Anime Salve functions both as a testament to the singer's entire career and a further indicator of the stylistic restlessness that characterized
De Andre's work since 1984's
Creuza de Mae. Like its predecessor,
Le Nuvole,
Anime Salve is a hybrid album, albeit a much more somber one since the satirical intent of
Le Nuvole is notoriously absent here. Its mixed nature is, once again, probably due to the contrasting creative forces at work. Throughout his career,
De Andre had an unerring eye for choosing his collaborators. In turn, talented musicians such as
Gian Piero Reverberi,
Nicola Piovani,
Francesco De Gregori,
PFM,
Mauro Pagani, and
Massimo Bubola all left an indelible stamp on the
De Andre records on which they worked. For
Anime Salve,
De Andre continued his ongoing research into Mediterranean folk music since
Creuza de Mae, this time with arranger
Piero Milesi, who had also participated in
Le Nuvole. In addition,
De Andre asked his friend and distinguished colleague songwriter
Ivano Fossati to co-write the entire album. The influence of
Fossati is plain to see, and occasionally his voice can be heard even louder than
De Andre's own in
Anime Salve. Roughly half the album is made of the long, slow, atmospheric, keyboard-dominated compositions so typical of
Fossati's work, reminiscent of
Peter Gabriel's late albums such as
Us or
Up . The moving title track, sung together with
Fossati, is a perfect example of this tendency. The other half, instead, consists of pieces based on Mediterranean or Balkan rhythms or dances, such as the rousing
"Dolcenera," very much in tune with previous
Pagani-
De Andre projects.
However, a common thread runs through the album, and that is none other than
De Andre himself. This can be heard chiefly in
Anime Salve's main thematic preoccupation, the sympathetic portrayal of marginal people or individuals isolated from society: a transsexual, the Rom people, a Genovese fisherman, etc. To all those individuals or minorities discriminated or segregated on account of race, age, sex, profession, or religion (or lack of), to all those the modern world seems to offer no place,
De Andre offers compassion and the wish that they could take advantage of their solitude to achieve a degree of personal freedom long unattainable in modern urban society. This sympathy for the oppressed paired with the anarchic longing of an existence free from the bounds of society indeed constitute the fundamental tenets of the entire
De Andre oeuvre. Other recurrent elements of
De Andre's style present in this album are the use of dialects and literary sources.
Anime Salve includes a song in Genovese and choruses, titles, or phrases in Portuguese, Sardinian, and Romani, and its first and last tracks are based on novels by
Fernanda Farias De Albuquerque-
Maurizio Jannelli and
Alvaro Mutis. Still, for all this accumulation of renowned collaborators and sources,
Anime Salve's most beautiful moment is the sole track in the album that sounds like
Fabrizio De Andre and no one else, the autobiographical childhood memory
"Ho Visto Nina Volare." The simplest song in the album, with a hypnotic classical guitar riff backed by spare percussion and piano, it is also the most delicate, and it immediately brings to mind the classic
De Andre of records such as
Rimini or
Indiano. A sad yet fond lament for all things past, it also reminds listeners what a loss to the world
De Andre's death was, and how fortunate that, before leaving, he committed to record scores of extraordinary songs like this one. An appropriately elegiac album,
Anime Salve is a fitting conclusion to the most exceptional discography by any Italian artist of the postwar era. ~ Mariano Prunes
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