STORIA
From the start to Alder's Voice
In these lines dedicated to the band by one member of “L’Estate di San Martino” there is a large part of the history of the group, born in Perugia in 1975, needless to say, in one of those garages as often used to happen in those times, in a small and  beautiful part of the world called Umbria. A region which, in the glossy and slightly worn-out tourist brochures, is described as the Green Heart of Italy. In spite of its central position, it continues to be proudly isolated. This is obviously not always a positive or even desirable factor; but the fact remains that here strong roots grow deep. And they can remain a long time, despite everything. Over the years “L’Estate di San Martino” has witnessed the coming and going of a long line of musicians. In some particularly “cold” seasons it has lost important branches, fundamental at times. But in the end it has continued to find new lymph, thanks precisely to the humus that in the meantime it was able to generate.

The prime root
The history, like all the histories of those bands coming from afar, could be a long one. Too long. In a nutshell the original core of “L’Estate di San Martino” was formed to give musical support to a theatrical piece entitled “Alete”, written by Giuseppe Petrazzini who was also the group’s founder, at that time made up of Marco Pentiricci (acoustic guitar, recorder), Marco Vagni (bass guitar), Sergio Spennacchioli (drums). Still in 1975 one of the actors from “Alete”, Riccardo Regi and his 12-stringed guitar, joined the band which then became “L’Estate di San Martino”. A little later Guglielmo Balucani, graphic designer by profession and drummer as passion, joined the group and created the group’s logo.

The promo disk
The first single came out in 1978. The band took part in a national competition organised by the independent radio stations of the time, together with the prestigious Italian record company RCA. The listeners voted for their favourite artists and “L’Estate di San Martino” was chosen to represent Umbria in the final of the competition held in Capri in the summer of the same year. The original song performed was “The Child and the Hero” which subsequently became a promotional single.

The new "branches"
From 1979 “Stories”, an acoustic work with lyrics and music composed mainly by Giuseppe Petrazzini and Marco Pentiricci, was performed in various venues in Umbria and the Marche. From then on the band started to lose “branches” and to produce new ones. Balucani left and Sergio Servadio replaced him on drums: he was destined to became one of the pillars of the new formation that was soon to be created. In 1980 in fact, only four months after the arrival of the new drummer, Giuseppe Petrazzini and Marco Vagni left. Important departures. But the others decided to carry on. And with the addition of the new bass player Massimo Baracchi, Luca Castellani on electric guitar (which for the first time made an entrance in the sound of L’Estate), and above all with Stefano Tofi on keyboard, an artistic revolution took place, which allowed ESM to survive even after the departure of Sergio Spennacchioli and Antonio Abbozzo, who in the meantime had replaced Baracchi on bass guitar. New branches therefore, for that tree of ideas from which Alder would take shape.

Vocoder: Alder's Voice
Having found a new bass player in Mauro Formica, Adolfo Broegg joined in almost simultaneously to replace Luca Castellani: two braches freshly spliced together which produced extremely vital lymph for the band. With this, in the spring of 1982 the development of Alder began. A conceptual project in which the central figure was a fisherman, Alder, who made an imaginary journey towards Knowledge. Artistically speaking, as in the best progressive tradition, everything began with a sound: that of the vocoder. To this raucous, lonely, distant synthetic voice which repeated itself as a deaf echo, was added the melancholic arpeggios of the 12-stringed guitar. For those who would like to find this primordial musical Big Bang, it is piece called “The Vortex”. Basically Alder represented the most mature phase in the history of the band, especially in terms of the musical growth of the earlier members and the talent of the new musicians who had became part of the group. This LP is born of two of the live concerts on 15 and 16 December 1983 at the Zenith Theatre in Perugia, which brought Alder to the attention of a select public.  Paradoxically this phase coincided with the temporary end of the group which was then formed again ten years later to work on another project: Febo. An idea which in spite of a long, careful and fertile creative period which lasted five long months, was delivered and aborted without ever being performed in public.

In memoriam: dedicate to Adolfo Broegg
You will find in this album a piece which doesn’t belong to Alder. It’s a bonus track, dedicated by “L’Estate di San Martino” to a friend: Adolfo Broeg.  A musician of immense intelligence, taste and real talent, a researcher and scholar of medieval music, internationally renowned for having been the founder of the Micrologus Ensemble, Adolfo Broegg died suddenly at dawn on 23 April 2006.  Everything happened precisely at the time when in the previous spring the group was coming together again to do a master recording of Alder in order to go forward with that old idea, even if it had been largely revised and emended: Febo. Btf approved the inclusion of a track which was an integral part of Febo: “In memoriam”. Broegg had written the parts for classical and electric guitar.  It is a testimony dating back to 1993, recorded live in the very same place where “L’Estate di San Martino” had decided to come back together ten years after having supposedly stopped playing. More than just a piece of music - “In Memoriam” incarnates an idea. The umpteenth .Which may perhaps draw strength from the roots of the tree of a sun which wishes to shine precisely in its most desolate and painful autumn.