The following article is an overview of the career of Italian drummer, composer, arranger, and music educator Flaviano Cuffari. The main source of information are three interviews with Mr Cuffari, conducted by Bas Tukker in July 2024. The article below is subdivided into two main parts; a general career overview (part 3) and a part dedicated to Flaviano Cuffari’s Eurovision involvement (part 4).
All material below: © Bas Tukker / 2024
Contents
1. Passport
2. Short Eurovision record
3. Biography
4. Eurovision Song Contest
5. Other artists about Flaviano Cuffari
6. Eurovision involvement year by year
7. Sources & links
PASSPORT
Born: June 7th, 1951, Milan (Italy)
Nationality: Italian
SHORT EUROVISION RECORD
Flaviano Cuffari was the arranger and conductor of Switzerland’s 1991 Eurovision effort ‘Canzone per te’, composed by Renato Mascetti and interpreted by Sandra Simó (Sandra Studer). At the festival final held in Rome’s Cinecittà Studios, this Swiss entry finished fifth in a field of 22 competing countries.
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Milan, Flaviano Cuffari grew up in a working-class family in 1950s Italy, a country still reeling from World War II and the Mussolini dictatorship. “I was named after my mother’s brother, who died in the war at the age of sixteen,” Cuffari explains. “Those fascists had a lot of crimes on their conscience, and this uncle was one of their victims. My father was a supporter of Pietro Nenni, a politician on the left-wing of the socialist movement. Dad worked fulltime for the trade union. As a child, I helped him distribute the union’s magazine. I can’t say my family was poor, but it’s fair to say the circumstances were basic.”
“Music did not really play an important part in my parents’ life – it’s a passion that I developed by myself. As an adolescent, I used to listen to Radio Luxembourg and an Italian radio show called Per voi giovani, hosted by Renzo Arbore and Gianni Boncompagni. In the radio magazine, there was a list of tunes which were going to be played in that programme – which was very helpful, because I loved pop songs from England and America. You could find me at home with my finger at the button of the tape recorder to record my favourite tunes. I was fond of The Beatles, The Small Faces… anything which was new and contemporary, really. I also used to watch musical films with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers on television. At the time, I didn’t know the music to those films had been mostly written by George Gershwin, but its message went straight to my heart. Somehow, the music gene was in me from birth – just like others have an innate talent for mathematics or painting.”
Gigging in Milan, late 1960s
“By the time I was thirteen, I had found out that I could get a bit of sound from every musical instrument. My first love was for the guitar. At some point, I heard about a gentleman living a couple of streets away who had a guitar for sale, but when I rang his doorbell, it turned out he wasn’t in. I went back home in disappointment. Not much later, three friends and I were looking to form a little pop group of our own… and the other three all had a guitar! For our first rehearsal, we found ourselves in the basement of my parents’ house – and I said, ‘Because you all play the guitar, I guess it’s best that I take care of the drums!’ Of course, we didn’t have a drum kit, so I grabbed two large wooden spoons used by my mother to make polenta. That was how my career started! Not much later, I bought myself a very old-fashioned, New Orleans style drum set, with heads made of donkey leather. It wasn’t exactly the kind of equipment I had been dreaming of, but it was surely a step up from the spoons! Buying records by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and The Animals, I used to sit listening to my record player to figure out what Ringo Starr and Keith Moon were doing. I seemed to get the hang of it very quickly, so I decided to stick with the drums.”
“Music was my passion. I just loved to play. I was never watching the clock when I was hanging out with my friends playing music… but unlike some of them, I was adamant to improve my technique. Like my father, I have always been an inquisitive person. Eager to learn more about music, I bought myself books about solfege – and I would have loved to have gone to the music academy, but by that time, I was studying at the Industrial Technical Institute, which involved taking eight hours of lessons every day, as well as having to study in the evening to keep up with the courses. It simply wasn’t an option to do the music academy on the side. That’s why I chose to go to the Scuola Civica di Musica (Milan’s Municipal Music School – BT) instead. It enabled me to study percussion as well as the theoretical subjects which I was so keen to dive into, but on a part-time basis.”
“By the age of seventeen, I was playing in a band – or a complesso, as we called it at the time – which performed in a dance hall in Milan. The leader of the band was also the lead singer. I thought he was a very old man… in actual fact, the guy was 27 years of age! We were booked for four servizi each week: Thursday night, Saturday night, Sunday afternoon, and Sunday night. For one week of playing, I was paid 16,000 lire. It wasn’t much, but it was still higher than the weekly wages of a friend of mine who worked as a traffic warden. Mind you, I had to give away part of my income to taxi drivers who brought me home after an evening of performing – there weren’t any bus services after midnight! The next morning, I had to get up early to go to school; I was young, so I didn’t complain.”
Flaviano (far left) serving as a soldier on the Italian-Yugoslavian border, 1971
“In that same period, I also played in a student rock group. One of the other band members was Ricky Belloni, a guitarist who had also been in my first group several years before. We were great friends and have been until the present day. With our student band, we played songs by Cream, Eric Clapton’s band – and we were the idols of all the high schools in and around Milan. Out of that band developed a new group, La Quinta Parete, with a lead singer from Como who sounded exactly like Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin. With a set of Led Zeppelin repertoire, we toured the whole of Italy in the summer of 1970. The group was short-lived, but it was an important stage of my embryonic phase as a musician.”
“By that time, I had already quit music school. The first three years, I had been taught by Maestro Gelmini, who was the timpanist in the Angelicum, a classical orchestra in Milan. He was a very pleasant man and I studied hard for him. However, he left, being replaced by a timpanist from America, who didn’t have any rapport with pop music. We didn’t get along at all. At that point, I decided to quit, so I never completed the fourth and last year leading up to the exams.”
“While I was in La Quinta Parete, I also graduated from the Technical Institute – and I could have chosen to go to university, but I didn’t want to. My mind was set on becoming a professional musician. By the time our group disbanded, in the second half of 1970, I was already working as a studio musician with Adriano Celentano’s arranger, Detto Mariano. He recorded in the Fonit Cetra Studios in Milan. Detto Mariano used to work with a rhythm group called I Ragazzi della Via Gluck. As it turned out, he was unhappy with the drummer in the band. The organ player was Mauro Cardi, who had previously been in La Quinta Parete. Mauro approached me and asked if I was interested in stepping in. I wasn’t sure if I was good enough to be a session player, but Mauro talked me into it. I had one big advantage; contrary to many other drummers, I was able to read scores thanks to my time at music school. From that moment, Detto Mariano always called me for his sessions. Apart from my studio work at Fonit Cetra, I played in the Bobo’s Band, a well-known band playing in dance halls in Milan. The two activities together earned me enough money to make a living.”
Flaviano as a 22-year-old at work in the studios in Milan in one of the recording sessions for Simon Luca's album 'E la mia mente?' (1973)
“Unfortunately, I was called up to do my military service; fifteen months of serving in Friuli, in the far northeast of Italy on the Yugoslav border. This meant I lost all my work – and it wasn’t that easy to get back into the business upon my return to Milan in the autumn of 1972. Luckily, Gigi Belloni, who was Ricky’s brother, thought of me. At the time, he was playing bass in the band of Anna Identici. Anna used to be a pop singer, but she had turned to very leftist folk repertoire. As Gigi told me, her guitarist was about to leave the group. ‘Wouldn’t you want to come and play guitar with us?’, he wondered. It was a nice gesture by Gigi, who knew I played a bit of guitar. So that was my first job after being discharged from the army – but I switched to some other band once I had the opportunity. Once Detto Mariano heard I was back, he started calling me for his sessions again as well.”
“Meanwhile, Ricky Belloni had joined Nuova Idea, a prog rock band from Genoa which had moved to Milan. When their drummer left, Ricky asked me to fill the void. I stayed with this group for over a year. This was a band of a higher level than what I was used to. These guys had a record deal. In 1973, we recorded an album, ‘Clowns’ at the Ariston Studios in Milan with producer Gianfranco Reverberi. One thing led to another, because Reverberi called me back the following year when he was about to record Nicola Di Bari’s new album in Rome. Nicola Di Bari was yesterday’s news in Italy, but he was Jesus Christ in South America. It was incredible how many records he sold in the Latin American countries. For that album, Reverberi employed a novel technique, letting me and the other session players sing the backing vocals and producing samples of them with a Mellotron, an analogue ribbon keyboard. I loved working with Gianfranco Reverberi. He was a great guy and I am grateful to him for introducing me to the studio world in Rome.”
“In 1974, I was back in Rome to record Patty Pravo’s new album with an Argentinian arranger who later won an Oscar, Luis Enríquez Bacalov. Nuova Idea had been booked as a whole for these sessions. Bacalov wasn’t particularly friendly, but Gigi Belloni, who was in the control room with him while I was recording the drum parts, told me that he had been quite impressed by my abilities. ‘This guy is a living metronome!’, those were Bacalov’s words. Patty Pravo’s fiancé at the time was Riccardo Fogli, the former lead singer of I Pooh. Riccardo came to have a chat with me, explaining that Patty wanted me to join her band for the upcoming tour. I was reluctant to do so, because it would have meant that I had to say goodbye to Nuova Idea, which I didn’t want to – the result being that Patty kicked out her entire touring band, a group of British guys, replacing them with me and the other members of Nuova Idea. Another young musician, Roberto Colombo, was added to the group as an extra keyboard player; this meant we had two keyboards in the band, which nobody else had. It was a winning formula.”
Flaviano Cuffari standing behind the mixing console in Rome's RCA Studios, listening to a conversation between (from left) Roberto Colombo, Patty Pravo, and Ricky Belloni (mid-1970s)
“That first tour took off in Spain, then we crossed the ocean to perform in the United States and Canada, with the third and last set of concerts taking place in Italy in the early months of 1975. Later on, in 1978, we did a second tour with Patty and a huge group of backing vocalists. When we were in Italy, the band usually stayed at Patty’s apartment, which had an extra floor. It was situated in the heart of Rome, literally only fifty metres away from the Pantheon. In between touring, I also regularly came to Rome to work as a session player, recording with artists like Renato Zero and Claudio Baglioni. In those years, I divided my time between Milan and Rome.”
“Patty, or Nicoletta as her real name was, had loads of charisma, which explains part of why she was such a popular singer. She was friendly with her touring band, but she could be hard to work with. This woman behaved so irrationally! She once kicked out the bass player from her band, simply because she wanted him replaced by an American guy who she was physically attracted to. One other time, her then boyfriend started noticing how she was making advances to the new guitarist in her band, Giorgio Cocilovo. A big row ensued – the result being that Giorgio gave up and left, which was a big shame, as he was a promising guy. With things like that happening, it’s hard to maintain a healthy and stable working relationship. Other than that, the concerts were good and the music was just fine. Patty’s repertoire wasn’t my favourite music, because I was very much into Chick Corea and Weather Report at the time, but it was work – and good work.”
“In 1975, when I got back to Milan after the first tour with Patty Pravo, I called Gianmaria Berlendis, a violinist who ran the main agency for studio musicians. He helped arrangers compiling their session orchestras. In Milan, I hadn’t done any other session work than with just Detto Mariano and Nuova Idea – and that was some time ago already. I had to start from scratch. Berlendis put it bluntly to me, ‘I’ll put you on a list of drummers, but you’ll be at the bottom of that list. Only if all the others aren’t available, I’ll get back in touch with you.’ After a couple of weeks, I was called up for the first time. As it happened, the arranger for that first session was happy with the work I had done for him – and he told Berlendis about me. As a result, I was put in a higher position on his list of drummers. Working like this, I gradually managed to climb the hierarchy of drummers in Milan’s studio business, working with arrangers like Giampiero Reverberi, Victor Bacchetta, Rodolfo Grieco, and Ruggero Cini. I produced a good sound, had a strong sense of timing, and was a quick sight-reader. That was a reliable set of weaponry for a studio musician.”
Cuffari (on the left, dressed in blue) with Patty Pravo and her band in the recording studio (late 1970s)
“In a way, the studio business worked as a natural selection. Hiring studios was expensive and the main thing about any production was to get it done as quickly as possible to save money. Any musician making a mistake slows down the production process. You can make a mistake once, perhaps twice, but if you’re making a habit of it, you’re out. Your colleagues would tell the arranger he’d better replace you for someone with more ability. Don’t forget that recordings were done on a limited amount of tracks. Any mistake meant that everyone had to start from scratch. If you do your work quickly and well, you’re a winner. Drum parts often hadn’t been written out. In such cases, the only thing written would be a chord – and I knew how to play them a prima vista. Arrangers learnt to rely on me. Before I knew it, I was bombarded with session work, especially for all kinds of disco music productions.”
“In 1977, I got to work for television for the first time. At the RAI Studios in Milan, there was a big band, but their drummer, Carlo Sola, only knew how to play swing. Pop music, which has this fixed tempo, is completely different than having to play Count Basie or Duke Ellington-style arrangements. Host Pippo Baudo was preparing a music entertainment show called Secondo te with his musical director Pippo Caruso, and Caruso decided he needed a more contemporary approach than Sola could give him – and he picked me. The theme tune to that show was written by Enzo Jannacci, who I got to work with a lot in the following years.”
“Pippo Caruso was a great musician and a wonderful man – and the same can be said about Pippo Baudo. I loved to work with them, but it took me a while to get used to TV work. The recordings were done with the orchestra as a whole, with the various sections of the band sitting far apart. That was new for me. When someone in the brass section played, there was a delay – and I tended to slow down the tempo as a result. It was horrible! After a while, I understood that I shouldn’t listen to others, instead just sticking to playing my own score. Some years later, when I started my involvement with TV shows at Mediaset (Italy’s main private TV company – BT) with conductor Augusto Martelli, the techniques employed had already become more advanced; we got to wear headphones, and things like that. From then on, problems like this belonged in the past.”
At the drum kit in a television show with Pippo Caruso's big band (c. 1978)
“Towards the end of the 1970s, I decided it was time to learn more about music theory. Thanks to Alberto Mompellio, a friend who played the Hammond organ, I got to follow lessons with his father, Federico, who was a renowned musicologist and an expert in Paganini. For some four years, Maestro Mompellio taught me classical harmony and counterpoint. In order to do the exercises he gave me, I had to learn to play the piano for a bit. Mompellio introduced me to classical music. One of the pieces he wanted me to study was ‘La mer’ by Debussy, which I fell in love with instantly. The way Debussy wrote for strings is incredible.”
“Federico Mompellio was a man of culture. His study was full of music books. The more I learned from him, the more I understood how ignorant I was. This was useful, because it taught me to always be on the lookout for more information – and never to stop studying. Over the years, I became an extreme workaholic. Whenever I went on holiday to the Adriatic coast with my wife and baby daughter, I took a silent drum kit with me. When my wife and daughter went to the beach, I often remained behind in the hotel room to practise.”
“Some time in the autumn of 1979, after a recording session in Milan, I found myself with my drumkit and everything on the pavement outside the studio having a lengthy conversation with the arranger I had been working with that day, Natale Massara. He just said, ‘Flaviano, I need to talk to you,’ and then he offered me the opportunity to go on a tour with him and a band accompanying Milva on a tour in Austria and Germany. I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect. Milva was out of fashion; she was my mother’s favourite singer. At the time, I was working with Renato Zero and Enzo Jannacci – and Milva seemed like a step back in time. Natale was stubborn, though, and he kept me talking for about an hour. In the end, I simply said yes because I wanted to go home.”
“Looking back, I’m very glad I did it. With Milva, I got to explore music genres I knew nothing about previously. This enabled me to learn about a new way of interpreting music. With my background of Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and Led Zeppelin, all of a sudden I found myself playing pieces by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht about the fight against Nazism. I discovered the musical world of Mikis Theodorakis and Jon Vangelis. In 1982, we performed in the Olympia Hall in Paris for two weeks with Milva interpreting Edith Piaf’s repertoire. I thought it was rather bold of her to perform Piaf’s works in the temple of music where Piaf herself had been the goddess, but the show was a triumph and one Parisian critic even wrote that a new goddess had arrived at Olympia.”
“Milva’s standard as an artist was really high. As her drummer, I had to learn how to differ between playing the drums pianissimo, mezzoforte, forte, or fortissimo. In regular pop music, you simply play at the same volume all the time. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but I loved the learning process… and the music we got to play fascinated me, especially the Brecht/Weill repertoire, which has an indepthness and history that are interesting and important. In other words, working with Milva allowed me to broaden my scope as a musician considerably.”
“After three years of working with Milva, I told Natale Massara that I wouldn’t go with them on the following year’s tour. He was dismayed and Milva herself was really angry with me. There was an impresario who had promised me the world if I joined the band of Alice for a set of concerts in Italy, Austria, and West Germany. In financial terms, most of those promises were never kept, but it meant that I worked in the circle of Alice and Franco Battiato for the best part of two years. I had known Franco since the 1960s, when he was still an unknown quantity. He was an interesting guy with tons of charisma and a great sense of humour. As a session player, I worked on many of Franco’s hits as a composer, like ‘Per Elisa’, with which Alice won the San Remo Festival in 1981, and ‘Un’estate al mare’ for Giuni Russo.”
Flaviano Cuffari recorded the drum parts of Alice's 1981 San Remo winner 'Per Elisa' (a composition by Franco Battiato and Giusto Pio)
“Following my spell with Alice, I also toured with Claudio Baglioni and Loredana Berté. Loredana was a bit special. She managed to have arguments with just about anyone, and for no good reason at all. One time, when I was in the car with her on the way back to Milan after a concert, we stopped at a highway restaurant to have a cup of coffee – and she started arguing with the guy at the counter. I escaped from the bar just to avoid being associated with her. On that same trip, she also had an argument with the toll road cashier. She’s not the type of person that I could have worked with for much longer than one tour.”
“In the months when I wasn’t away touring, I did recording sessions in Milan. At some point, I also got to work in Lugano regularly, where Mina (Italy’s most popular female singer – BT) had moved. At some point, her dad, Signor Mazzini, called me, ‘Cuffari, could you come up here please? We would like you to test our new studio.’ This was Mina’s private recording studio. Everything was brand new; when I arrived, they were just removing the cellophane from the mixing console. For an entire day, I was alone playing the drums, while Mazzini and his engineer calibrated the sound of the studio.”
“In subsequent years, I often came to Lugano to play sessions for Mina. One of the arrangers she regularly worked with was Mario Robbiani, the former chief of the Orchestra Radiosa, the orchestra of Ticino’s broadcasting service. After it had been disbanded, Robbiani continued to write arrangements. I can’t remember having come across another arranger who worked so fast. Sadly, he fell ill, but he was adamant he would continue recording until the very end. The last time, he had to break off the session he did with me and a bass player from Milan, Gigi Cappellotto. He just couldn’t go on. ‘Ragazzi, basta, I can’t do this anymore. I’m exhausted.’ As it turned out, he only had several weeks to live (Mario Robbiani’s death occurred in May 1993 – BT). I only have good memories of Maestro Robbiani. He was every inch a gentleman and a truly passionate musician.”
Flaviano Cuffari also recorded the drum tracks for the 1984 album 'Wonderful Together' by film composer and arranger Gian Stellari, who had been Italy's conductor in Eurovision 1956
“Being a regular in the recording studios made me ambitious to be a songwriter. Toto Cutugno once asked me to compose some songs for him, but he never put them on his repertoire. Later on, mostly working with my longtime friend Ricky Belloni, I managed to have some material recorded, most notably a song for Milva (‘Capitani coraggiosi’, which was an album track on Milva’s album ‘Identikit’ in 1983 – BT), but also for Fiordaliso and some others. Unfortunately, there was never a real hit, mainly because it was extremely difficult to sell my compositions.”
“One time, I sent two songs to Eros Ramazzotti, again without success – but I was staggered when I listened to his new record one year later. One of the tracks vaguely resembled one of the songs I had sent him. The harmonies and the rhythmic build-up were identical. Ramazzotti had used my ideas for his own melody. The next time I met him, he said, ‘You know, I like the way you compose songs! Send me some more if you like…’ Of course I didn’t send him anything. To my mind, the main problem was that singers and music publishers thought of me first and foremost as a session player instead of a songwriter. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to marketing my work, but I doubt if it would have made a difference. To others, my role in the recording business was being the guy sitting at the drum kit and nothing more.”
“To a degree, the same story applies to my arranging work. My ambitions as an arranger were less pronounced compared to composing. Yet, thanks to the background given to me by Maestro Mompellio, I was perfectly able to write orchestral arrangements. I did some little things here and there. One time, Ricky Belloni and I had composed a Quincy Jones type song, ‘Take Your Time’, a duet for two American singers living in Italy at the time, Ronny Jones and Naimy Hackett. I had added a big band arrangement to it. The singers did a wonderful job on the recording, but somehow the song was never released. When my friend Roberto Colombo, who meanwhile worked as an arranger for Antonella Ruggiero and others, heard it, he was impressed – and he offered me the chance to work with him on an album by Ivan Cattaneo (‘Vietato ai minori’ in 1986 – BT), sharing the arranging credits. Having worked as a drummer on Ivan’s previous albums, I was familiar with the style required for his songs… and so I did it. Yet again, though, my involvement as a session player hardly allowed me the time to build a new career as an arranger, so you won’t find that many arranging credits with my name on them.”
Far left, backing up Renato Zero on a concert tour (1988)
“After three years without any contact with either Natale Massara or Milva, Natale gave me a call. ‘Could you jump in to perform with Milva this evening? This is a one-off gig and our drummer isn’t available tonight.’ It was a gala night for Bulgari, the famous jeweller, in the Piccolo Teatro di Milano. Well, why not, so I said, ‘Let’s do a soundcheck together and see if it works.’ Long story short; we did the gig and at the end of the show, Milva told Natale, ‘I want Cuffari to stay with me from now on.’ This meant I was back in business! I remained Milva’s drummer on all her concert tours for the following twenty odd years. I owe a lot to Natale Massara. In discussions, I could be fierce at times – and so did some of the other musicians in the band – but Natale was the ideal mediator, calming down his band members when something trivial had happened. He was the type of guy who knew exactly how to build a strong team.”
“As for Milva herself, I never became too close with her. One day, she told me and Gigi Cappellotto, the bass player, that she always felt a little intimidated in our company. ‘I get on well with the other band members, but I just don’t seem able to build a normal conversation with the two of you.’ In spite of that, she felt a strong attachment to Gigi and me, because she knew she could trust us to play the correct tempo for her. The tempo was her one weakness; she didn’t have a good sense of rhythm. Other than that, Milva was a natural talent. Her intonation was simply perfect. I never heard her sing out of tune once, not even in rehearsal – and, in her professionalism, she could occasionally fall out with backing singers who went a little bit off-key.”
“In 1987, I accompanied Milva to Japan for the first time. She had been popular in that country since her first hit in the Japanese language some twenty years previously. For our tour, it was just the rhythm group which was Italian. We worked with local string players which were added to the band. In the end, we did eight Japan tours with her. Inevitably, this took a toll on my family life. We were away in Tokyo for fifty days. Austrian and German tours also involved longer stays away from home. As a result, I missed important parts of my daughter’s growing up. Whenever I was touring in Italy, I let my wife and daughter come with me. I can’t say I loved life on the road, but I didn’t hate it either; I endured it, but I didn’t suffer! It was my normal way of living for decades. I never looked at it as a problem. For better or for worse, this was my job.”
Milva's back-up band backstage in Berlin during a tour across Germany in 1988, from left to right - Gigi Cappellotto (bass), Danilo Riccardi (keys), Flaviano Cuffari (drums), Alberto Mompellio (keys), Claudio Bazzari (guitar), and Natale Massara (piano, musical director)
“One time, in Japan, we were due to perform in a live TV entertainment show. We were informed that the host was a professional conductor – and that he insisted on conducting Milva’s performance. This posed a problem, because her music didn’t have a fixed tempo, as regular pop music did. Milva would slow down and she relied on Natale Massara to decide when to pick up the tempo. If you don’t know the repertoire, you’ll find yourself in trouble – and there wasn’t even time to do a rehearsal with this Japanese conductor. Still, the man couldn’t be talked out of it. Milva was beside herself with anger. The discussion arose how we could make this work. At that point, Natale suggested, ‘Flaviano, when the maestro has to accelerate, couldn’t you give him a sign?’ It was a good idea, because, at such moments, my hands were free. I was very nervous, because here was someone standing up in front of the orchestra who shouldn’t have been there and now the responsibility to make it work had been passed onto me. You could describe it as directing an orchestra indirectly. Fortunately, not a single mistake occurred. In the end, the Japanese maestro came to embrace me.”
“Meanwhile, the recording industry was changing rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s. I remember listening to ‘Vacanze romane’ by Matia Bazar for the first time. My good friend Roberto Colombo had done the production of this track. That was in the early 1980s. His approach to the arrangement for the song was very electronic. I was puzzled how he had managed to create all those sounds – and he then explained how he had used a sequencer to programme the keyboards. It was all new to me, but Roberto had always been interested in this type of technological wizardry. It was a fascinating development, but from the viewpoint of studio musicians it was a worrying time. More and more work was taken away from us by machines and computers. Musicians in Milan organised a strike to warrant their rights, but with hindsight it was a rearguard action.”
“The development was inevitable, given that recording with fewer musicians involved was more profitable for record companies, but the sound of pop music didn’t necessarily improve as a result. String lines being played by synthesisers usually makes for a poorer result than having the violinists of La Scala in Milan playing for you, even though audiences hardly took notice or quickly got used to the new sound. Those La Scala players lost their studio gigs. I was fortunate to be a drummer and not a violinist! I bought myself an Emulator, an electronic drum kit; the sounds it produced were very fashionable in the 1980s. When working on disco music, producers insisted on me using the Emulator instead of a traditional kit. By the mid-1990s, studio work was really drying up – and it made me sad. Playing sessions had always been the favourite part of my job as a drummer. In the studio, you were helping to create new music, new songs every day. It’s a pity that this session business has more or less evaporated. Most recording studios closed down. Instead, everybody has built his own home studio – and so have I – but it’s just not the same.”
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The television band Cantautores, from left: Mauro Gazzola (keyboards), Angela Baggi (vocals), Dino D'Autorio (bass guitar), Alberto Radius (guitar, vocals), Bernardo Lanzetti (vocals), Mauro Lusini (vocals), Flaviano Cuffari (drums), Stefano Previsti (keyboards), and Valerio Galavotti (sax) (1989)
“In fact, at some point in the 1990s, I started worrying about my income, but I needn’t have done so. Compared to many of my colleagues, there was enough work for me in live concerts and in television. In fact, I even joined a group led by Alberto Radius, which worked as the house band in a programme for Mediaset and subsequently toured Italy. Our job in the TV show was to play refreshed, modern arrangements to popular hit songs from the 1960s. We were called Cantaurores and we enjoyed particular success in Southern Italy – also with our own repertoire, of which we released two albums.”
“Throughout the 1990s, I did a lot of work for Mediaset, working with different conductors; Gianfranco Intra, Renato Serio, Peppe Vessicchio, and Vince Tempera. Each of them had his own qualities. Tempera, for example, was a very fast arranger. It was astounding to see how much workload he could take on simultaneously. He was particularly good at pop-oriented music. Vessicchio and Renato Serio were more classically oriented. Serio’s string arrangements were incredible. Often, when we had finished a show, I asked him if I could take his scores with me to study them more closely at home, trying to find out how he had managed to create that lush sound.”
“Working for television often involved staying on the set for hours on end without getting to play much. I preferred working in live shows, when you have to perform on the spot – but, when programmes were pre-recorded, directors usually required incredible amounts of time to get the job done. ‘We’ll restart from the beginning, because the dancing girl over there should have made a different move.’ As a musician, I found this tedious and tiresome. In that sense, I was always happy to get away from television and go on a concert tour, especially when working abroad. In Germany and Japan, you couldn’t fail to notice how much better organised people in those parts of the world were than we had become used to in most parts of Italy. I am from Milan – and the Milanese in Italy have a reputation for being much more punctual than Italians living to the south of the River Po. In the recording studios in Milan, starting at 9am meant that the conductor counted in the band exactly at nine, so you’d better make sure you were there on time. Whenever I have an appointment at 3pm, I’ll make sure to be there at 2.50, just like Germans do. The amount of chaos and disorganisation so typical for Latin people which you can find elsewhere in Italy freaks me out, but it’s a matter of mentality…”
With percussionist Sandro De Bellis and American disco singer Gloria Gaynor (2002)
“Meanwhile, with Milva and Natale Massara, I got to do occasional concerts with symphony orchestras. There was a fantastic series of symphonic concerts in Belgium with the Liège Royal Philharmonic, followed by a tour in Germany with the Padua Symphony Orchestra a few years later. I don’t play my parts differently when seated in the midst of such a huge orchestra, but the musical enjoyment you get out of those concerts is just of a different level. It’s like a balm for your ears.”
“In Italy itself, there was a progressive amount of film music concerts done with classical orchestras in the early 2000s. In such cases, a pop rhythm group was required. One time, I was given a call by the timpanist of the Orchestra i Pomeriggi Musicali, a classical orchestra from Milan. It was an urgent matter. ‘Just bring your drum kit and I’ll tell you more when you get here,’ he told me. I arrived in the early afternoon. As it happened, they were rehearsing for a concert of soundtracks. The first piece they gave me was the theme tune of Mission Impossible, which is written in 5/4, an unusual rhythm. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to play it the first time around; and the orchestra played along. At the end of the piece, to my astonishment, all the other players applauded me loudly. As was explained to me, they had booked a different drummer, who had failed to play the piece correctly time after time in the morning rehearsal. The entire orchestra had to rely on the tempo played by the drummer – and, in that rehearsal, they found they could rely on me. It was nice to be able to help them out.”
“In the early 2000s, apart from composing and arranging some advertisement music here and there, I was invited to join the band which accompanied Gloria Gaynor on three concert tours in Italy. There were some twenty concerts across the country, a unique experience. Around that same time, I also had the opportunity to work with Donna Summer. She was invited to perform in Milan in a one-off private concert on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Dolce & Gabbana. These were special events – and, having been a curious person all my life, I was eager to jump at the opportunity. In 2005, I had the good fortune of working in Cuba for a short while, doing a series of concerts with a Swiss blues band, Crossfire. We performed in the Teatro Karl Marx in Havana. During my stay on the island, I developed a passion for Latin jazz. Unfortunately, the guy working in this genre who I admire the most – a Cuban drummer called Horacio Hernández – happened to be in Milan at the time rather than in Havana, so I never got to meet him!”
Milva and her band on their last Japan tour in 2008, from left: Claudio Bazzari (guitar), Natale Massara (band leader, piano), John Ken Nuzzo (tenor singer), Milva, Flaviano Cuffari (drums), Danilo Riccardi (keys), and Gigi Cappellotto (bass guitar)
“Milva’s last concert tour was in Japan in 2008. It’s incredible how long a career she had. She accomplished it by adopting an austere lifestyle. When I joined her band, she was already in her early forties, but even then she was leading the life of an athlete. She never ate a meal before a concert and afterwards she withdrew into her hotel room immediately, ordering a bit of fruit, some cake, and something to drink – and after that, she went to bed straightaway. Everything in her existence was directed at resting her voice. She knew how important it was to do so as she grew older. A concert tour lasted for about two months on average, and for each one, she joined Natale and the rest of the band in a restaurant one time only. The remainder of her evenings were all spent in the hotel. That’s what you call a true professional.”
“By the time of the last tour with Milva, I was already working as a teacher at the Centro Professione Musica Institute in Milan for about a year. The CPM is a private school recognised by the Ministry of Education. Whereas the traditional music academies mostly focus on classical music, we offer courses in jazz, rock, and pop music. The school was founded in the 1980s by Franco Mussida, formerly the guitarist of the historic Italian prog-rock band PFM. Franco had asked me to join his school as a drum teacher many times before, but I had refused steadfastly. At the time, I would rather play music myself than teach others how to do the job. Somehow, by the time I was approaching sixty, I felt that this was perhaps the time to pass my experience onto a younger generation. Apart from teaching drums, I have also written my own course of music history and musica d’insieme, ensemble playing. Another subject dear to my heart – in fact a subject which I invented myself – is teaching bass players how to develop a good groove while playing with a drummer. In any popular music concert, the heart of the sound is always produced by those two musicians, so it’s essential that they know how to work together in creating the best possible result.”
“Honestly, I cannot say that I’m a natural-born teacher; I lack patience, especially with pupils who are less talented or not so diligent. The average level of students in my classes is rather high, though. It took me some time to find the best way to teach. I make a point of preparing all my lessons in detail. In my early years, I was exhausted after a week of teaching – and I wasn’t even working fulltime! It’s hard work. Whenever a pupil doesn’t perform well, you can’t just send him away. You have to try to establish a personal relationship to find out what is bothering him. Many of my best students are from the south of Italy. Usually, in the first year, they address me with Voi, which is archaic Italian for Lei, the pronoun to address someone politely. In the second year, they tend to switch to Lei, and by the time they are in their third year, they come into the classroom, spontaneously asking, ‘Hey, Flaviano, how are you doing today?’, which means they think of me as a teacher as well as a friend. In such instances, my work is rewarding indeed.”
Flaviano (in purple) with, from left, fellow drummer Danilo Sivalli, singer-songwriter Franco Fasano, and guitarist/singer and lifelong friend Ricky Belloni (2011)
“I don’t do concert tours any longer, but I have continued playing the drums in serate, concert evenings, once in a while. Last week, I even got to perform in a private concert organised for employees of the American secret service CIA working in Milan. It may sound exciting, but it was just a corporate show like any other! Some years ago, I was invited to come to Lugano to play in a masterclass with saxophonist Eric Marienthal. Even at my age, I was a little intimidated to work with the sax player of Chick Corea’s Elektric Band, but everything went well. In fact, I worked with him once or twice more after that.”
“One of my remaining ambitions is to stage a musical. In my childhood, I had been fascinated by the musical films with Fred Astaire which I saw on television. To me, those films represent absolute beauty – and it’s something that has stayed with me all my life. The idea to write a musical was given to me by a friend, Francesco Sartori, the composer of Andrea Bocelli’s ‘Con te partirò’. By now, I have got three fully-fledged musical scores on the shelf. One of them is called Chatterbox, its main theme being the fight of good against evil in a dystopian future in which Internet companies have taken over power. My latest piece is called Friendship. The playback tapes for all the songs are finished, but it’s not easy to find a funder who is willing to put the 400,000 euros on the table which are required to put it on stage. It remains to be seen if we will manage to get such a project off the ground.”
“I’m 73 years old now and I don’t have in mind to continue working as a teacher forever, but the moment to call it a day hasn’t arrived yet. My health is still coming along well. My wife sometimes asks me if I haven’t had enough of working yet, but then I simply go off to music school and say, ‘See you this evening!’ The fact of the matter is that I love working; and I love studying to get better. To my mind, everyone should be a lifelong student. Whenever I see a workman – no matter if it’s a plumber or an electrician – doing his job, I’m curious to find out what exactly he’s doing… and then to try it myself. That’s how I built my home studio! All that’s required is willpower and a little bit of dexterity. This curiosity and diligence are traits which were given to me by my father – and I’ve passed them on to my daughter. I suppose it’s in the genes!”
Flaviano at the Centro Professione Musica Institute in Milan with fellow drummers Giovanni Giorgi (left) and Roberto Gualdi (middle) (2019)
EUROVISION SONG CONTEST
Flaviano Cuffari took part as a conductor in the Eurovision Song Contest on one occasion, leading the orchestra in 1991 for the Swiss entry ‘Canzone per te’, composed by Renato Mascetti and interpreted by Sandra Simó. However, Cuffari’s involvement in the Swiss Eurovision pre-selections, and more specifically his connection with songwriter Renato Mascetti, goes back several years earlier. In 1985, Cuffari wrote the arrangement to Mascetti’s first attempt at Eurovision glory, a song called ‘Una notte a Casablanca’. In Geneva, to the accompaniment of the orchestra of Stuff Combe, Renato Mascetti himself performed this song, finishing in sixth place in a field of nine competitors.
“In those years, I regularly worked in Lugano, Switzerland, where Mina had her recording studio,” Cuffari recalls. “One of Mina’s arrangers was Mario Robbiani, who liked to call upon me and a good friend of mine, bass player Gigi Cappellotto, for his recording sessions. As it happened, Gigi had got to know a sound engineer who worked for the Swiss-Italian radio service. This engineer had ambitions as a singer, but he wasn’t a very good one. After he had composed himself a song, he asked Gigi if he knew an arranger who could record it with him. Gigi knew that I occasionally wrote demo arrangements and worked as a co-arranger in the recording studios in Milan. Arranging never was my main line of work, but I knew my way around in counterpoint and harmony. After all, I had followed lessons in those subjects with a private teacher, Federico Mompellio, for four years.”
“Because recording sessions were rather expensive, this Swiss engineer shared the costs for the studio with a friend of his, another amateur musician and aspiring songwriter. This was Renato Mascetti. Renato had also written a song and, after he had heard about his friend working with me as his arranger, he decided he wanted to jump at the occasion and got in touch with me as well. Renato’s song was ‘Una notte a Casablanca’, which I recorded in the style employed by Roberto Colombo for Matia Bazar in those years – a mix of electronic and acoustic elements. Renato went on to submit his song for the Swiss selection for the Eurofestival. Even though he didn’t win, he left a good impression.”
“After that first mutual work, Renato and I became good friends – in fact, very good friends. We were about the same age; he was two years younger than me. In the summer of 1985, I was the drummer in the band of Claudio Baglioni, which toured the whole of Italy – and Renato and his wife Liliana followed me on this trip, attending all of those concerts. Liliana also became good friends with my wife. In short, we soon became amici di famiglia, paying private visits to each other. We saw each other whenever we could. We even went on a holiday to Sicily together. Renato lived in Morbio Inferiore, very close to Chiasso on the Swiss-Italian border. His parents’ house was in Lugano; a huge villa with a swimming pool. Once, I was invited there and I saw a Van Gogh hanging on the wall. ‘I suppose that’s a replica?’, I asked casually, but it was then explained to me that it was a real one! That was when I understood Renato’s parents were really wealthy people.”
“By profession, Renato was a psychiatrist. He worked in a hospital. Like all psychiatrists, he was a vulnerable person. One day, when I was at his place, he received a telephone call. It was his weekend, but still he took it. ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘this is a serious situation I cannot ignore.’ Then he withdrew into a room to take the call. When he came back, it struck me how dejected he looked. He was devastated. I told him frankly, ‘Renato, listen, you’re not the person to do this type of work. You absorb other peoples’ emotions like a sponge.’ He would have been a happier person, if he had been able to leave his emotions at the door when arriving back home in the evening, but he couldn’t. I don’t know why he had chosen to be a psychiatrist – perhaps to satisfy the ambitions of his parents. Really, it would have been better if he had chosen another profession. Somehow, he always loaded himself with problems, but to me he was a really good guy and an excellent friend.”
Renato Mascetti's only solo release, the longplayer 'L'isola', released following his participation as a singer-songwriter in the 1988 Swiss Eurovision final, in which he finished in third place behind Céline Dion
“Music was Renato’s outlet. He was writing songs all the time, recording them as demos and asking me for my opinion. Unlike me, he didn’t have the theoretical background and he therefore relied on my advice. I gave him suggestions for chords which would make his melodic ideas more interesting. Whenever he asked me to write arrangements to his songs, he paid me for it – after all, I had to travel from Milan to Switzerland and back, and it took me time to write those charts. The fees I charged were certainly lower than I would have asked from others. I felt a bit uneasy about asking for money from such a good friend, but he insisted and he felt it was perfectly normal. The money never got in the way of our friendship.”
“After Renato had done the Swiss Eurovision final in 1985, he had a bold idea. ‘Flaviano, why don’t we take part in the San Remo Festival? I’ll compose a song and then we’ll find a suitable singer. Would you write the arrangement for me?’ When I asked him how on earth he thought we were going to have our song chosen, he said, ‘My family is friends with the owners of Totip.’ Totip was a popular prize competition in those years, a kind of lottery. ‘Because Totip are the main sponsors of San Remo,’ he continued, ‘they will certainly help us.’ I was baffled, but I had no reason to doubt his words. Renato then composed a song, which was accepted by a publishing company called Durium. We found an Australian singer of Italian origin who sang really well, but Durium’s artistic director, Roberto Guarnaccia, managed to find us a beautiful girl who sang even better. She had just won a competition for debutants hosted by Pippo Baudo. She was Baudo’s protégée – and this was important, because Baudo ran a TV production company with Gianni Ravera, who was the artistic director of the San Remo Festival. So out went the Australian singer and we recorded the song with this new girl.”
“We then had to take part in a pre-selection of young artists aspiring to be in the 1986 San Remo Festival. This casting was held at the San Remo Casino. In the audience was Gino Bramieri, a famous Italian comedian. After our girl singer had performed, he got up from his seat and walked up to the stairs leading up to the podium. Spontaneously embracing her, he said, ‘This is really good… you’re going to win the festival!’ That was a good sign! Eventually, we were informed that she had been put on the list of participants for the festival. We had made it! We proceeded to polish the arrangement for the record version. Then, mere weeks before the festival, with all preparations being in full swing, I received a call from the girl’s agent, ‘Flaviano, we’ve been kicked out!’ ‘What?’ ‘Yes, we’ve been kicked out. I have just received confirmation.’ After all the work we had put into the project, this came as a blow. As it turned out, Ravera had run into a dispute with the owner of the Durium record label. It was really sad, especially for the girl. She was extremely talented, but I’ve never heard of her since. That’s what the San Remo Festival is like. It has its own peculiar set of rules.”
“We never tried our luck again in San Remo, but Renato remained very keen to take part in the Swiss Eurovision finals. After ‘Una notte a Casablanca’, we tried every year. When composing a song, he made a first version at his digital piano. Because Renato didn’t read music, I had to make the transcription – and then I filled in the gaps and wrote the arrangement. Initially, we recorded his songs in a professional studio, but this was rather costly and Renato found it embarrassing to ask his father for money. He was a doctor, but his wages at the hospital weren’t high enough for him to spend his money in whichever way he liked. Eventually, I recorded the demo versions, which were also used as playback tapes in the Swiss final, with a TEAC, a four-track recording device. This way, we saved considerably on the costs of a production.”
After Mascetti’s composition ‘Questa vita’, a song interpreted by Paolo Monte, had landed a sixth position in the 1987 Swiss Eurovision final, Mascetti took to the stage himself in the pre-selection in Morges the following year. With his creation ‘L’isola’, he managed a respectable third place, sharing the podium with runners-up Furbaz and winner Céline Dion. Flaviano Cuffari remembers the occasion well.
Single release of 'Canzone per te' by Sandra Simó, Switzerland's Eurovision entry in Rome (1991)
“Céline Dion was a young lady flown in from Canada. Nobody had ever heard of her, but she won over everyone in the pre-selection with her stunning voice. I remember her song, ‘Ne partez pas sans moi’. It was composed by a Turkish musician (Atilla Şereftuğ – BT) with the lyrics written by a woman whose first language was Italian, Nella Martinetti. Backstage, Nella stayed on her feet the entire evening. She never sat down. When I asked her why, she explained that she wanted to avoid having folds in her trousers. She was determined to look impeccable for the prizewinning ceremony. After the final, I was interviewed by a radio reporter who asked me about my opinion of the winning singer. I said something like, ‘It is obvious this girl has a natural talent. She has all it takes to have a successful career, provided she is surrounded by a team of able people.’ Well, she went on to win the Eurofestival and then David Foster took over as her producer, one of the best talent scouts in the world… and the rest is history!”
“After Renato had finished in third place in the 1988 Swiss selection, we recorded a full album in a professional studio in Milan; Renato’s only solo album. ‘L’isola’ became the title track, but it also included ‘Questa vita’ and ‘Una notte a Casablanca’. In the studio, I called upon the help of my friends, bass player Gigi Cappellotto and guitarist Ricky Belloni. I wrote all the arrangements. Some of Renato’s compositions were really nice, but honestly speaking he wasn’t the best singer in the world. Recording this album was mainly about satisfying his personal ambition. There was no plan behind it to conquer the Italian-speaking music market.”
In 1989, Renato Mascetti and Flaviano Cuffari did not have one, but two irons in the fire in the Swiss final. Mascetti himself performed ‘La voce del mare’, while he penned ‘Una canzone per sognare’ for a lady singer called Nadia Goj. Goj came quite close to the top with a third place. As Cuffari recalls, though, there could have been a third song by Mascetti with even better chances of success.
“The year after Céline Dion had won, Renato had written a song which was really similar to ‘Ne partez pas sans moi’. That’s what you could get with an amateur musician like Renato Mascetti. There was always a hint of dilettantism in his style of composing. To make up for that, I was used to changing the buildup of his songs a bit, making adjustments here and there, just to make his compositions sound a little better. My aim was never to be credited as his co-composer. ‘No,’ I always said, when Renato asked if I wanted to sign a composition together with him, ‘this was your song and it will remain your song. My role is as an arranger and I’m happy with that.’ Still, I had to beware that he wouldn’t be offended by certain interventions that I made. In the case of the song I just mentioned, I really felt that it was a total rip-off of Céline Dion’s song. When I told Renato my opinion about his demo, he just said, ‘No, no, it’s not like ‘Ne partez pas sans moi’ at all.’”
“Just because I felt it would have been too painful to submit such a song, I stuck to my original idea, making the adjustments I felt were required. As it turned out, Renato took this very badly, although he didn’t tell me directly. When the song selection for the 1989 Swiss final was published, Renato had two songs in the running, but this song which I had adapted had not been included. I was surprised, because the singer was Alex Baroni, who had his breakthrough as a singer in San Remo some years later (in 1997 with ‘Cambiare’ – BT). At the time, Alex worked as a backing singer in Milan and he was obviously very talented. When I asked Renato about what had happened, he just said the song had been refused – end of story. Years later, he revealed the real story; he had never submitted the song at all, just because he had felt so offended by what I had done to his creation. So I always had to make sure not to wander too far from the path that Renato had in mind; if I did that, there was a risk that he would take it personally.”
Sandra Simó and her backing group at the first rehearsal at Cinecittà Studios
“Backstage after the 1989 Swiss festival, Renato was approached by a young lady called Sandra Studer. She was only about twenty years of age. I don’t remember why she was there; possibly as a backing singer. She was a gorgeous young lady with loads of charisma. Her first language was German, but she spoke French, Italian, English, and Spanish fluently. In fact, her mother was from Spain – and as an artist, she preferred to call herself Sandra Simó, because Simó was her mother’s last name. This Sandra asked Renato if he could write her a song in Italian for the Eurofestival – and that is what he did. He told me about her; and so we started working with Sandra. In 1990, she took part with ‘Lo so’, but that was a weak entry. We tried again the following year with ‘Canzone per te’, and with that song we won the Swiss selection and the ticket to the international festival in Rome.”
In the 1991 Swiss Eurovision pre-selection, Sandra Simó won first prize against, among others, two singers who had already represented the Alpine republic in previous Eurovision editions; Carole Rich and, more notably, Daniela Simons, who took part in the 1991 selection with an Italian-language power ballad penned by her partner Atilla Şereftuğ with lyrics by Nella Martinetti – the same songwriting team which had won the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest with Céline Dion. In the 1991 Swiss final, however, Daniela Simons had to settle for second place behind Sandra Simó. When listening to ‘Canzone per te’, one cannot escape the impression that Mascetti, yet again, allowed himself to be inspired by ‘Ne partez pas sans moi’; even the first two lines of the chorus, ‘Portami via con te / Non mi lasciare mai’ (Take me away with you / Never leave me alone) are almost a copy of ‘Ne partez pas sans moi / Laissez-moi vous suivre’ (Don’t leave without me / Let me come with you).
“Yes, the song was written in the same vein as the Baroni song two years previously,” Cuffari admits. “Frankly, when I first listened to Renato’s demo version of ‘Canzone per te’, I wasn’t that impressed, but I couldn’t help judging his output as if he were my son, always trying to see the good in it. I just felt he earned his moment in the limelight as a songwriter, so I gave it my best. Again, I made some adjustments; the first thing I did was knitting the different parts of Renato’s original demo together, creating fluent transitions. Then I added a modulation and a finale, two elements which I felt made the song better suited for a festival. In a song festival, you have to make sure that the end of the song is strong and memorable.”
“As said, the song in itself was nothing special. I don’t know if it would have made an indelible impression at a San Remo Festival, for example. No, believe me, the secret behind its success was Sandra herself. At the time when Sandra approached Renato, we couldn’t tell if she was a good singer, but she turned out to be extremely talented. Moreover, the camera loved her. Not every beautiful girl has the ability to reach out to viewers, but she had those bright eyes which burned through the TV screen. Apart from all that, she was obviously smart as well as ambitious. At the time, she was a student of German literature, which she considered the ideal preparation for a career as a television host.”
“After we had won the Swiss final, a single was released of ‘Canzone per te’, with an arrangement done with electronic instruments. The single doesn’t mention my name; it says produced by Renato Mascetti, not because Renato had had any contribution to the arrangement, but simply because all the money required to record the song had been put on the table by him and him alone.”
“Now that we were going to go to the Eurofestival in Rome, the studio arrangement had to be rewritten for an orchestra, because, contrary to the Swiss final, there was a large orchestra to accompany all the contestants. In the Swiss final, Sandra had been backed up on stage by Renato himself, who mimed the guitar, but in Rome, we wanted to do everything live. At least, as far as I remember, using a backing track to go with the orchestra was never a point of discussion between Renato and me. If he had insisted, he would have had his way – after all, the production was his – but he didn’t bring it up. In fact, he didn’t interfere with me when I wrote the arrangement in the studio or the orchestration for Rome. Apart from a full orchestral score, I added parts for four backing singers. Renato himself didn’t feature on stage behind Sandra in Rome. I don’t think he had the ambition to be up there. In fact, I never asked him if he was happy with what I had written, but I suppose he was – he never told me otherwise, either before going to Rome or after the event.”
“Writing orchestral scores wasn’t my first line of work, but I had done it previously. Some years before, Pino D’Angiò had been selected to represent Italy in the Viña del Mar Song Festival in Chile; and Pino asked me to write the orchestration which he took with him to South America. I didn’t accompany him there; the score must have been conducted by a local maestro. Writing for orchestras was something which I loved doing. Even before studying privately with Mompellio, I had bought myself Henry Mancini’s arranging handbook, working through it by myself, simply because I was so fascinated by the subject. In 1991, there weren’t computers yet which could help you writing arrangements, so I wrote out all parts by hand. My method of writing a score is always to sing the different parts to myself. I simply follow my own taste and intuition. Perhaps I could have done better on the score for the Eurofestival, because no piece of music is ever perfect, but by and large I think the orchestration for Rome worked well.”
“Another subject which was never discussed was who would conduct the song in Rome. I was going to do that myself! I was looking forward to coming to Rome, although it would be a lie to say that taking part in the Eurofestival was a dream come true. It wasn’t an event which was very important in Italy, although I remember watching Gigliola Cinquetti and France Gall win the contest when I was a child, in the 1960s. Song festivals never became my prime interest, but I would tune in when I had no other obligations. Perhaps I would have been a little more excited about the prospect of taking part in the festival in another country than Italy. I would have been thrilled to work with an orchestra in a Northern European country. Throughout my career, I have had the opportunity to work in many parts of Europe, but never in Scandinavia.” That would have been exhilarating.”
“The Swiss delegation was led by a Mrs Pattacini, who was the widow of Iller Pattacini, a famous accordionist and arranger from the Romagna region. We stayed in the Hilton Cavalieri, a five-star hotel not far from the Vatican, which offered a wonderful view of the city-centre. Sandra took her mama and her fiancé with her. The guy looked exactly like Superman; really, it was as if you saw Clark Kent himself walking into the room. Believe it or not, when we were taken from the hotel to the rehearsals at Cinecittà, the concert venue, our bus was accompanied by an escort of motorised policemen. The bus drove at full speed through the heart of Rome, while the police put sirens on – all other traffic had to wait to allow us to pass, as if we were really important people. It was a funny experience.”
“The orchestra at Cinecittà was the Rai Light Music Orchestra. The conductor for the festival was Bruno Canfora, an important musician who was already a household name back in the time when I was a child. I had never previously worked with him. When I arrived for the first rehearsal with the orchestra, I had a slight feeling that he might have discovered something in my score which wasn’t correct. Canfora had checked all scores beforehand, rehearsing them with the orchestra. So I said to him, ‘Apologies, maestro, if my arrangement is a piece of crap,’ but he just smiled and replied, ‘No, va bene, stai tranquillo!’ (= No, it’s alright, don’t worry!). That put me at ease, so I thanked him for that.”
Sandra with Spain's contestant in Rome, Sergio Dalma
“In the orchestra behind Canfora, I recognised some smiling faces. A lot of orchestra members were musicians I had previously worked with in the recording studios in Milan. Some of the ladies in the string group were originally from Northern Italy. They had found a permanent appointment at the Rai in Rome, but there were more former studio colleagues in other groups of the orchestra too. These were people who knew that I was usually in the band – and that now, due to some coincidence, I was up front conducting them. This created a bond between them and me. Already in rehearsals, they were supportive of me, ‘Come on, Flaviano, go for it!’ So, in a way, you could say I played a home match in Rome. I was never a Don Sebesky, but I knew enough about arranging to lead this orchestra for my own score. Essentially, conducting is about putting in your own musical emotion – and why would you feel nervous, when there were all these friendly faces in the orchestra looking your way?”
“To my surprise, I found four trombone players in the orchestra. In the information that had been passed onto me by Swiss television, the specifications had stated that there would be three; so I had written a score for three trombonists. One of them was a guy from Modena who I had worked with a lot in the 1970s as a session player. So I asked him, ‘How come there’s four of you?’ ‘We were already wondering why you had written for only three trombones,’ he said. I explained that I had been given the wrong information. ‘Well, alright,’ I replied, ‘I will write an extra trombone part for you.’ And so I did! It was a little bit weird how such a miscommunication could have occurred, but it was a problem which was solved soon enough.”
“One of the cello players was Fabrizio Fabiano, who I had worked with previously in the orchestra accompanying Milva on her concert tours. His father was a bass player who I knew from the recording studios in Milan. During rehearsals, at the start of a short break, Fabrizio approached me and said, ‘Flaviano, listen, wouldn’t it be a good idea to stay at the same octave here instead of going to the low octave?’ He showed me his score for our song, pointing to a detail in it. I took a quick look and asked him, ‘Do you think that would sound better?’ When he said that he felt it did, I said, ‘Well, if you think that is the best solution, then go ahead and correct your score!’ Of course, I could have refused to listen to his advice, but as a studio musician I knew that arrangers could make mistakes. I had regularly found myself trying to figure out what to make of an utterly illegible drum part on my music desk. In such a case, I would walk up to the arranger, asking him if I could follow my own ideas. In this case, it was just a tiny detail in the cello score, but an intelligent arranger knows how to take advantage of the suggestions of music professionals he is working with. That’s why I was happy to accept Fabrizio’s advice.”
“The drummer in the orchestra was Enzo Restuccia, a Neapolitan guy who was a little older than me – a guy with loads of experience. He was the father of Marina Rei, who had a spell of success as a pop singer back in the day. When Enzo saw me, he was ostensibly happy he got to work with a fellow drummer. His role was quite important, given that the Rai didn’t provide a sequencer which could indicate the tempo with a click. This shows you that the broadcasting service was a little old-fashioned, because sequencers were perfectly established by that time. Because of that, it was up to Enzo to give three beats in advance to indicate the tempo to the rest of the orchestra. Behind him was the timpani player, who was disappointed that I hadn’t written a part for him. ‘Would you like to play along then?’, I asked, and when he said yes, I said, ‘No problem, come with me and I’ll write a part for you.’ He then went with me to a side-room, where I wrote him a little additional timpani score. He was grateful. I was happy to lift his spirits – and needless to say he was totally rooting for me all week.”
“Generally speaking, though, the orchestra wasn’t a happy bunch. They had to sit there all day, working long hours. Added to that, Romans have a reputation for not being that eager to work hard. One of the rehearsals I did with them was quite late during the day and they were all longing to go home. Having worked as a drummer in television orchestras for many years, I knew how strenuous the job could be. All too often, TV producers take orchestras for granted. To make matters worse, they were running behind schedule, because some conductors before me had taken up more time than had been allotted to them. From the orchestra, I could hear musicians muttering in a distinct Roman accent, ‘Please, Flaviano, let’s shorten the rehearsal. We’ve been here for so long already!’ And so we did, because there was little reason to extend the rehearsal time. They played my score flawlessly from the beginning. We didn’t experience any sound problems either. I had taken bass player Gigi Cappellotto with me to sit in the control room and check if the sound mix was ok, but everything was just fine.”
Sandra backstage in Rome with SRF's television commentator Beni Thurnheer
“We experienced some problems during rehearsals, but this had to do with something completely different; one of the backing singers. I had booked four singers, two boys and two girls. The first girl I had asked was Paola Repele, a trusted colleague from the world of recording in Milan, but I needed a second female voice too. Someone then suggested to me picking Antonella Melone, who I didn’t know, but she turned out to be ok. One of the guys was my lifelong friend Ricky Belloni, but the second was Renzo Meneghinello, a backing vocalist who usually worked with Ron. I hadn’t worked with him very often. In Rome, I quickly noticed that Renzo had problems. He frankly didn’t have the level to be up there. He just wasn’t reliable enough. In the vocal parts I had written, it was essential that the harmonisations for the four voices were performed well, but Renzo kept on making mistakes all week. Ricky Belloni even suggested just singing with three voices and letting Renzo mime along, but he kept on promising to get it right next time. He was a source of worry all week.”
“During our stay in Rome, Renzo Meneghinello made a bit of a fool of himself. The commentator for the French-speaking Swiss broadcasting service was staying in the same hotel as us (Lolita Morena, who had co-hosted the 1989 Eurovision Song Contest in Lausanne – BT). She was a beautiful woman, who was engaged to German footballer Lothar Matthäus. Perhaps Renzo didn’t know this or he just didn’t care, but whatever the truth; he fell in love with her and started putting little notes under the door of her hotel room. When he didn’t get a reply, he went out to buy flowers for her. You should know that he had come to Rome with his own car, a Volkswagen Golf. When he returned to the Hilton with his bouquet of flowers, it turned out there was no space left on the parking lot of the hotel – and so he had to leave his car in the street. The next day, it turned out that his Volkswagen had been stolen… and of course he got nowhere near this beautiful television host either.”
“In spite of this, we were feeling rather confident in the days leading up to the competition. This was mainly because Sandra was holding her own wonderfully well. She may have felt the pressure, but she never showed it. It was amazing how a young lady could be oozing so much confidence. It just goes to show what a strong personality she has. Informally, we knew that Swiss television didn’t want us to win, because they had had to organise the festival two years previously and they were still reeling from the financial backlash of having to stage the contest. In a way, this lowered the pressure for the entire delegation. We knew we didn’t have to worry about winning.”
“Even without this, I don’t think we stood a chance of walking away with first prize. As I had already noted when listening to Renato’s demo for the first time, the song was simply too much of a rip-off of ‘Ne partez pas sans moi’. At the press conference given by Swiss television to showcase Sandra, one journalist put it before her that the song vaguely reminded him of Céline Dion’s entry. I don’t remember what Sandra’s reply was, but it just goes to show that people were taking notice of this. It certainly wasn’t plagiarism, but it was obvious where Renato’s melodic inspiration had come from.”
“Still, we were quite well regarded. One day, I overheard Toto Cutugno being interviewed by a bunch of journalists in the corridors of Cinecittà. Toto, who had won the contest the previous year, was the host of the show together with Gigliola Cinquetti. He had been a friend of mine for many years. Before he established himself as a singer-songwriter, he had even asked me once to write a couple of songs for him. In the interview, one journalist asked him to name the countries which were his favourites to win the contest. He then named two or three countries, but then he added, ‘Don’t forget about Switzerland, because I heard their song and it’s a really strong entry!’ And then he looked aside to me and gave me a wink. It was a situation which made me laugh. Yes, I had a great week in Rome! The orchestra was full of friends, Toto was a friend – I mean, what could go wrong?”
“On the night of the concert, when I was standing backstage waiting to come on, I covered my ears with my hands. Another conductor was leading the orchestra at that moment and I didn’t want to get confused about the tempo. Closing my eyes, I just softly sang our song to myself. That’s what you do when you don’t have a metronome to help you. In my present job, as a music teacher, my students sometimes ask me how I could have done studio work for so long without working with a click. I then tell them, ‘Ragazzi, a metronome has nothing to do with music! Of course, a click track can be helpful, but performing music is all about conveying your feelings.’ It’s vitally important that young musicians learn to work without click tracks. To those youngsters, it just sounds outlandish to be able to stick to the correct tempo without it.”
“In the concert, Sandra’s rendition was just perfect, and to my relief Renzo Meneghinello in the backing group made no mistakes either. Still, the performance wasn’t flawless. For some reason, Restuccia made a hash of it at the drums – well, let me put it in perspective, he made one mistake, which I thought was strange, since he was a seasoned musician and the drum part of the arrangement was rather straightforward. Still, his performance on the night was a bit of a pasticcio. It didn’t ruin the song and I don’t think many viewers would have noticed, but I was surprised. At the end of our performance, I looked at him, but he didn’t dare to look back at me. Perhaps he was simply exhausted after a whole week of rehearsing.”
“Before the voting started, Mrs Pattacini told us that she had been approached by the Spanish delegation to give the maximum points to their entry – and for some reason, she had agreed to that. Possibly, a deal was made, I don’t know. Spain wanted to win the contest. They were keen to shed off the days of the Franco dictatorship and present themselves in a contemporary way to an international audience. They felt it would be great to have the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona as well as the 1992 Eurovision Song Contest coming to Spain. Well, they didn’t win the contest. But do you remember how many points Switzerland received from Spain in return? Zero! There was only one other country not awarding a single point to our entry, Malta. The musical supervisor for Malta was Vince Tempera, a good friend of mine who I had worked with countless times in the studio and for television, and he told me afterwards that he couldn’t understand why Malta had completely ignored our song. Still, we managed a fifth place, and I think everyone was quite satisfied with that result.”
After the 1991 Eurovision Song Contest, Renato Mascetti competed in two more Swiss Eurovision pre-selections, in 1992 with ‘Non sei più la mia bambina’, which he performed himself, and one year later with a singer called Mary and ‘Non siamo angeli’, but neither of these songs came close to winning. Sadly, Mascetti fell ill not long after, eventually succumbing to a cancer in 2000 at the age of 47. When asked about the loss of his friend, Flaviano Cuffari comments, “Renato did everything he could to recover, even travelling to a specialist doctor in Lyons in France to undergo experimental treatment, but it wasn’t to be. When he passed away, I was sick for quite some time, simply because I was feeling so depressed about losing him. He was just such a great guy.”
“Looking back at my participation in the Eurofestival, I felt it was interesting to take part in it, but nothing more. Of course, it was a happy moment to be introduced as Switzerland’s conductor by Gigliola Cinquetti, but I’m not the type of person to mythologise about my own past. After all, I was there just to do my job. I chose to be a musician; and working in the entertainment industry, you inevitably find yourself in the limelight now and again. The same is true for actors; they chose to be an actor because that’s their preferred line of work – but I suppose you can say the same about someone who studied hydraulics and made his job out of that; and as a musician, I’m nothing better than a hydraulics specialist or anyone doing any other job. Via social media, I’m regularly approached by fans of my work as a drummer – and they compliment me on my work on certain records, but such praise from the general public leaves me cold. The only compliments I’m happy to accept are those coming from fellow musicians.”
The Swiss participants in Rome backstage, standing: Sandra Simó flanked by Switzerland's delegation leaders, Mrs Pattacini; and seated, Flaviano Cuffari (third from right) with backing singers (from left) Renzo Meneghinello, Antonella Melone, Ricky Belloni, and Paola Repele
“The 1991 Eurovision Song Contest is the only time I took part in a song festival. After the botched attempt of Renato and me to take part in the San Remo Festival in the 1980s, I never submitted a song again, either as a songwriter or as an arranger. One year, which must have been some time in the 1990s, I was in contention to be the drummer in the San Remo orchestra, but in the end the record companies preferred Lele Melotti instead of me. This was my own fault. Over the years, I had built up a reputation for having a bit of a temper. In the world of television, arrangers, producers, and singers prefer to work with musicians who shut up and do as they are told. Lele Melotti was such a guy; he sat down at his drum kit at 9am and only stood up when the rehearsal was done in the early evening. My character is more impetuous. When I was overburdened with work, I tended to get short-tempered. I made that mistake many times – and it cost me a lot of work, I can tell you that.”
“I must admit that I’m not a fan of the San Remo Festival. My wife more or less forces me to watch it every year, but I’m happy to sneak into the kitchen to get myself something to drink whenever I hear an artist who isn’t up to it. Some years ago, a girl took part who I rate very highly as a singer, Serena Brancale. She plays the piano, composes her own songs, and sings like a goddess. She took part in the contest with a beautiful jazz ballad (‘Galleggiare’, San Remo 2015 – BT). ‘Let’s see how far she gets,’ I said to myself. And what happened? She was eliminated in the first round! I’m not surprised when such things happen, because I know how the music business works, but it makes me angry nonetheless. It’s not very often that the festival winner is a song that I like. The only time that I can remember is the year when ‘Come saprei’ by Giorgia won it (San Remo 1995 – BT). It was actually composed by a cousin of mine, Vladi Tosetto. That was a well-written song and performed by a real singer – but it’s the exception that proves the rule, I would say; usually, San Remo doesn’t reward the best songs.”
“When Angelina Mango won San Remo this year (this interview was held in July 2024 – BT), I was happy, but not because I liked her song. Her current repertoire doesn’t really appeal to me, but there’s no doubt that she’s a hugely talented girl. Some years ago, when Angelina’s brother Filippo was one of my students at the CPM Institute, she joined her brother for a lesson of ensemble playing. She was only sixteen years old at the time. With my students, I had rehearsed an arrangement of ‘How Sweet It Is’ by James Taylor, which isn’t a particularly difficult song to play, but extremely difficult to sing. All the girls who we had asked to sing it with our ensemble had failed to deliver; they required an extra week of rehearsing before they got it right. Filippo then suggested asking his younger sister to join us – and she sang that song on the spot, and flawlessly.”
“I later told Filippo that I was a bit disappointed with Angelina’s San Remo entry, but he explained that this had been a choice of her production team. They preferred to present her to a wider audience with contemporary pop repertoire first, following the fashion of the day. That’s how she and her team hope to turn her into an established artist. Hopefully this will give her the opportunity later on to switch to a genre of music which would showcase her talent a little more. Like Filippo, she has inherited the musical instinct of her deceased father, Giuseppe Mango, who was a fantastic singer.”
“The answer to your question why Italian pop music is so much less successful internationally than in the 1980s is rather simple – contemporary Italian pop music is bad. There wasn’t a specific Italian sound forty years ago which gave our music a more international flavour; the level of musicianship and production was just much higher than it is now. Most of the young popular singers today in my country are second-generation migrant children who perform rap, in which the lyrics are spoken rather than sung. Musically speaking, their music is an outright disaster. Perhaps the biggest problem is that most music publishers and record bosses aren’t people with a background in music. In the old days, the majority were former musicians or singers. Nowadays, most of them are managers, guys who are interested in selling products and who couldn’t care less about originality or a high level of artistry. It would be nice if we could turn back the clock, but I can’t see that happening unfortunately.”
Flaviano Cuffari (on the far left) conducting the orchestra for Sandra Simó's rendition of 'Canzone per te' at the 1991 Eurovision Song Contest
OTHER ARTISTS ABOUT FLAVIANO CUFFARI
Arranger and bandleader Natale Massara worked with Flaviano Cuffari for many years, most importantly in the accompanying band of Milva on her tours across Europe and in Japan: “By the time Milva went on her first tour abroad, I had been her arranger for some years. When I was asked to form a band, Flaviano Cuffari was my first choice drummer. I knew him from his session work – and I had come to appreciate his versatility and his steady style of playing a lot. Furthermore, he is a proficient sight-reader, which wasn’t the case with all session drummers in those days. Because he did so much studying on the side of his work as a music professional, he has grown into what I would call a complete musician, a guy who knows his way around in theoretical subjects like composition and harmony. When he was asked to produce the Eurovision entry for Switzerland, I told him he could always call on me if he needed any advice, but he didn’t need it. He could arrange that song by himself and he did a good job on it. Generally speaking, Flaviano is a vivacious guy and a very good friend.” (2021)
EUROVISION INVOLVEMENT YEAR BY YEAR
Country – Switzerland
Song title – “Canzone per te”
Rendition – Sandra Simó (Sandra Studer)
Lyrics – Renato Mascetti
Composition – Renato Mascetti
Studio arrangement – Flaviano Cuffari
Live orchestration – Flaviano Cuffari
Conductor – Flaviano Cuffari
Score – 5th place (118 votes)
SOURCES & LINKS
- Bas Tukker did an interview with Flaviano Cuffari, July 2024
- A playlist of Flaviano Cuffari’s music can be accessed by clicking this YouTube link
- Photos courtesy of Flaviano Cuffari, Sandra Studer, Markus Luem, and Ferry van der Zant
- Thanks to Mark Coupar for proofreading the manuscript
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