In 1971 the New Trolls put a rock band and an orchestra in the same room and made the record that told Italy this was allowed. Two years later they detonated: a fight over the name, a lawsuit, two rival groups, and one of the strongest bands in the country reduced to a legal argument. What brought them back together in 1976 was the same man who had made it work the first time. Luis Bacalov wrote three movements, the five of them turned up to play them, and the sequel exists because the composer would not let the band stay broken.

The short version

Their fourth album and their first new material after the 1973 split, released in 1976 on Magma. Side one is the concerto: three movements by Bacalov, with lyrics by Sergio Bardotti and Giorgio D’Adamo, sung in English, plus a closing song of De Scalzi’s. Side two is the band on its own. Vittorio De Scalzi plays synthesizer, piano, Fender Rhodes, acoustic guitar and flute and sings; Nico Di Palo plays electric and acoustic guitar and ARP and sings; Giorgio D’Adamo plays bass; Gianni Belleno plays drums; Ricky Belloni, newly arrived from Nuova Idea, plays guitar. Eight tracks, and the two halves barely know each other.

Getting the band back

The 1973 break was not a drift apart, it was a schism. Di Palo went one way with a harder-edged group called Ibis; De Scalzi went the other and called his outfit N.T. Atomic System, largely to keep the lawyers off. In the middle of the decade Belleno and D’Adamo went out on tour with Fabrizio De Andre, and playing alongside them was Ricky Belloni, who had come out of Nuova Idea. By 1975 the pieces were back in the same orbit; Belloni stayed, Di Palo returned, and Bacalov agreed to write another concerto. Whether that makes this a reunion or a commercial manoeuvre has been argued about in Italy for fifty years, sometimes by the band members themselves, in public. Both things can be true.

The sound

Side one is more baroque than the original, not less — Bacalov writing with a freer hand and an orchestra that gets more to do, and the band answering rather than fighting. Two guitarists now, which changes the texture: Di Palo and Belloni double and trade, and De Scalzi has moved further onto keyboards. The vocal harmonies are the best thing on the record, and the English lyrics are romantic in a way the first Concerto never quite was. Side two is a different album: shorter songs, melodic, warm, several degrees softer, and if you know what New Trolls did next it is impossible not to hear Aldebaran and the whole easy-listening turn of 1978 already forming there. The sequel and the retreat, one record, one sleeve.

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The songs

I tempo: Vivace opens instrumentally at four and three quarter minutes and is pure Bacalov. II tempo: Andante is subtitled Most dear lady and is where the harmonies arrive. III tempo: Moderato, subtitled Fare you well dove, is the peak of the side and the piece people go back for. Quiet seas closes side one, De Scalzi’s own, and it is lovely. Then the turn: Vent’anni and Bella come mai are band compositions in Italian, melodic and direct; Let it be me is a straight cover of a Gilbert Becaud song that had already been a hit for everybody; and Le Roi Soleil closes at five and a bit, the most ambitious thing on the second side. Four movements and four songs, and you will probably play one side more than the other.

Reception and legacy

It did well — not 1971 well, nothing was ever going to be that again, but the public came and the critics were fair, and it put the New Trolls back in business as a functioning band. The dissenting view has always been that it is a dignified record rather than a necessary one, a franchise revived because the franchise was worth reviving. The CD reissues of the first Concerto have often bundled this one alongside it, which is either generous or telling. The series kept going without ever getting home: The Seven Seasons in 1997 without Bacalov, and Concerto Grosso n. 3 in 2013 with him and with the historic line-up reassembled, the last time those roads crossed — Bacalov died in 2017. D’Adamo died in 2015, De Scalzi in 2022.

The verdict

Good, and second by definition. Hear the 1971 Concerto Grosso first, without exception; come here afterwards for side one, which genuinely adds something, and stay for side two only if you want to watch a prog band decide to become a pop band in real time. Then Le Orme’s Felona e Sorona for the era done without an orchestra, and Osanna’s Milano Calibro 9 for the other great Italian rock-and-strings record. Bacalov gave the New Trolls their masterpiece and then, five years later, gave them back to each other. That is more than most sequels manage.

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