There is no fresher water

by Giuseppe Battiston, songs and original live music Piero Sidoti, dramaturgy Renata M. Molinari, direction and scenery Alfonso Santagata

The first time I read Pasolini’s poems in the Friulian language I was a boy, a student. I found them difficult and put them aside.
Then over the years - as so often happens with things one puts aside or leaves on the bedside table – I returned to them, in part because, as a boy, unaware and perhaps immature, I had been unable to understand those verses. Those verses spoke to me of the places I knew, the places of my childhood. Those words were my words; those sounds, those of my father; that language, the one spoken at table. They recounted that land of "primroses and storms", of village festivals and country fairs, of the wind, of bike races at breakneck speed, of the changing seasons in the work of the farmers, of colours, sounds and scents. They spoke of the war that was, of what followed, and of what came next; they spoke of me, of us, and of that water:

Water fountain of my village
There is no water fresher than that of my village
Fountain of rustic love

And, thanks to all this poetry, be it written or sung, or simply dreamed, I was a child once more; I saw those places afresh, saw them with new eyes and, as I crossed those streets and squares once more, I too joined in the village fair; I sang and danced, and raised my glass to life. And now, what I want to do is convey those words which I felt were so much mine and to which, in some way or another I belong. Perhaps not all will be understood, yet I am convinced that the dialect, indeed any dialect, thanks to its musicality, becomes evocative. Indeed, Pasolini argued that when dialect is used to express lofty concepts and noble feelings, it becomes language, and, with its sounds, enters the soul and transports us elsewhere.
Giuseppe Battiston