Franco Battiato is an Italian artist/composer worth listening to.  His
first serious work is "Genesi" (genesis), an Opera in three acts, recorded
live on CD in 1987 by the Symphony Orchestra "Arturo Toscanini" at the
Teatro Regio di Parma; Alessandro Nidi, conductor.

The following is an excerpt from the author's introduction (it was in
Italian, of course):

   "It is clear - I thought coming back home after I have been studying
   music for years - that many western artists have the obsession of
   the developing of forms; with the un-negligible result, that being
   forms without a real content, they age just as the fashion they were
   generated from does."

   "Dodecaphonic music has been for the Music what pornography is today
   for Sex.  And surely I am not in the condition to throw stones, nor
   I have the even smallest moralistic attitude; but what a decadence,
   what an old rubbish, what a lasciviousness and corruption!  And to
   think that many people believe in who know what achievement of
   freedom."

It goes without saying that I love this work.

Roberto Strappafelci