Mario Fragiacomo

condition (record/cover): NM / NM

Gatefold sleeve. Insert included.

The suite starts with a city song, Trieste Mia, and a march for Emperor Franz Joseph, and moves on to the refugee barracks at Padriciano, the Free Territory of Trieste, the Nazi camp of the Risiera di San Sabba and the foibe. Mario Fragiacomo, a trumpeter from Trieste, built Trieste, Ieri Un Secolo Fa as a two-part history of his city across the twentieth century, recorded at Studio Sintesi in Milan through 1987 and released by Splasc(h) in 1989.

The ensemble is a big band with tuba, flutes, glockenspiel and voice: Arrigo Cappelletti on piano, Emilio Soana on trumpet, Luca Bonvini on trombone, Fiorenzo Gualandris on tuba, and the singer Diane Rama, who also wrote the words for Ricordo Di Ettore Schmitz, a portrait of the man the world reads as Italo Svevo. Carl Teike's march Alte Kameraden is turned into a seven-minute piece, and the novelist Fulvio Tomizza introduces the record.