Venice, 1980. Transmission received.

Rondò Veneziano

Powdered wigs. Silver masks. Synths, bass and drums. Cartoon robots saving Venice from the sea. It should never have worked. It sold millions.

The crazy The good Start listening
25m+albums sold worldwide
No.1in Italy with their very first album in 1980
No.2in Germany with Venezia 2000, and No.1 in Switzerland
1983the year La Serenissima reached the UK

Part one

The crazy

Picture Britain in 1983. Synth pop rules the charts. Then a chamber orchestra turns up on daytime TV dressed for a 1700s ball.

Baroque on the outside, rock underneath

Real violins, cellos and oboes, played over synthesiser, bass guitar and a full drum kit. Classical purists hated it. Everyone else hummed it.

Wigs, gowns and silver masks

They played in full period costume. On Pebble Mill they wore spooky silver fencing masks. Mostly women musicians, all looking like they had stepped out of Casanova's diary.

Robots save Venice

The cartoon videos by animator Guido Manuli threw in spaceships, tractor beams, disasters and faceless robot musicians. In one, a spaceman lifts Venice's old buildings into space to save them from the water.

The ITV strike filler

Venice in Peril, that baffling cartoon, filled airtime during ITV strikes. A whole generation saw it without ever knowing who made the music.

Part two

The good

Strip away the costumes and you find a serious composer. Gian Piero Reverberi trained in piano and composition at the Paganini Conservatory in Genoa. He wrote almost every piece himself.

He started the group in 1979 as a reaction to computer disco. His idea was simple. Bring back acoustic instruments and give young conservatoire players a real stage.

The melodies are short, bright and catchy. Most tracks run under four minutes, like pop singles. Reverberi always said his music was meant to be joyful, unlike the gloomy classical pieces of the past.

In Italy the title track became the theme for Canale 5, playing several times a day. That made them a household name almost overnight.

UK chart peaks
Venice in Peril (reissue)No.34
La Serenissima (single, Oct 1983)No.58
La Serenissima (album)No.39
The Genius of VeniceNo.60

The decade, year by year

  1. 1979Reverberi and producer Freddy Naggiar form the orchestra.
  2. 1980Debut album Rondò veneziano tops the Italian chart and goes top 40 in Germany.
  3. 1981La Serenissima, the album that carries their best known tune.
  4. 1982Scaramucce leans more classical, with the rhythm still front and centre.
  5. 1983Venezia 2000 hits No.2 in Germany. La Serenissima breaks into the UK singles chart.
  6. 1984Odissea veneziana, later certified gold in Germany, Austria and France.
  7. 1985They score the film Not Quite Jerusalem and release Casanova.
  8. 1986Rapsodia veneziana keeps the run going.
  9. 1989Masquerade closes the decade.

Where to start

Never heard them? Play these three in order. If you were a kid in the 80s, the first one will hit you straight away.

01La SerenissimaThe one from the robots and the ITV cartoon.
02Rondò venezianoThe title track. Italy heard it every day on Canale 5.
03Odissea venezianaThe mid 80s peak. Bigger, faster, more cinematic.