Why today?

Today we hear two different performances of the same composition, rather than two songs that merely resemble each other. The music is the same, but the lyrics give it two almost opposite meanings.

Love in Portofino dates to the late 1950s, several decades before Andrea Bocelli recorded it. Parviz Vakili wrote new Persian lyrics for Viguen's version of the melody. Instead of translating the original, he transformed a song about finding love into one about living without the beloved.

A look at the work

In Love in Portofino, the narrator recalls meeting a loved one in an Italian seaside town. The sea, the morning light and their meeting place all evoke a love that changed his life. Returning to this memory brings affection and reassurance.

Aseman-e Aabi reverses that relationship between love and the surrounding world. Without the beloved, sunshine, flowers and even other people's company have lost their appeal. The blue sky is more than a pleasant view: the narrator initially rejects it along with the rest of the world, but eventually addresses that same sky, asking it to carry his memory wherever it sees the beloved. Something that no longer brings pleasure becomes an imagined means of reaching the absent person.

The melody remains the same; the meaning we hear in it changes.

Both performances are in minor keys and preserve a shared musical character. Yet minor does not necessarily mean sad. Alongside the Italian lyrics, the melody can convey tenderness and the pleasure of recollection. Alongside the Persian lyrics, those same qualities become loneliness and longing.

The moderate tempo leaves room for both interpretations. The music moves without rushing, giving each singer time to shape its emotion through phrasing.

Viguen's baritone and Bocelli's tenor also bring different colours to the shared melody. Listen especially to the ends of phrases. How long does each singer hold a note, how do they finish a word, and how much space do they leave before the next phrase? Expression depends not only on which notes are sung, but equally on how they are sung.

That is the value of the Persian reimagining: it does not need a new melody to create a different emotional experience. In one performance, the same music accompanies gratitude for a love that has been found; in the other, it accompanies longing for an absent love.

For those who read these reflections to the end: If you did not know which version came first, which lyrics would you think this melody was originally written for: Viguen's longing for someone absent, or the romantic memory Bocelli recounts? What in the music makes one story more convincing to you? How much might your choice depend on the version you already knew?