The Italian composer was a pioneer of electronic music, in a cultural season in which Italy and its synthesisers reached global appraisal and were loved by international rock stars.

It’s a late morning in 1970, or perhaps 1971. In London, the sky is clear but unsettled. The same could be said for the man who has just parked his Jaguar XJ6 not far from the northern bank of the Thames. His cheerful, Mediterranean features – those otherwise typically seen in the cafès of Soho or walking out the old brick houses of Farringdon, the Italian city’s Italian neighbourhood – conceal a sense of nervous anticipation. He has arrived in the English capital after driving from Rome, guided by his wife Stefania, with roadmaps, the London A to Z, and with a certain obsessive care not to stain the tobacco-coloured leather seats. This is the car of someone who, one could argue, has made it.

The man, in his mid-forties, is a composer, specialising in film scores and library music for radio and TV. Although some of his records are marketed under the stage names Moggi, M. Zalla and Ingegner Giovanni & Famiglia, he goes by the name of Piero Umiliani. At the time, he was one of the leading figures in the Italian film industry, which was second only to the American one in terms of the number of films produced.

Umiliani has come to London for a matter of primary importance, to the point that he doesn’t even trust flying: he’s here to buy his first synthesiser, specifically the VCS 3 manufactured by EMS. He is going to pick it up straight from the hands of its inventor, engineer Peter Zinovieff.

“After two days of travel, he arrived at Zinovieff’s house, a beautiful property, and rang the doorbell. An eccentric man with his hair standing on end opened it. After some rather brief explanations, Piero was handed the instruction manual, packed the synth in its case, and returned to Rome happy,” recalls his daughter Elisabetta today.

That trip had been planned for a long time, with a level of detail now unimaginable, in days of low-cost flights and digital shopping. Umiliani had consulted with Paolo Ketoff, a sound engineer operating in Rome at the RCA studios in the shadow of the great soundtrack composers, silently like a Cold War double agent, like its Iron Curtain-reminiscent name hinted.

Listen to Synth Utopia, the collection of early electronic music from the CAM Sugar catalogue curated by Machinedrum.

Ketoff, the mastermind in 1963 of the Italian-made Synket, had suggested the synthesiser to Umiliani, eager to explore new synthetic sounds, and arranged the appointment with the London engineer. Ketoff was also responsible for building the synthesiser’s case, for which Umiliani also bought the keyboard – a pretty collectible accessory today.

Umiliani’s electronic epiphany had occurred not long before, after hearing Wendy Carlos’ Switched-On Bach, a Moog rendition of the classical master’s music – a record that caused quite a stir in the late 1960s and sparked a trend among the more mature of composers.

“Piero would spend entire nights in his studio creating new sounds and often returned home at 5 in the morning,” says Elisabetta. The woman, together with her sister Alessandra, is now keeping alive the memory and work of Piero Umiliani, including the Sound Work Shop, the studio that the composer designed with Ketoff in Rome to record his albums, especially the more experimental ones. One of those, the first recorded with the VCS 3 from London, was Switched-On Naples in 1972, an ethereal homage in a Neapolitan key to Carlos’ take on Bach. Many more will follow, including To-Day’s Sound and Bon Voyage!!! (both featuring artworks by Sandro Lodolo, whose studio was the springboard for the artistic career of arte povera great Pino Pascali), as well as the seminal L’uomo e la città, Atmospheres and Tra scienza e fantascienza.

In those same years, the synthesiser struck a chord with other artists, far removed both geographically and musically from Umiliani, such as the The Who’s Pete Townshend, Moody Blues, Roxy Music, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, who would famously use it on Meddle, Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, especially on “Shine On You Crazy Diamond (pt.6)”.

In the early 1970s, as a matter of fact, outside of Italy synthesizers were primarily associated with genres such as progressive rock and kosmische musik, all expressions of youth creativity and counterculture. It’s no surprise that a young Franco Battiato also made a trip to London to knock on Zinovieff’s door for a VCS 3, on which he would later improvise at the seminal Festival del Re Nudo, a free happening promoted by underground magazine Re Nudo.

In Italy, however, the synthesiser was approached in a far less codified manner, mainly through experimentation, almost playful, leading to unexpected and innovative results.

Surprisingly, the pioneers were distinguished gentlemen (and in some cases, ladies, just as in London’s BBC Radiophonic Workshop), far from the sartorial excess of foreign rock stars. Among them was Franco Micalizzi, one of the first to import the Moog, which would then be passed from artist to artist, revolutionising the way film scores were recorded in the country.

Other names included Marcello Giombini, the father of the Beat Mass, Giampiero Boneschi, Fabio Frizzi and, of course, Piero Umiliani, whose pioneering music from the CAM Sugar catalogue has been collected in Synth Utopia, a digital collection curated by American artist and producer Machinedrum.

Even when it came to prog rock, soundtrack composers played a pivotal role in introducing the young bands to synths. It is impossible not to mention the collaborations Luis Enriquez Bacalov had with Osanna (Milano Calibro 9) and New Trolls (Concerto Grosso per i New Trolls), but also the contingency between Giorgio Gaslini’s jazz-rooted compositions and Goblin’s synth-driven prog rock in Dario Argento’s Deep Red.

By the mid-1970s, hence, the synth craze had taken Italy by storm too. As a matter of fact, all the old accordion manufacturers, who had already reinvented themselves in the previous decade to meet the growing demand for organs and string instruments for beat and garage bands, faced another revolution: this time a synthetic one. They were mostly all based in the Marche region, which became Italy’s hub for synthesiser production. They ranged from the notable Eko, Grb, and Farfisa, to a plethora of now seemingly forgotten but cult brands such as Elka, Elex, Crumar, Milton, and Solton. Exotic names behind which the pioneering vision of Italian sound engineers met the traditional craft of popular music instrument-making.

When speaking of Italian-made synths, one cannot fail to mention instruments like the Eko Computer Rhythm from 1972, one of the first and most visionary drum machines in the world, of which only 15 units are known to exist. Or the Spirit by Crumar (1983), co-designed by Bob Moog himself, and the Elka Rhapsody 610 (1975), beloved by international electronic visionaries like Tangerine Dream and Jean-Michel Jarre.

Today, to preserve and tell this story, there is the Museo del Synth Marchigiano, a unique collection of synthesizers designed and assembled in the Marche region, an itinerant project that has been active in various locations across the region since 2008.

As evidenced by the museum’s international popularity, the synth era in Italy was not merely a fever dream. These instruments later established themselves in popular music and branched out across genres, becoming pivotal for Italian new wave and, above all, for Italo Disco. But, as they say, that’s another story.

Opening image: Piero Umiliani in his Sound Workshop with the VCS 3. Photo courtesy of Elisabetta and Alessandra Umiliani.