''Francesco Zappa'' is a 1984 album by

Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by wikt:nonconformity, nonconformity, Free improvisation, free-form improvisation, sound experimen ...

. It features

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...

by the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

composer Francesco Zappa, who composed between 1763 and 1788.

Album origins

David Ocker played a piece of Francesco Zappa's music for Frank Zappa because it was popular with some college music students. Because Francesco's music was not published and could only be found in the Mormon library, Frank decided to publish it. He then programmed some of these pieces into his new Synclavier

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

Finding the composer's works

Frank found an entry for Francesco in the

Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

and then researched his sheet music in the library at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

. According to ''

The Real Frank Zappa Book ''The Real Frank Zappa Book'' is an autobiography/memoir by Frank Zappa, co-written by Peter Occhiogrosso, and published by Poseidon Press. The text is copyright 1989 Frank Zappa, and copyright 1990 Simon & Schuster, Inc. Since 1999, the book has ...

'', the two musicians are not related.

Album content

''Francesco Zappa'' was the first full album on which Frank used the Synclavier, but Synclavier pieces appear on " The Perfect Stranger" and on "

Thing-Fish ''Thing-Fish'' is an album by Frank Zappa, originally released as a triple album box set on Barking Pumpkin Records in 1984. It was billed as a cast recording for a proposed musical of the same name, which was ultimately not produced by Zappa, but ...

" as well.

Track listing

All selections composed by Francesco Zappa.

Personnel

*Performed by The Barking Pumpkin Digital Gratification Consort (

, conductor) *Produced and orchestrated by Frank Zappa *Synclavier document encryption: David Ocker *Engineered by Bob Stone & Mark Pinske *Cover painting by

Donald Roller Wilson Donald Roller Wilson (born 1938) is an American artist, known for his paintings of people and anthropomorphized chimpanzees, orangutans, cats, and dogs, set in southern gothic Southern Gothic is an artistic subgenre of fiction, country m ...

*Collage by Gabrielle Raumberger *Graphics by New Age Art

References

External links

Album details
{{Authority control 1984 albums Albums conducted by Frank Zappa Albums produced by Frank Zappa Barking Pumpkin Records albums Frank Zappa albums Tribute albums Covers albums