Dear Giancarlo, thank you. I would have liked to say a lot more but at this moment, as the main character in one of your favourite films says, I feel as if I had a hard-boiled egg stuck here in my stomach, and it won’t go either up or down.
I wanted to say thank you for those three or four thousand mornings when we sat at the piano to develop an idea after a sleepless night spent thinking it up. And you sitting at the piano and battling with the keyboard as if you were at war with music; instead it was your way of loving it. Loving it with a deep-felt, frank, sincere love with no frills or conveniences.  Loving and respecting it and above all respecting the future listener. In fact sometimes, after an intense day’s work where we hadn’t perhaps achieved anything much, as we chatted over dinner it came out that music is hard work where nothing is handed to you on a plate.
And you used to say, it’s only right, think how unjust it would be for a worker who works his socks off for a pittance if someone got up in the morning and wrote “Yesterday” while he was shaving,  and earned a load of money in three seconds.
Dear Giancarlo, I wanted to say thank you because without you today I’d probably be an insignificant, dissatisfied doctor, who after a week of National Health patients drowned his musical aspirations on a Saturday evening by playing in some piano bar.
Dear Giancarlo I wanted to say thank-you for those wild trips around Italy. I know you never liked travelling, perhaps because it seemed like a waste of time, time which could be spent on the beloved piano. But as soon as we got onto the motorway your bad mood disappeared, we chatted and laughed and found a way of working even in the car, with a small keyboard, a notebook, a pen and a cassette recorder which you called with affectionate minimalism “trombino” (this is what Giancarlo used to call the micro-taperecorder)
I wanted to say thank-you also because although some people think you had a bad character, we never quarrelled once in 23 years of music and life together. I always expressed my ideas quite freely and never felt embarrassed, even less suffocated, by your genius and huge personality.
It’s true, we sometimes argued, but only so as to give of our best. Then it was you who took the decision, quite rightfully. This is called role awareness. A captain is always needed….”oh captain, my captain”. I’d like to get up on this bench and shout it to the world, but at this moment if you could speak to me you’d certainly say: “Take it easy, you idiot, are you trying to break your leg?”
Dear Giancarlo I wanted to say thank you because you taught me about life through music and words. I wanted to thank you for the many successes but also, above all, for the failures. These weren’t actually very many, but they hurt in any case, and at the same time they made us reflect and helped us to understand; each time they strengthened our determination to do better next time, and even more they strengthened our friendship. And luckily not even geniuses are perfect….Oh sorry, I forgot you don’t like to be called a genius. You’ve always said you were a “craftsman of music” and that talent is important, but work even more so.
I remember a famous dinner after a win at Sanremo Song Festival. We came in with the artist, they clapped us like mad, and we sat down; after less than a minute we looked at each other and said, almost in unison: “We should leave straightaway tomorrow, there’s work to be done”. And yes, my dear friend, from now on my life won’t be the same and I can’t tell you how much I miss you already and will go on missing you, but I know that you don’t like tears and sloppy sentiments and I’ll use an expression you would’ve used: “Let’s just soldier on” and then we’ll see. ‘Bye Giancarlo, I just wanted to say thank you. A big hug, Marco.