Allegretto 7.2
Berceuse Parfum (2020)

Berceuse Parfum is an indie niche spin-off of wetshaving soap maker Barrister & Mann. B&M has a host of shave soaps and associated "software" products in a variety of scents. They've also tried their hand at a few standalone fragrances, including Romance in Middle Sex County, Just Right For A Tuesday, and Fougere Gothique, most of which are perpetually sold out.

Berceuse debuted on the heels of 2019 with one fragrance and has been fairly dormant since, with only recently debuting a second fragrance in 2022. The easiest (and perhaps least flattering) way to describe Berceuse Parfum is that the house is doing what Zoologist is doing, but for music. The house maintains a playlist of their favorite music, then commissions a noted perfumer to "compose" their olfactory rendition of said music. After the fragrance is created, both the music and the commissioned perfumer are retired.

Allegretto 7.2 is Berceuse's first fragrance. It was composed (hehe) by Antonio Gardoni and is his olfactory expression of Beethoven's 7th Symphony. I'm only familiar with a few of Gardoni's other fragrances, most recently T-Rex by Zoologist. Although I don't think Allegretto is a copy of Gardoni's past work, I very much smell his signature DNA all over this fragrance and see some similarities to the "ash" qualities of T-Rex.

This is first and foremost a smoky vetiver fragrance, or "vetiver transcendent" as Berceuse eloquently styles it. It opens with a fairly overpowering vegetal blast of herbs. I detect the likes of rosemary, thyme, sage with a miniscule amount of the advertised mint, perhaps slightly reminiscent of the mint blast I recently smelled in Clandestine Lab's "Silver." Instead of the purported images of Beethoven furiously directing his orchestra, this opening conjures memories of a kitchen during Thanksgiving. The opening also has a potent smoky character that remains throughout the life of the scent, similar to the "ash" note in T-Tex. Although I find T-Rex to have deeper leather and incense notes, the star of the show here is smoke and the aforementioned vetiver.

After the herbal notes dissolve, we still have the smoke note that is joined by a short-lived whiff of lavender and an unknown rubbery note which persists only when I wear this in cold weather. After a few hours, the smoky vetiver calms down a bit. I'm treated to a grassier take on vetiver, herbs, and finally a hint of that advertised mint. To me, this fragrance has some nice transitions to it similar to what we saw in T-Rex, with the smoky vetiver being the star the of the show...errmm, I mean symphony.

The perfume comes in a beautiful magnetic box and a lovely screen-printed cubed bottle. Although I love the branding and packaging of Allegretto 7.2, I really don't care for its musical shtick. I admire Berceuse taking a different direction with perfume but it seems a bit tacky and contrived to me, at least at first. At first glance, the scent could just as easily conjure images of cooking Thanksgiving dinner or bushwhacking through the Haitian Wetlands. That said, I do give the house and Gardoni credit, as the more time I spend wearing and studying Allegretto, the more nuances and layers I discover. The question is: do you want nuance and layers in a fragrance, or do you want something easy to wear?

Allegretto 7.2 is certainly a challenging fragrance, maybe a little too challenging for me. I personally don't find it easy to wear. I liked it enough to buy a full bottle but find myself vacillating between liking it and being overwhelmed. To this end, this is where I see the connection to Beethoven's 7th Symphony. I enjoy classical music...in small doses. Maybe for a few minutes on the drive home from work before I change the station to the Top 40. Like Allegretto 7.2, classical music is deep and heavy, and not always fun or easy to take in...unlike music on the Top 40 or the latest designer release.

If you liked T-Rex by Zoologist, I think you'll like this. Maybe it's just recent memory, but Allegretto 7.2 reminds me most of Silver by Clandestine Laboratories, but is much edgier and more difficult to wear, which might not be a good thing. I don't see many connections to the obligatory vetiver frags a la Guerlain and Hermes. And although I don't think they smell particularly similar, Allegretto 7.2 is probably the closest thing to a niche version of Encre Noire, which to me is also a hard fragrance to wear. But at over $200 for a 50ml, I can't help but choke up a bit at the price as the bottle sits unused on my dress most of the year. That, and for the price Berceuse is competing with the likes of discounted Creeds and the incessant "elixirs" that are creeping into the market.

Instead of herbs, lavender and vetiver, on my skin, this immediately blew out a twenty minute cloud of bitter viscous dark and skanky industrial-ish smoke, maybe a hint of vetiver in the background.
I held on, as many of my favorite scents aren't at their best up front. The underlying bitterness, almost an old musk or civit-like smoke didn't subside, although I could smell tiny tendrils of mint and and one point caught the vanilla briefly. It was so bad on my skin and to my scent I scrubbed it, or tried. Longevity is unlikely to be a problem.
I noted this perfumer also did Bogue Maai, another scent I think is similar to this. I often wear scents tilted male, but think this is one on the MALE side. My husband sniffed it on paper and didn't find it as off-putting as I did.
If you like this "dark and mysterious" bitter type scents, definitely give this a try -- but would recommend a sample first, this is NOT a blind buy. And not Beethovan, but a tune more dissonant and atonal - Stravinksy or Scriabin?

Wonderful, glowing minty Vetiver. Antonio Gardoni does it again. This time with a 3-dimensional psychedelic Vetiver unlike any I've ever smelled before. Much in the way that Gardoni reimagined lavender in MeM, here he not only dresses Vetiver in all of the minty, herbal, woody hues that it embodies naturally, he lifts it upon a custard-Ylang-benzoin-vanilla base that acts holographically on the root-notes of the grassy materials, giving it the brightest, most high-definition reflection it might ever hope to see.

This is fresh, fun, futuristic. An easy-pleaser, like a surreal remake of Le Male.

An easy 5/5 for me. If a larger house has released this it would be an immediate grail. If Berceuse can hold it together through this Coronavirus crisis, Allegretto 7.2 may achieve modern masterpiece status. Time will tell!

Allegretto 7.2 goes on skin with stark, pungent culinary herbal bay leaf with a hint of supporting natural smelling mint and rosemary before quickly moving to its heart. As the composition enters its early heart, the mint spiked pungent culinary herbs remain, now supporting aromatic lavender, dulled ylang-ylang florals and a sharp vetiver infused natural smelling woody accord. During the late dry-down the florals mostly vacate, as the sharp, woody vetiver takes the fore with the woody accord in support, as remnants of the pungent culinary herbs remain through the finish. Projection is excellent, as is longevity at over 13 hours on skin.

Allegretto 7.2 is a product from a new brand called Berceuse created in collaboration with Will Carius of the well-regarded artisanal shaving product company Barrister and Mann fame. While I confess that as an avid wet shaver (and one who has tried and owns many shaving products from the company), I personally have never been overly impressed with the Barrister and Mann shaving soap *fragrances*, finding them just above average. In any case, Will's involvement did add an additional level of interest to this writer. Also of interest is the perfumer chosen for this outing, Antonio Gardoni. Mr. Gardoni has amassed quite the following, and I have enjoyed several of his creations over the years. Definitely when one sprays Allegretto 7.2 on skin the culinary herbs used and the trademark aromatics (both not unlike those even earlier used by Angelo Orazio Pregoni of O'driu) have his "fingerprints" all over them. I tend to like this kind of thing, but the mint that permeates a good portion of the composition coupling with the relatively linear development as the sharp woody vetiver gradually gains strength as time passes proves too much. I guess coming full circle one has to wonder what any of this has to do with Will Carius of Barrister and Mann, as it really doesn't seem his style at all? The bottom line is the $225 per 50 ml bottle Allegretto 7.2 is certainly distinctive (including its subjectively ugly bottle logo) but the relatively linear sharp woody accord proves too much to endure over time, earning the composition an "average" 2.5 stars out of 5 rating and an avoid recommendation, especially to wet shavers expecting a Barrister and Mann tie-in who wont find it.