The Italian Revival

As we know, the geography of was a major inhibitor to unifying the country. It also helped to create and maintain the linguistic variations from region to region, even from one town to another. It would be no exaggeration to state that someone from, for example, the , speaking the dialect of that region would be incomprehensible to someone from Naples or Palermo, or even Rome or Florence - and vice versa.

This was the situation, prior to Alessandro Manzoni’s work on “I Promessi Sposi” - you will recall that the book was initially written in a dialect of but he re-wrote (translated) it in the accepted ‘language’ of . Of course, it then took more than a century for Italy and to accept and adopt a common ; the Risorgimento would have played a major role in the standardisation of the Italian language.

What applied linguistically in the divided Italy also inevitably had occurred in the music of the people of the regions. It did not apply in general to opera but was and is apparent in the local music of, especially, the small towns and villages and in the mountains and valleys of the Italian hinterland therefore, the music of the various regions - the “folk” music would have developed in quite different styles from one area to another, although certain main categories, especially very tuneful and accessible ones, such as the ‘’ and the ‘’ would have spread throughout the regions of the south, as those regions were under foreign rule - Habsburg or Bourbon - and as there were, certainly, ‘trovatori’ - wandering minstrels - who would have travelled through the country areas, attending local fairs and other functions. Port cities would have absorbed the language and music of other places with which they traded.

The music, mostly songs, would have been passed on within families throughout the generations, they would only rarely have been written down.

With the creation of the and the development of an Italian language and the reduction, if not elimination, of the use of local dialects, there was some loss of the folk music. In the south, the popularity of Neapolitan songs may have eroded local enthusiasm for their village music (and dancing - in folk music the two disciplines are often combined).

The coming of the American troops during WWII also introduced American popular music, along with chewing and bubble gum, and worse. The Neapolitan song “Tammurriata Nera” includes the words of a popular American song of the ‘50's, “Pistol-packing mama”. The transistor radio almost certainly introduced Italian youth to “rock’n’roll” and to the British and American music of the 60's.

Italian folk music was on the retreat but somehow during the late 1970's, 1980's and 90's a folk revival got under way. Is it possible that the songs of Bob Dylan and Paul Simon may have helped to spark this renaissance? There are, in my view, signs of such influences in the music of , Rino Gaetano and Fabrizio de André and others. Those three all created music which told a story - the essence of much of folk music but also fused the sounds of folk and rock music. Other influences also came into play. The ‘Modena City Ramblers’ seemed determined to introduce Italy to Irish folk music, albeit in Italian and with songs written by the group. ‘Dago Red’ - named after a classic American car (the Mustang) of the 1950's - sang “A dollar a day” à la one of the mountain man from Tennessee.

But the best of the folk musicians returned to their regional roots, for example, in where ‘Arakne Mediterranea’ and ‘Officina Zoe’ have attracted great numbers to the autumn Lecce Pizzica Festival, which is an annual celebration of tarantella and pizzica music and dance, albeit it may not take place this year, owing to the Covid 19 crisis.

Calabria has also produced a number of excellent exponents of tarantella music: ‘Xierò’ and ‘Tactus’, and ‘Agora’ performing “Danza Albanese'', exhibiting the Greek and Albanian influences in , where some Albanian villages still remain, and ‘Nistanimera’ and ‘Dedalus’, making extensive use of the ‘scacciapensieri’ (Jew’s Harp), accordions and Greek bagpipes and other instruments recalling the sounds of the eastern Mediterranean. Nistanimera’s “Chore”, is the sheep-call made by the area’s Greek-speaking shepherds.

Campania’s music is dominated by Naples, generally agreed to produce the best popular music in Italy. Special mention should be made of the classically trained Daniele Sepe (and especially memorable is “Tarantella Calabrese”) and of the band, ‘Spaccanapoli’ (an example is the opening music to ‘The Sopranos’ TV series), which as ‘I Zezi’ came together whilst working in the Alfa Romeo factory in Naples. Pino Daniele, whose most famous song is a paean of praise for Naples, called “Napoli è”, is another outstanding product of the Neapolitan music scene.

The islands of and have retained much of their traditional music, possibly because they are islands. Sardinia has many groups which perform ‘tenore’ songs, with a solo male voice supported by a small group of male singers singing in close harmony, called polyphonic throat singing.

A lot of Sardinia’s folk music is closely associated with liturgy, possibly in the same way that gospel groups include in their repertoire.

Sardinia has also been blessed with the extraordinary musical talents of Andrea Parodi, Mauro Palmas and Elena Ledda. Parodi, the lead-singer with the rock band, ‘Tazenda’ also performed as a solo artist and in concerts with other Sardinian performers, notably Elena Ledda (an opera-trained singer with a musical range which extends also to ). Ledda and Palmas have been musical collaborators for many years and also formed part of a folk ‘super group’ with musicians from other parts of Italy. One of the greatest singers from Sardinia and a huge influence on Elena Ledda etc was the magnificent . She and Rita Balistreri - from Sicily - and Caterina Bueno, a music historian from San Domenico di Fiesole, near Florence, probably did more than any others to launch the folk revival.

Sicily is rightly recognised as a region with some of the best of Italy’s folk music. Among its greatest exponents are: ‘Discanto Siculo’, ‘Tammorra’, Alfio Antico, ‘Nirmegh’, ‘Lautari’ and ‘Nakaira’. For a period, Nakaira flirted with Irish music but under the leadership of Nektarios Galanis the group has come to represent a link between Sicily and Greece. Their instruments include the greco, the bodhran and the bouzouki irlandese (Irish influences), various north African rhythm instruments and the inevitable violin. ‘Discanto Siculo’ have a very mixed Mediterranean repertoire and feature among their instruments, the bagpipes, the , the accordion, and violin.

Sicily can also boast some of the best brass bands, particularly when they are led by Roy Paci. He created 'Banda Ionica' to play in the Holy Week processions, especially on Good Friday; they also play an important role in keeping young people involved in local life and maintaining family connections. One of the best examples of this is ‘Banda di Avola’, whose 30 or so members come from about a dozen families in and/or near Avola in the south-east of the island. 'Banda Ionica' provided much of the music for the film “Dopo Mezzanotte”, effectively, but oddly as the film is set in Turin.

Umbria, Tuscany and Piemonte are also, in different ways, powerhouses of the new Italian folk movement. As Tuscany and Umbria share a border, it is not surprising that their music is not very different from one another, and there is a lot of co-operation between the folk musicians of those two regions. One of the first musicians to help create the new Italian folk movement was Riccardo Tesi, from Pistoia in Tuscany. His instrument is the diatonic accordion and his skills are such that he has been called on to collaborate with most of the major folk musicians of the last 40 years. With saxophonist and clarinetist Claudio Carboni from Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, he formed 'Banditalia', but he originally made his name playing with one of the aforementioned doyennes of Italian folk, Caterina Bueno. Over the years, he has also recorded with, among others: another Pistoiese, the guitarist Maurizio Geri - who also worked with Caterina Bueno; the Neapolitan saxophonist, Daniele Sepe; Peppino d’Agostino of the group 'Uaragniaun' (Puglia, bordering on ); Ginevra di Marco from Florence; Elena Ledda and Mauro Palmas from Sardinia; and Alfio Antica from Sicily. One of the so-called ‘super groups’ mentioned earlier was led by Riccardo Tesi and included Geri, di Marco, Ledda and Palmas; and Lucilla Galeazzi. They recorded a CD of celebration of folk and songs of protest - its title is “Bella Ciao”. Lucilla Galeazzi is probably the greatest folk singer from Umbria, who has also recorded extensively with folk groups from other regions and with the group 'L'Arpeggiata', led by Christina Pluhar from Austria.

Turin, the capital city of Piemonte, is the home of Felway, a music publishing company, which between 2001 and 2007 produced a series called “Tribù Italiche”. Each CD featured the folk music of an Italian region, some from professional artists, some from local church choirs and, sometimes, just sounds from village life or from work, such as the calls of fishmongers, carters or panel beaters. Discovering that series was for me, especially with regard to the professional musicians, an excellent source of new (old) music.

Unsurprisingly, one of the first regional collections in the series was 'Tribù Italiche: Piemonte' which introduced a range of music from all parts of that very diverse region. From Turin came music in the mainstream of Italian folk with Laura Conti and ‘Ombra Gaja’. Several groups are known for their early association with the folk revival movement: ‘La Ciapa Rusa’, ‘Le Vija’ & ‘Cantovivo’. From Occitania, the fourteen Provençal valleys in the , performing in a mixture of French, Italian and the Oc dialect come: ‘L’escabot’, Silvio Peron & Gabriele Ferrero, and Re Niliu. Linking the mountains and the plains is Lou Dalfin.

All regions have produced memorable examples of the art of their areas; too many to mention here.