Folk Music Of Italy

Italian folk music reflects a long and diverse history. National unification occurred relatively late on the Italian peninsula, allowing its many hundreds of regional cultures to retain distinct musical traditions. Italy’s geographic position—at the southern edge of Europe and central to the Mediterranean Sea—has contributed to a wide array of external influences. Celtic, Slavic, Arabic, Greek, Spanish and Byzantine musical elements are readily apparent in regional styles. Italy's mountainous geography and the historical dominance of small city-states further encouraged the persistence of localized traditions.

Contemporary classification of Italian folk music often follows the geographic typology proposed by Alan Lomax in 1956, which has been frequently reiterated in later studies. The group and open-voice choral styles of Northern Italy reflect Celtic and Slavic influences, while the strident monody of Southern Italy shows Greek, Byzantine, and Arabic roots. Central Italy exhibits a mixture of these traditions, alongside older indigenous forms such as narrative balladry. The music of Sardinia remains especially distinct, most notably for its polyphonic vocal tradition known as ''tenores''.

Italian folk revival

The modern understanding of Italian folk music developed alongside the rise of ethnomusicology in the 1940s and 1950s and the resurgence of regionalism in Italy during that period. The Centro Nazionale di Studi di Musica Popolare (CNSMP), now part of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, was established in 1948 to document and archive musical traditions across Italy. In the 1950s, significant field recordings were conducted by American ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax and Italian scholars including Diego Carpitella, Franco Coggiola, and Roberto Leydi. Toward the end of the decade, special attention was given to the musical traditions of the Meridione (southern Italy), including an influential study by Carpitella and anthropologist Ernesto de Martino on the tarantella.

The early 1960s saw the emergence of socially and politically conscious popular music, including numerous releases by the I Dischi del Sole label. Several notable groups were also formed at this time, including Cantacronache in 1958 and the Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano (NCI) in 1962. The NCI brought together musicians and composers, including Giovanna Marini, and made its first major public appearance at the 1964 Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi. The group went on to produce a large number of recordings and live performances.

The Italian folk revival gained momentum by 1966, when the Istituto Ernesto de Martino was founded in Milan by historian Gianni Bosio to promote oral culture and document traditional music. With the formation of the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare in 1970, a new model emerged in which ensembles focused on the music of specific regions—in this case, Campania. Many of Italy’s most recognized folk revival bands began during the following decade, including La Lionetta (1977), Tre Martelli (1977), La Ciapa Rusa (1978), Re Niliu (1979), Calicanto (1981), and Baraban (1983).

Northern & central Italy

The northern regions of Italy historically exhibited Celtic and Slavic influences in their cultures. Roots revivalists have revived traditional songs, though, from Piedmont (La Ciapa Rusa, Tre Martelli), Lombardy ( Barabàn, Pandemonio) and Veneto ( Calicanto).

The Genoese docks are the home of trallalero, a polyphonic vocal style with five voices, one of which imitates a guitar. It arose in the 1920s and includes modern groups like La Squadra -- Compagnia del Trallalero and Laura Parodi.

The highly urban provinces of northern and central Italy are also known for the medieval sung poetry ottava rima, especially in Tuscany, Lazio and Abruzzo. Ottava rima is performed by the ''poeti contadini'' (''peasant poets'') who use the poems of Homer or Dante, as well as more modern lyrics which address political or social issues. It is often completely improvised, and sometimes competitive in nature. Tuscan folk poetry is closer in form and style to high-culture poetry than is typical elsewhere in Italy.

The saltarello dance is also popular throughout the region. Canzoniere del Lazio is one of the biggest names from central Italy during the 1970s roots revival. With socially aware lyrics, this new wave of Italian roots revivalists often played entirely acoustic songs with influences from jazz and others. More modern musicians in the same field include Lucilla Galeazzi, La Piazza and La Macina.

Southern Italy

A folk dance called the tarantella is still sometimes performed. It was performed to cure the bite of ''Lycosa tarantula'', usually with female victims dancing until exhaustion. Performers used varying rhythms according to the exact kind of spider.

Antonio Infantino has explored the percussion-based tarantolati healing rituals since 1975, when he formed the group Tarantolati di Tricarico.

Puglia is also home to brass bands like Banda Cittá Ruvo Di Puglia; this tradition has led to collaborations with jazz musicians like Matteo Salvatore, Battista Lena, Eugenio Colombo, Natale Galletta and Enrico Rava.

Another culturally unique musical tradition in Southern Italy is the zampogna, a form of bagpipe originally played by the shepherd class and is still prevalent in the mountainous regions of Southern Italy and Sicily. The Zampogna, in addition to secular use is associated with the annunciation of Christ and it is still not uncommon to see a zampogna player at a nativity scene during the Christmas season.

Ethnic Greeks

The ethnic Greeks living in Grecìa Salentina (Apulia) and Bovesia (Calabria) have their own distinct dialects (the Griko or Grecanico, respectively). They have lived in the area for an undetermined amount of time, possibly as early as Ancient Greece, at the time of Magna Graecia, or as late as the Middle Ages. The community has been largely assimilated by the Italian nation, but there remain speakers of the dialects and other aspects of the culture. There was a roots revival in the 1970s in this area, paralleling similar developments across continental Europe, including Brittany and Catalonia.

Folk musical traditions in the area include a religious piece, ''Passiuna tu Christù'', which recounts the Passion of Christ. The Passion is performed by street accordionists with two singers. An example of a pizzica song from Salento region is Kali Nifta (Good night). The lyrics were written in Griko by Vito Domenico Palumbo (1856–1918).

Sicily

Sicily is home to a great variety of religious music, including a cappella devotional songs from Montedoro and many brass bands like Banda Ionica, who play songs from a diverse repertoire. Harvest songs and work songs are also indigenous to the agricultural island, known as "Italy's granary". Franco Battiato, Fratelli Mancuso, Luciano Maio, Taberna Mylaensis and Ciccio Busacca are among the most popular musicians from Sicily. Busacca has worked with Dario Fo, like many Italian musicians, but is perhaps best known for his setting the poems of Ignazio Buttitta, a Sicilian language poet.

Fratelli Mancuso (brothers Enzo and Lorenzo Mancuso) have fused traditional Sicilian peasant songs (), monodic chants () and other indigenous forms to create a uniquely Sicilian modern song style.

Sardinia

Probably the most culturally distinct of all the regions in Italy, Sardinia is a Mediterranean island known for the cantu a tenore polyphonic chant, sacred songs called gozos, and launeddas, a woodwind instrument similar to the Greek aulos. Launeddas are used to play a complex style of music that has achieved some international attention, especially Dionigi Burranca, Antonio Lara, Luigi Lai and Efisio Melis; Burranca, like many of the most famous launedda musicians, is from Samatzai in Cagliari. An ancient instrument, dating back to at least the 8th century BC, launeddas are still played during religious ceremonies and dances (''su ballu''). Distinctively, they are played using extensive variations on a few melodic phrases, and a single song can last over an hour.

The ottava, or eight-line stanza, is a common lyrical form in Sardinia, one which allows the performer a certain amount of improvisation and is not unlike the stornello of south-central mainland Italy.

Rural polyphonic chanting of the tenores is sung with four vocal parts. They are ''bassu'', ''mesa boghe'', ''contra'' and ''boghe'' (respectively to be properly translated to English from Sardinian as "bass", "middle", "counter" and "soloist"). The most popular group is Tenores di Bitti.
In November 2005, the ''Cantu a Tenore'' vocal style of the Sardinian pastoral culture was proclaimed a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

Sacred gozos, or sacred songs, can be heard during religious celebrations, sung by choruses like Su Cuncordu 'e su Rosariu.

Other influential Sardinian musicians include Totore Chessa (organetto), Maria Carta (singer), Mauro Palmas, Elena Ledda and Suonofficina, Cordas et Cannas, Paolo Fresu (trumpet), Gesuino Deiana (guitar), Tazenda, Marisa Sannia.

List of Italian folk songs by region

* Friuli: Quel mazzolin di fiori
* Lombardy: La Madunnina, Dormi, dormi, bel Bambin
* Piedmont:
* Veneto: The Carnival of Venice
* Emilia-Romagna: Romagna mia
* Tuscany: Firenze sogna
* Latium: Arrivederci Roma, Chitarra romana, La Romanina
* Abruzzo: Reginella campagnola
* Campania: , , , O Marenariello, O Mari, 'O sole mio, , Torna a Surriento
* Calabria: Calabrisella mia, Riturnella, Vigna
* Sicily: , ,

References

Bibliography

*
*
*
* Sorce Keller, Marcello (2005). “La musique de l’émigration suisse et italienne aux États-Unis”, in L. Aubert (ed.), ''Musiques migrantes'', In Folio, Genève, pp. 197–210.
*

{{Italy topics

Articles containing video clips
Folk music by country