History of Music in Italy

The music of Italy ranges across a broad variety of opera and instrumental classical music and a body of famous music draw from both the local and imported sources. Music has traditionally been one of the cultural makers of Italian national and ethnic identity and holds a significant position in the society and in politics. Italian invention in musical scales, harmony, notation and theatre enabled the establishment of opera in the late 16^th century, and much of the current European classical music like the symphony and concerto.

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Vocal and instrumental classical music is an iconic part of the Italian identity, bridging experimental art of music and international combination to symphonic music and opera. Opera is integral to Italian musical tradition, and has become a major part of the famous music; the Neapolitan song, such as canzone Napoletana and the cantautori singer-songwriter traditions are also well-known domestic patterns that form a significant segment of the Italian music industry, alongside imported genres such as rock, hip pop and jazz. Italian traditional music is a significant part of the country’s musical heritage, and extents a different display of regional patterns, instruments and dances.

The Italian music has been held up in high esteem in history and several pieces of Italian music are measured high art, more than other elements of Italian tradition, Italian music is generally eclectic, but different from other nations’ music. No narrow protectionist trend has ever attempted to keep Italian music pure and free from the foreign influence, except briefly under the Fascists administration of the 1920s and 30s. As a result, the Italian music has kept elements of the many peoples that have conquered or influenced the country, which include the German, Spanish and French. The country’s historical supports to music are also a significant segment of national pride. The relatively present record of the Italy includes the establishment of an opera tradition that has spread all over the world; proceeding to the establishment of Italian identity or a unified Italian state, the Italian peninsula contributed to important inventions in music and include the development of musical notation and Gregorian chant.

Italy has a rigid sense of national identity through different culture- a sense of an appreciation of beauty and emotionally, which is rigidly evidenced in the music. The cultural, political and the social issues are often also expressed through the music in Italy. Allegiance to music is integrally woven into the social identity of Italians but no sole pattern has been measured a characteristic national style. Most traditional music’s are localized, and different to a small region or city, Italy’s classical legacy, though, is a significant point of the country’s identity, particularly opera; traditional operatic pieces remain a well-known part of music and an integral unit of national identity. The musical output of Italy remains considered by the great variety and creative independence with a rich variety of types of expression.

With the growing industrialization that enhanced during the 20^th and the 21th century, Italian society gradually moved from the agricultural base to an urban and industrial center. This change declined the traditional culture in many segments of the society; a similar process happened in other European countries, but unlike them, Italy had no major initiative to preserve the traditional music’s. Settlers from the North African, Asia and other European countries led to further change the Italian music; the traditional music came to place only in small pockets, especially as part of dedicated campaigns to retain local musical identities.

The music and politics have been intertwined for decades in Italy, just as several works of art in the Italian Renaissance were commissioned by the royalty and the Roman Catholic Church; much music was likewise composed on the basis of such commissions in incidental court music, music for coronations for the birth of a royal heir, royal marches and other events, composers who strayed ran certain risks, among the best known of such cases was the Neapolitan composer like Domenico Cimarosa, who composed the Republican hymn for the short-lived Neapolitan republic of the 1799. When the republic feel, he was tried for treason along with other rebels, Cimarosa was not killed by the restored monarchy, but he was exiled.

Also music played an important role in the unification of the peninsula, during that time, some leaders attempted to use music to forge a unifying cultural identity. One instance is the chorus Va Pensiero from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Nabucco. The opera is about the olden Babylon, but the chorus contains the phrase Omia Patria apparently about the struggle of the Israelites, but also a thinly indirect reference to the destiny of a not-yet united Italy; the whole chorus became the unofficial anthem of the Risorgimento, the determination to unify Italy in the 19^th century. Even Verdi’s name was a substitute for Italian unity because Verdi could be read as a contraction for Vittorio Emanuele Re d’talia Victor Emauel King of Italy, the Savoy monarch who eventually became Victor Emanuel II, the first king if united Italy. Consequently, Viva Verdi was a rallying cry for patriots and often emerged in graffiti in Milan and other cities in what was then segment of Austro-Hungarian region. Verdi had problems with restriction before the unification of Italy. His opera Un ballo in maschera was newly entitled Gustavo III and was presented to the San Carlo opera in Naples, the capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in the late 1850s, the Neapolitan censors objected to the realistic plot about the killing of Gustav III, king of Sweden in the 1790s, even after the plot was changed, the Neapolitan censors still rejected it.

Later, in the Fascist period of the 1920s and 30s government restriction and interference with music happened, though not on a systematic basis, prominent instances include the notorious anti-modernist manifesto of 1932 and Mussolini’s stopping of G.F. Malipiero’s opera La favola de figlio cambiato after one show in the year 1934. The music media often criticized music that was perceived as either politically essential or inadequately Italian, the general print media, like the Enciclopedia Moderna Italiana, tended to treat traditionally favoured composers like Pietro Mascagni and Giacomo Puccini with the same conciseness as composers and artists that were not as favoured the modernists like the Ferruccio Busoni and Alfredo Casella; that is, encyclopedia entries of the period were mere lists of career milestones such as compositions and teaching positions held. Even the conductor Arturo Toscanini, an affirmed rival of Fascism, gets the same neutral and distant treatment with no mention at his entire anti-regime posture. Possibly the best-known episode of music colliding with politics involves Toscanini. He had been forced out of the musical directorship at the La Scala in Milan in the year 1929 because he refused to start every performance with the fascist song, Giovinezza. For this insult to the administration, he was attacked and beaten on the street outside the Bologne opera after a show in 1931. During the Fascist period, political pressure foiled the establishment of classical music, although restriction was not as systematic as in Nazi Germany. A number of racial laws was passed in the year 1938, consequently denying to Jewish composers and artists membership in professional and artistic associations. Although there was not a massive conflict of Italian Jews from Italy during that time (compared to the situation in Germany) composer like Mario CasteInuovo-Tedesco, an Italian Jew, was one of those who settled. Some non-Jewish foes of the administration also migrated.

More presently, in the later part of the 20^th century, especially in the 1970s and beyond, music became further trapped in Italian politics. A roots restoration stimulated interest in the folk traditions led by writers, collectors and traditional artists. The political right in Italy views this roots restoration with disdain, as a product of the unprivileged classes. The revivalist scene thus became associated with the opposition an became a vehicle for the protest against the free market capitalism, similarly, the avant-garde classical music scene has since the 1970s, been associated with and promoted by the Italian Communist Party, a change that can be traced to the 1968 student revolutions and protests.