Popular Music of Italy

The earliest Italian famous music was the opera of the 19^th century; opera has had a lasting effect on the Italy’s classical and famous music. Opera tunes spread through the brass bands and itinerant bands. Canzone Napoletana, or Neapolitan song, is a different culture that became a part of famous music in the 19^th century, and was an iconic image of the Italian music abroad by the end of the 20^th century. Imported styles have also become a significant part of Italian famous music, starting with the French café-chantant in the 1890s and then the arrival of the American jazz in the 1910s. Until the Italian Fascism became officially allergic to foreign influences in the late 1930s, American dance music and artists were quite famous; jazz great Louis Armstrong toured Italy as late as 1935 to great approval. In the 1950s, the American patterns became more prominent, especially the rock, the singer-songwriter cantautori culture was a major achievement of the later 1960s, while the Italian rock scene soon expanded into punk, funk, progressive and folk-based styles.

source of picture: www.musicbandinitaly.net

Italian opera became vastly famous in the 19^th century and was known all over even the most rural parts of the country, most villages had occasional opera productions, and the methods used in opera influenced by the rural folk music’s. Opera spread through the itinerant bands and brass bands, focused in a local village, these civic bands (banda communale) used instruments to perform operatic arias, with trombones or fluegelhorns for male vocal parts and cornets for female parts.

Regional music in the 19^th century also became famous all over the Italy; notable among these local cultures was the Canzaone Napoletana the Neapolitan song. Although there are anonymous, documented songs from the Naples from many centuries ago, the term canzone Napoletana now generally means to a large body of relatively recent, composed famous music such songs include the O sole mio, Torna a Surriento, and Funiculi Funicula. In the 18^th century, several performers which include the Leonardo Vinci, Alessandro Scarlatti and Giovanni Paisiello, contributed to the Neapolitan culture by using the local language for the texts of some of their comic opera.

Later, others most popularly Gaetano Donizetti composed Neapolitan songs that gathered great renown in Italy and abroad. The Neapolitan song tradition became stylized in the 1830s through an annual songwriting contest for the annual Piedigrotta festivities, dedicated to the Madonna of Piedigrotta, as popular church in the Mergellina place of Naples. The music us identified with the Naples, but is popular aboard, having been exported on the great waves of settlers from the Naples and southern Italy roughly between 1880 and 1920. Language is an extremely significant element of the Neapolitan song, which is always written and performed in Neapolitan, the area minority language of Campania. Neapolitan songs typically use simple vocal and are structured in two parts, a refrain and narrative verses, which often is contrasting the relative or parallel major and minor keys. In non- musical terms, this refers that many Neapolitan songs can sound joyful one minute and depressed the next.

The music of Franceso Tosti was well-known at the turn of the 20^th century, and is remembered for his light, expressive songs. His style became very famous during the Belle Epoque and is often called as salon music. His most popular works are Serenata, Addio and the famous Neapolitan song, Marechiaro, the lyrics of which are by the prominent Neapolitan dialect poet, Salvatore di Giacomo.

The historical famous music began in the 19^th century, with international patterns influencing Italian music by the late 1910s; though, the rise of autarchia, the Fascist policy of the cultural isolationism in the year 1922, which led to a retreat from international famous music. During this time, the Italian traditions, this spread all over the world and further diversified following the liberalization after the World War II.

Under the isolationist policies of the fascist administration, which rose to power in the year 1922, Italy established an insular musical tradition; foreign music’s were suppressed while Mussolini’s government inspired nationalism and linguistic and ethnic purity. The famous musicians however, toured abroad, and brought back new patterns and methods. America jazz was a significant influence on the singers like Alberto Rabagliati, who became known for a swinging style. Elements of vocal and melody from the jazz and blues were used in many well-known songs, while rhythms often came from the Latin dances like the rumba, beguine and tango. Italian composers incorporated elements from these styles, while Italian music, especially the Neapolitan songs, became a segment of famous music all over the Latin America.