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In what follows I analyse how two Neapolitan songs enhance viewer perspective of the personalities of the protagonists of the classic film of Italian neorealism, Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves) by De Sica (1948), Antonio Ricci and his son Bruno. The first, 'Ciccio formaggio', casts into relief Antonio's masculine self-image, particularly his reaction to the impact of unemployment on his traditional role of pater familias and to the possibility of public humiliation, should he fail to retrieve his bicycle. While 'Ciccio' sheds light on the tension in the marital relationship, 'Tammurriata' allows the viewer to consider Bruno's marginalization within a self-perpetuating cycle of poverty, thus shifting focus, at least partially, from the father to the long-term effects on the son (for which Antonio feels shame born of inadequacy). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Neapolitan songs are known worldwide, but most of them became popular when the radio and record industries did not yet exist. The article hypothesises that this ‘unusual’ phenomenon can be connected to the many intersected actions of spreading and ‘drilling’ undertaken by ‘passionate’ listeners of Neapolitan songs and amateurs, who were engaged in ‘permanent creative activity, communication, community building, and content-production’. As is evident, this article refers to some studies about recent trends in media communication to explore better the Neapolitan communication system, between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this way, it wishes to overcome the juxtaposition between ‘new’ and ‘old’ – the ‘dualistic form’ of many ‘short term investigations’ – and proposes to test social science models in different socio-historical contexts, by putting them into ‘the water of time’, to see if they float, if they can ‘keep afloat’ or if they ‘sink’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the Piedigrotta Festival named after an area of Naples, Italy near the Church of Santa Maria di Pedigrotta. Topics discussed include the festival's origin which dates back to the bacchanalia, feasts designed to propitiate fertility and celebrated in honor of the god Priapus, singing as an important part of the festival and the input of the Festival to the classical Neapolitan song and the festival's involvement in other cultural fields such as visual arts and publishing.

Copyright of Volume! is the property of Editions Melanie Seteun and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Letras (0326-3363) is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica Argentina and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

L'Orchestra, a cooperative established in 1974/75, based in Milan, Italy, was a unique organisation, involving musicians, sound and lighting engineers, music critics and teachers, and concert managers. It was started as a kind of artists' union, a federation of folk, rock, political song, jazz, avant-garde groups, but in a few months it became a concert agency and a record company; it held music courses for amateurs and published music tutorials; it helped managing the first multipurpose art/social centre in Milan. L'Orchestra promoted studies along various disciplinary perspectives (sociology, music education, ideological criticism, semiotics) that in some respects embody and in others help explain the development of popular music studies and of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the canzone napoletana (Neapolitan song) is the best-known Italian popular music in the world, it is also the most misunderstood. It is mostly associated with operatic or quasi-operatic vocal styles, but all the other Neapolitan popular voices, the performance features and even the history of this musical genre are less zoell known. This essay in particular considers how the porous Neapolitan voice is a ‘space’ for complex negotiations between different musical styles, and how through tins voice (that admits within itself the existence of other vocal styles) Neapolitan coin posers, musicians and singers articulate different relationships between music, history and nostalgia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Roberto Agostini on Italian Canzone and Sanremo Festival and another by Goffredo Plastino on Neapolitan song.

Together with traditional genres, common without particular distinction in the entire seventeenth-century production, the Neapolitan sacred repertory includes a very unusual and peculiar genre: the frottola. It was widespread in Naples, at least in the first half of the Seventeenth century, as both known printed and handwritten collections obviously point out. It considers that the frottola was well known also out of Neapolitan reality. As a matter of fact, when in 1632 Heinrich Schulz sent his letter requesting 'Musiche da Napoli', he explicitly demanded the «Frottole del Padre Grub a piu voci», perhaps attracted by the inevitable curiosity that such a title aroused out of Naples. Even though it is a unicum of the Neapolitan sacred repertory, the frottola has never been deeply studied. Salvatore di Giacomo, who was the first to deal with this genre, defined it as «a choral singing, group of ten o fifteen voices ('a frotte'), that the Neapolitan conservatoires students used to sing, almost running, in front of Saints processions […]». Analyzing the frottole held in the handwritten MS. 51 and preserved in the Library of the Conservatory S. Pietro a Majella of Naples, and those one printed by Orazio Giaccio in 1621, both musical and textual characteristics, peculiar of this genre, will be presented and discussed. The evaluation of sang poetical text will reveal both the frottola own characteristics and the strict relation with hymns. As matter of fact, the revealed picture shows the persistence, in the first of the Seventeenth century in Naples, of some hymn texts of medieval tradition which, even if never officialized in the Breviario, keeps on being used deprived of their own hymn characteristic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A partimento is a linear guide for the improvisation of a keyboard piece. Partimenti were developed for the training of composers in the conservatories of Naples during the eighteenth century. They contain all the information needed for the realization of complete pieces of music, and their practice bestowed on practitioners a fluency in composition unparalleled since then. The Neapolitan masters usually recommended different stages of realization, from the simplest (con le sole consonanze) to highly elaborate textures. The rules for the realization of partimenti have survived in many sources, but they cover only the first stage of realization because the techniques for more advanced realizations were transmitted orally. With the decadence and extinction of the living tradition, the realization of partimenti became a lost art. However, some principles for advanced realization may be inferred from the surviving written realizations, and from the analysis of the partimento in question. Relying on the foundation formed by the rules, and integrating them with these principles, the present article shows some examples of how a present-day musician can create a satisfying realization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the importance of Neopolitan songs in the instrumental composition of composer Johannes Brahms. Emphasis of the movement of the f-minor to the Neopolitan-related chords; Association of some composers to the works of Brahms; Outline on the characteristic of the Neopolitan-complex.