Neapolitan Folk Songs

This is a selection of 13 different Neapolitan songs, and these interpretations are really good. This is a digital recording, released on Philips in 1983, and originally released in 1981.

## Details

Neapolitan Songs

1. Luigi Denza (1846-1922) - **Funiculi, funiculà** (P. Turco) - 2:29
2. Salvatore Cardillo: **Core 'ngrato** (R. Cordiferro) (Publishers: Edizioni Ricordi) - 3:12
3. Vincenzo d'Annibale: **'O paese d'o sole** (L. Bovio) (Publishers: Edizioni Santa Lucia) - 3:03
4. Rodolfo Falvo: **Dicitencello vuie** (E. Fusco) (Publishers: Italian Book Company) - 3:47
5. Gaetana Lama: **Silenzio cantatore** (L. Bovio) (Publishers: Casa Editrice La Canzonetta) - 3:33
6. E.A. Mario: **Santa Lucia luntana** (Santa Lucia Lontana) (E.A. Mario) (Publishers: Casa Editrice Nazionale) - 3:07
7. Ernesto di Curtis: **Tu, ca nun chiagne!** (L. Bovio) (Publishers: Casa Editrice La Canzonetta) - 3:07
8. Eduardo di Capua (1864-1917) - **'O sole mio** (G. Capurro) - 3:18
9. Luigi Denza: **I'te vurria vasà** (V. Russo) - 3:30
10. L. Bovio/Tagilaferri: **Passione** (Valente) (Publishers: Edizione Bottega dei Quattro) - 3:45
11. Giuseppe Ciofi: **'Na sera 'e maggio** (G. Pisano) (Publishers: Casa Editrice La Canzonetta) - 3:02
12. E. Cannio: **'O surdato 'nnamurato** (A. Califano) (Publishers: Edizione Bideri) - 1:55
13. Ernesto de Curtis: **Torna a Surriento** (Torna a Sorrento) (G.B. de Curtis) (Publishers: Edizione Bideri) - 4:26

(Arrangements: Peter Hope)

Total length: 42 minutes

* Tenor: José Carreras
* Orchestra: English Chamber Orchestra
* Conductor: Edoardo Müller

Recorded: London, 7/1980

Photo: Foto Fayer, Vienna

Catalogue Numbers:

* CD: 400 015-2
* LP: 9500 943
* Cassette: 7300 943

## Liner Notes

Naples has been renowned for its music for five centuries. The beginning of its fame can be traced back to 1476 when the Flemish composer Johannes de Tinctoris, who was also the author of the first known dictionary of music, entered the service of Ferdinand of Aragon, King of Naples, as chaplain and cantor.

He founded a public music school in the city and this was followed at various dates in the sixteenth century by the four great conservatories there founded for the purpose of giving shelter and instruction, especially in music, to homeless orphans in the city.

It was in these early years that Naples first gave its name to a form of musical composition, the Napolitana, a light-hearted, and simple song for several voices, akin to the madrigal and almost indistinguishable from the villanella. Their most famous composer was Domenico de Nola, who was *maestro di capella* of the Church of the Annunziata in Naples, where he died in 1592.

The songs which we now call Neapolitan are of a later date but they have affinities with the older Napolitanas although they are for solo voice. They originated in Naples but were taken up enthusiastically by singers all over the world, especially tenors, as encore pieces and for performance at the ballad concerts which were a feature of musical life in the later decades of the nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth.

In purely orchestral form they also became staple diet for the small orchestras which flourished in those years on piers and promenades, in the pump rooms and floral halls of spas and holiday resorts, and in the larger hotels and restaurants.

Although the heyday of the Neapolitan song was around the turn of the present century, many of them are as familiar and well loved now as when they were first written. One cannot help but wonder how many of the popular songs of today are likely to be familiar to our descendants of a hundred years hence? Interest and demand have, of course, been stimulated and sustained regularly by the annual Piedigrotta song festival, held each September at Naples - for which, by the way, Di Capua wrote the ever-popular "'O sole mio."

Most Neapolitan songs are filled with love, either of the city with its sweeping bay, sunny shores, and blue skies or one or other of the emotions engendered by human love and passion. An outstanding exception is "Funiculi, funiculà", which was written by Luigi Denza in 1880 to commemorate the opening of the funicular railway which carries its passengers to the summit of Mount Vesuvius. It is interesting to recall that a mere six years after its composition it was so well known that Richard Strauss, under the impression that it was a Neapolitan folk-song, used it as one of the themes in his orchestral fantasia "Aus Italien."

Many of the other songs included here, such as "Torna a Surriento" and "'O surdato 'nnamurato" date from the golden age of Neapolitan song but others are more recent. It may be well to point out that Mario's "Santa Lucia luntana" is not the "Santa Lucia" beloved of Caruso and many of his successors. According to the famous singing-teacher and critic Hermann Klein, the latter is a traditional song of which both Cottrau and Gordigiani made arrangements.

*W.A. Chislett*

## Links

For the playlist of the album, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gbhOqLfICk&list=OLAK5uy\_knARAeoYTO2ELsH6vM8zWQGmgfph\_zvGo

On Decca Classics, they don't have any more info on this album.

For the official Decca Classics website, click here: https://www.deccaclassics.com/en