1.
Music of Italy
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The music of Italy ranges across a broad spectrum of opera and instrumental classical music and a body of popular music drawn from both native and imported sources. Music has traditionally one of the cultural markers of Italian national and ethnic identity and holds an important position in society. Instrumental and vocal music is an iconic part of Italian identity, spanning experimental art music and international fusions to symphonic music. Opera is integral to Italian musical culture, and has become a segment of popular music. Italian folk music is an important part of the musical heritage. Italian music has held up in high esteem in history. More than other elements of Italian culture, Italian music is generally eclectic, No parochial protectionist movement has ever attempted to keep Italian music pure and free from foreign influence, except briefly under the Fascist regime of the 1920s and 30s. As a result, Italian music has elements of the many peoples that have dominated or influenced the country, including French, German. The countrys historical contributions to music are also an important part of national pride, Italy has a strong sense of national identity through distinctive culture - a sense of an appreciation of beauty and emotionality, which is strongly evidenced in the music. Cultural, political and social issues are also expressed through music in Italy. Allegiance to music is integrally woven into the identity of Italians. Most folk musics are localized, and unique to a region or city. The musical output of Italy remains characterized by diversity and creative independence a rich variety of types of expression. With the growing industrialization that accelerated during the 20th and 21st century, Italian society gradually moved from a base to an urban. Immigration from North Africa, Asia, and other European countries led to diversification of Italian music. Traditional music came to exist only in pockets, especially as part of dedicated campaigns to retain local musical identities. Music and politics have been intertwined for centuries in Italy, composers who strayed ran certain risks. Among the best known of such cases was the Neapolitan composer Domenico Cimarosa, when the republic fell, he was tried for treason along with other revolutionaries
2.
Italian opera
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Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was born in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day, many famous operas in Italian were written by foreign composers, including Handel, Gluck and Mozart. Dafne by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today, peris works, however, did not arise out of a creative vacuum in the area of sung drama. An underlying prerequisite for the creation of opera proper was the practice of monody, from this, it was only a small step to fully-fledged monody. Such spectacles were staged to commemorate significant state events, weddings, military victories, and the like. They were lavishly staged, and led the scenography of the half of the 16th century. Another popular court entertainment at this time was the madrigal comedy and this consisted of a series of madrigals strung together to suggest a dramatic narrative, but not staged. There were also two staged musical pastorals, Il Satiro and La Disperazione di Fileno, both produced in 1590 and written by Emilio de Cavalieri. Other pastoral plays had long included some musical numbers, one of the earliest, the music of Dafne is now lost. The first opera for which music has survived was performed in 1600 at the wedding of Henry IV of France, the opera, Euridice, with a libretto by Rinuccini, set to music by Peri and Giulio Caccini, recounted the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. The style of singing favored by Peri and Caccini was a form of natural speech. Recitative thus preceded the development of arias, though it became the custom to include separate songs. Both Dafne and Euridice also included choruses commenting on the action at the end of each act in the manner of Greek tragedy. The theme of Orpheus, the demi-god of music, was popular and attracted Claudio Monteverdi who wrote his first opera, La Favola dOrfeo. Monteverdi insisted on a relationship between the words and music. When Orfeo was performed in Mantua, an orchestra of 38 instruments, Opera had revealed its first stage of maturity in the hands of Monteverdi. LOrfeo also has the distinction of being the earliest surviving opera that is regularly performed today. Within a few decades opera had spread throughout Italy, in Rome, it found an advocate in the prelate and librettist Giulio Rospigliosi
3.
Progressive rock
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Progressive rock is a broad subgenre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States throughout the mid to late 1960s. Prog is based on fusions of styles, approaches and genres, Prog saw a high level of popularity in the early-to-mid 1970s, but faded soon after. Conventional wisdom holds that the rise of rock caused this. Music critics, who labelled the concepts as pretentious and the sounds as pompous and overblown. Early groups who exhibited progressive features are described as proto-prog. In 1967, progressive rock constituted a diversity of loosely associated style codes, the Canterbury scene, originating in the late 1960s, denoted a subset of prog bands who emphasised the use of wind instruments, complex chord changes and long improvisations. Rock in Opposition, from the late 1970s, was more avant-garde, in the 1980s, a new subgenre, neo-progressive rock, enjoyed some commercial success, although it was also accused of being derivative and lacking in innovation. Post-progressive draws upon newer developments in music and the avant-garde since the mid 1970s. The term progressive rock is synonymous with art rock, classical rock, historically, art rock has been used to describe at least two related, but distinct, types of rock music. Similarities between the two terms are that they describe a mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility. However, art rock is likely to have experimental or avant-garde influences. Prog was devised in the 1990s as a term, but later became a transferable adjective. Although a unidirectional English progressive style emerged in the late 1960s, by 1967, critics of the genre often limit its scope to a stereotype of long solos, overlong albums, fantasy lyrics, grandiose stage sets and costumes, and an obsessive dedication to technical skill. Author Kevin Holm-Hudson believes that rock is a style far more diverse than what is heard from its mainstream groups. They each do so largely unconsciously, academic John S. Cotner contests Macans view that progressive rock cannot exist without the continuous and overt assimilation of classical music into rock. Debate about the criteria and scope of the genre continues in the 2010s. In early references to the music, progressive was partly related to progressive politics, Cotner also says that progressive rock incorporates both formal and eclectic elements, It consists of a combination of factors – some of them intramusical, others extramusical or social. One way of conceptualising rock and roll in relation to music is that progressive music pushed the genre into greater complexity while retracing the roots of romantic
4.
Sanremo Music Festival
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Usually referred to as Festival di Sanremo, or outside Italy as Sanremo Music Festival or Sanremo Music Festival Award, it was the inspiration for the Eurovision Song Contest. Starting from 1955 all the editions of the Festival have been broadcast live by the Italian TV station Rai 1. During this era of the festival, it was custom that one version of the song was performed by a native Italian artist while the version was performed by an international guest artist. The Festival airs annually in Australia on the multicultural broadcaster SBS One, in the aftermath of World War II, one of the proposals to revitalize the economy and the reputation of Sanremo was to create an annual music festival to be held in the city. Officially titled Festival della Canzone Italiana, the first edition of the show was held at the Sanremo Casino on 29,30 and 31 January 1951, the final of the competition was broadcast by Rete Rossa, the second most important RAI radio station. Twenty songs took part in the competition, performed by three artists only–Nilla Pizzi, Duo Fasano and Achille Togliani, starting from the third edition of the festival, held in 1953, each song was performed by two different artists with different orchestras and arrangements. Two years later, in 1955, the festival made its first appearance on television, the last night of the show was also broadcast in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The same rule was applied in the years contest. Between 1967 and 1971, entries were not forced to be interpreted by foreign artists, starting from 1972, each entry was sung by one artist only. The competing artists were split for the first time into Big artists, the competition had one winner only, but the entries in the Young artists category had to go through an elimination round, while Big artists were directly admitted to the final. In 1977, the Sanremo Casino, which hosted all the editions of the contest, was not available for renovations. The theater later became the location for the annual contest, hosting it every year except in 1990. In 1980, pre-recorded backing tracks replaced the orchestra, while playback performances were allowed in 1983 during the final, in 1984 and 1985, all the artists were forced to perform in playback, while live performances with the orchestra were reintroduced in 1986. During the same years, several changes were introduced in the contest. In 1982, accredited music journalists decided to create an award to recognise the best song competing in the festival, starting from 1983, the prize was officially awarded during the event. The critics prize was later entitled to Mia Martini, who was the first artist receiving it in 1982 for her entry E non finisce mica il cielo, moreover, starting from 1984, the separation between newcomers and established artists was marked introducing two different competitions with separate winners. In 1989 a third category, the Upcoming Artists Section, was introduced, only in 1998 the top three artists in the newcomers section were allowed to compete in the main competition. This led to the victory of the debuting Annalisa Minetti, which generated several controversy, the distinction among different categories was abolished again in 2004
5.
Il Canto degli Italiani
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Il Canto degli Italiani is the national anthem of Italy. It is best known among Italians as Inno di Mameli, after the author of the lyrics, or Fratelli dItalia, the words were written in the autumn of 1847 in Genoa, by the then 20-year-old student and patriot Goffredo Mameli. Two months later, they were set to music in Turin by another Genoese, the hymn enjoyed widespread popularity throughout the period of the Risorgimento and in the following decades. After the Second World War, Italy became a republic, and on 12 October 1946 and this choice was made official in law only on 23 November 2012. The first manuscript of the poem, preserved at the Istituto Mazziniano in Genoa, appears in a personal copybook of the poet, of uncertain dating, the manuscript reveals anxiety and inspiration at the same time. The poet begins with È sorta dal feretro then seems to change his mind, leaves some room, begins a new paragraph, the handwriting appears nervy and frenetic, with numerous spelling errors, among which are Ilia for Italia and Ballilla for Balilla. The second manuscript is the copy that Goffredo Mameli sent to Michele Novaro for setting to music and it shows a much steadier handwriting, fixes misspellings, and has a significant modification, the incipit is Fratelli dItalia. This copy is in the Museo del Risorgimento in Turin, the hymn was also printed on leaflets in Genoa, by the printing office Casamara. The Istituto Mazziniano has a copy of these, with annotations by Mameli himself. This sheet, subsequent to the two manuscripts, lacks the last strophe for fear of censorship and these leaflets were to be distributed on the December 10 demonstration, in Genoa. In this occasion the flag was shown and Mamelis hymn was publicly sung for the first time. After December 10 the hymn spread all over the Italian peninsula, in the 1848, Mamelis hymn was very popular among the Italian people and it was commonly sung during demonstrations, protests and revolts as a symbol of the Italian Unification in most parts of Italy. In the Five Days of Milan, the rebels sang the Song of the Italians during clashes against the Austrian Empire, in the 1860, the corps of volunteers led by Giuseppe Garibaldi used to sing the hymn in the battles against the Bourbons in Sicily and Southern Italy. During the period of Italian Fascism, the Song of the Italians continued to play an important role as patriotic hymn along with several popular fascist songs. After the armistice of Cassibile, Mamelis hymn was sung by both the Italian partisans and the people who supported the Italian Social Republic. After the Second World War, following the birth of the Italian Republic, on 23 November 2012, this choice was made official in law. This is the text of the original poem written by Goffredo Mameli. However, the Italian anthem, as performed in official occasions, is composed of the first stanza sung twice
6.
Music of Naples
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Naples has played an important and vibrant role over the centuries not just in the music of Italy, but in the general history of western European musical traditions. The vitality of Neapolitan popular music from the late 19th century has made such songs as O Sole mio, in the mid-16th century, the Spanish throne established church-run conservatories in its vice-realm of Naples. These institutions were on the premises of four churches in the city of Naples, Santa Maria di Loreto, Pietà dei Turchini, SantOnofrio a Capuana, at the time, these institutions were called conservatories because they conserved—that is, they sheltered and educated—orphans. This primed Naples to become one of the most important centers of training in Europe. Naples was also the birthplace of the popular Neapolitan opera buffa, the conservatory still bears the inscription Royal Academy of Music over the entrance and is still an important music school in Italy. It houses a library of manuscripts pertaining to the lives. Canzone Napoletana is what most people think of when they think of Neapolitan music and it consists of a large body of composed popular music—such songs as O sole mio, Torna a Surriento, Funiculì funiculà, etc. The winner of the first festival was a song entitled Te voglio bene assaie, it was composed by the prominent opera composer, the festival ran regularly until 1950 when it was abandoned. A subsequent Festival of Neapolitan Song on Italian state radio enjoyed some success in the 1950s but was abandoned as well. The period since 1950 has produced songs as Malafemmena by Totò, Indifferentemente by Mario Trevi. Although separated by some decades from the classics of this genre. By definition, this is largely anonymous music and it features traditional folk percussion instruments such as the putipù--consisting of a membrane stretched across a resonating chamber, like a drum. There are generally small metal jingles mounted around the perimeter of the instrument, often combining dance, music, and drama, the subject matter and approach to vocalizing are quite distinct from the composed stylings of the better-known Neapolitan song. There are various kinds of mandolins in use in Italy, they bear the names of cities or regions such as the Roman, the Lombard, the Genovese, and they may differ in size, shape, number of strings and tuning. The traditional Neapolitan mandolin is tear-shaped with a back and a uniquely cut and shaped front, it has eight strings paired into the four violin tunings of g, d, a. The strings are played with a plectrum, producing the rapid, in that configuration, the Neapolitan mandolin started to be manufactured widely in Naples in the mid-18th century. In spite of the vision of the mandolin as a quaint vehicle for older, traditional popular music such as the Canzone Napoletana. Around the start of the 20th century, they were performed in the U. S. in areas populated by Italian immigrants and it is always sung and spoken in Neapolitan dialect
7.
Music of Sicily
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The Music of Sicily refers to music created by peoples from the isle of Sicily. Sicily is home to a variety of Christian music, including a cappella devotional songs from Montedoro and many brass bands like Banda Ionica. Harvest songs and work songs are also indigenous to the agricultural island, Sicilian flute music, called friscaletto, is also popular among traditionalist Sicilians, as are Messinas male choirs and the islands ciarameddi. Franco Battiato, Carmen Consoli, Fratelli Mancuso 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, Fratelli Mancuso have fused traditional Sicilian peasant songs, monodic chants and other indigenous forms to create a uniquely Sicilian modern song style. Sicily has the most vibrant jazz scene in Italy, based in Palermo and including Enzo Rao and his group Shamal, pop Classical Crossover soundtrack queen Romina Arena hails from Sicily. She has not only recorded in her Sicilian/Italian languages but recorded and released recordings in other languages including English, Japanese, Spanish. Sicilys historical connections lie not primarily with mainland Italy, but with the ancient Greeks, Arab, the result has been a diverse and unique fusion of musical elements on the island. The Siciliana, a slow and lilting Italian style of music in triple meter, is loosely, Sicily is home to several different types of folk music instruments, many of which can also be found in other parts of Southern Italy. The Sicilian ciaramedda is a type of Italian Zampogna that has two equal length chanters and from two to three drones, all the pipes use single cane reeds made from Arundo donax. Also made out of Arundo donax is a small end-blown flute called a friscaletto or friscalettu, the jaw harp, known in Sicilian as marranzanu is heavily associated with Sicilian folk music. Since its invention in the early 19th century the Organetto, a diatonic folk accordion is also prevalent in traditional Sicilian music, percussion instruments include tambourines and other frame drums as well as the cupa cupa, a unique-sounding friction drum. They are Palermo, Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Catania, Enna, Messina, Ragusa, Siracusa, and Trapani. The town of Monreal in the hosts a Sacred Music Week on the premises of the cathedral, Agrigento, the site of an important folk festival. The city also has the Teatro Luigi Pirandello and a museum that hosts concerts amidst ancient ruins. Caltanissetta, the recently reopened Teatro Regina Margherita sponsors the concerts of the Friends of Music Association as well as the finals of the Vincenzo Bellini music competition. Catania, the city is the site of the splendid Teatro Massimo Bellini, built in 1890, Messina, the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele in Messina hosts concerts sponsored by the Laudamo Philharmonic Association. Messina is the site of the Arcangelo Corelli music conservatory, moreover, in Taormina there is one of the most charming music venues of Italy, the well-preserved Greek theatre which regularly hosts a season of concerts every summer
8.
Hip hop music
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It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements, MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records, while often used to refer solely to rapping, hip hop more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. Hip hops early evolution occurred as sampling technology and drum machines became available and affordable. Turntablist techniques such as scratching and beatmatching developed along with the breaks and Jamaican toasting, rapping developed as a vocal style in which the artist speaks or chants along rhythmically with an instrumental or synthesized beat. The Sugarhill Gangs 1979 song Rappers Delight is widely regarded to be the first hip hop record to gain popularity in the mainstream. The 1980s marked the diversification of hip hop as the genre developed more complex styles, prior to the 1980s, hip hop music was largely confined within the United States. However, during the 1980s, it began to spread to scenes in dozens of countries. New school hip hop was the wave of hip hop music, originating in 1983–84 with the early records of Run-D. M. C. The Golden age hip hop period was a period between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s. Notable artists from this era include the Juice Crew, Public Enemy, & Rakim, Boogie Down Productions and KRS-One, EPMD, Slick Rick, Beastie Boys, Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, Ultramagnetic MCs, De La Soul, and A Tribe Called Quest. Gangsta rap is a subgenre of hip hop that often focuses on the violent lifestyles, in the West Coast hip hop style, G-funk dominated mainstream hip hop for several years during the 1990s. I. G. In the 1990s, hip hop began to diversify with other regional styles emerging, such as Southern rap, at the same time, hip hop continued to be assimilated into other genres of popular music, examples being Neo soul and nu metal. Hip hop became a pop music genre in the mid-1990s. The popularity of hip hop music continued through the 2000s, with hip hop influences also increasingly finding their way into mainstream pop, the United States also saw the success of regional styles such as crunk, a Southern genre that emphasized the beats and music more than the lyrics. Starting in 2005, sales of hip hop music in the United States began to severely wane, during the mid-2000s, alternative hip hop secured a place in the mainstream, due in part to the crossover success of artists such as OutKast and Kanye West. Creation of the hip hop is often credited to Keith Cowboy, rapper with Grandmaster Flash. However, Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was known as disco rap. Cowboy later worked the hip hop cadence into a part of his stage performance, the first use of the term in print was in The Village Voice, by Steven Hager, later author of a 1984 history of hip hop
9.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
10.
Milan
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Milan is a city in Italy, capital of the Lombardy region, and the most populous metropolitan area and the second most populous comune in Italy. The population of the city proper is 1,351,000, Milan has a population of about 8,500,000 people. It is the industrial and financial centre of Italy and one of global significance. In terms of GDP, it has the largest economy among European non-capital cities, Milan is considered part of the Blue Banana and lies at the heart of one of the Four Motors for Europe. Milan is an Alpha leading global city, with strengths in the arts, commerce, design, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, services, research, and tourism. Its business district hosts Italys Stock Exchange and the headquarters of the largest national and international banks, the city is a major world fashion and design capital, well known for several international events and fairs, including Milan Fashion Week and the Milan Furniture Fair. The city hosts numerous cultural institutions, academies and universities, with 11% of the national total enrolled students, Milans museums, theatres and landmarks attract over 9 million visitors annually. Milan – after Naples – is the second Italian city with the highest number of accredited stars from the Michelin Guide, the city hosted the Universal Exposition in 1906 and 2015. Milan is home to two of Europes major football teams, A. C. Milan and F. C. Internazionale, the etymology of Milan is uncertain. One theory holds that the Latin name Mediolanum comes from the Latin words medio, however, some scholars believe lanum comes from the Celtic root lan, meaning an enclosure or demarcated territory in which Celtic communities used to build shrines. Hence, Mediolanum could signify the central town or sanctuary of a Celtic tribe, indeed, the name Mediolanum is borne by about sixty Gallo-Roman sites in France, e. g. Saintes and Évreux. Alciato credits Ambrose for his account, around 400 BC, the Celtic Insubres settled Milan and the surrounding region. In 222 BC, the Romans conquered the settlement, renaming it Mediolanum, Milan was eventually declared the capital of the Western Roman Empire by Emperor Diocletian in 286 AD. Diocletian chose to stay in the Eastern Roman Empire and his colleague Maximianus ruled the Western one, immediately Maximian built several monuments, such as a large circus 470 m ×85 m, the Thermae Herculeae, a large complex of imperial palaces and several other buildings. With the Edict of Milan of 313, Emperor Constantine I guaranteed freedom of religion for Christians, after the city was besieged by the Visigoths in 402, the imperial residence was moved to Ravenna. In 452, the Huns overran the city, in 539, the Ostrogoths conquered and destroyed Milan during the Gothic War against Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. In the summer of 569, a Teutonic tribe, the Lombards, conquered Milan, some Roman structures remained in use in Milan under Lombard rule. Milan surrendered to the Franks in 774 when Charlemagne took the title of King of the Lombards, the Iron Crown of Lombardy dates from this period
