1.
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
2.
Eurovision Song Contest 1959
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The Eurovision Song Contest 1959 was the fourth edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It was held on Wednesday 11 March 1959 in Cannes, France, the contest was won by the Netherlands with the song Een beetje, performed by Teddy Scholten. This was their second and the first time a country had won the contest twice, willy van Hemert was also the lyricist of Net als toen, which won the Eurovision Song Contest 1957. Van Hemert was the first person to win the Eurovision Song Contest twice, the original building was built in 1949 and was located on the boulevard of Promenade de la Croisette, on the present site of the JW Marriott Cannes. A new rule was created for this Eurovision, ensuring that no professional publishers or composers were allowed in the national juries, Italy gave one point to France, no points to the UK and seven points to the Netherlands placing them just three points ahead of the UK. Something that occurred this year, but never again, was more than the winning entry was performed once again. The second and third placed songs, United Kingdom and France, were allowed to sing again at the end of the show, together with eventual winner, luxembourg withdrew from the contest for the first time. The United Kingdom returned after missing the previous contest and finished second for the first time, the UK would have 15 second-place finishes in the countrys history in the contest. Monaco made its debut in the contest, but came last, each performance had a conductor who maestro the orchestra. Birthe Wilke for Denmark, and Domenico Modugno for Italy, the table above shows the order in which votes were cast during the 1959 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country. Each national broadcaster sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language. Details of the commentators and the station for which they represented are also included in the table below
3.
Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Italy has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 42 times since making its debut at the first contest in 1956. It was one of seven countries that competed at the very first contest. Italy competed at the contest frequently until 1997, after a fourteen-year absence, the country competed in the Eurovision Song Contest 2011. Italy has won the contest twice, in 1958, Domenico Modugno finished third with the song Nel blu, dipinto di blu. Renamed Volare, the became a huge international hit, reaching the US number one spot. Emilio Pericoli also finished third in 1963, before Italy won for the first time in 1964 with Gigliola Cinquetti, Cinquetti returned to the contest in 1974 and finished second with the song Si, losing to ABBA. Italy then finished third in 1975 with Wess and Dori Ghezzi, the countrys best result of the 1980s was Umberto Tozzi and Raf finishing third in 1987. Italys second victory in the contest came in 1990 with Toto Cutugno, other good 1990s results were Mia Martini in 1992 and Jalisse in 1997, who both finished fourth. After 1997, Italy withdrew from the competition, the EBU announced that they would work harder to bring Italy back to the contest in 2010, along with former participants Monaco and Austria, but again Italy did not participate in the contest. Italys return to the contest proved to be successful, with Raphael Gualazzi finishing second, Italy has finished in the top ten in four of the last six contests. In 2015, Il Volo won the televoting receiving votes from all countries, since the introduction of the 50/50 voting system in 2009, this was the first time that the winner of the viewers vote did not win the contest. Italy has withdrawn from the Eurovision Song Contest a number of times, the first withdrawal was in 1981, when RAI stated that interest had diminished in the country. This absence continued through the year, before Italy returned in 1983. Italy again withdrew in 1986 when RAI decided not to enter the contest, from 1994 to 1996 Italy withdrew again, with RAI citing a lack of interest in participating. Italy returned in 1997, before withdrawing again without explanation, none of the Eurovision winning songs were particularly successful in the Italian charts. Despite the Eurovision contests taking place more than a month before the vote, Italian censors refused to allow the contest. The song thus remained censored on most Italian state TV and radio stations for over a month, at the contest in Brighton, Cinquetti finished second, losing to ABBA. Sì went on to be a UK top ten hit, peaking at number eight and it also reached the German top 20
4.
Domenico Modugno
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Domenico Modugno was an Italian singer, songwriter, actor, guitarist, and later in life, a member of the Italian Parliament. He is known for his 1958 international hit song Nel blu dipinto di blu and he is considered the first Italian cantautore. The youngest of four children, Modugno was born at Polignano a Mare, in the province of Bari and his father, Vito Cosimo Modugno, was a municipal police commander, while his mother, Pasqua Lorusso, was a housewife. At the age of 9, his family moved to San Pietro Vernotico, in the Province of Brindisi, here Domenico attended primary school and learned San Pietro Vernoticos dialect, which belongs to the linguistic area of Lecces dialect, similar to Sicilian. He attended secondary school in Lecce, from a young age he wanted to become an actor and in 1951, after his military service, he enrolled in an acting school. While still studying, he had a role in a version of Filumena Marturano by Eduardo De Filippo as well as some other films. In 1957, his song Lazzarella, sung by Aurelio Fierro, came second in the Festival della Canzone Napoletana, in 1958, Modugno took part in Antonio Aniantes comedy La Rosa di Zolfo at the Festival della Prosa in Venice. Also in 1958, he discovered the Italian comedy duo of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia, became their manager and got them into a long running film career. The turning point of his career came in year, when he also participated in the Sanremo Music Festival, presenting, together with Johnny Dorelli. Co-authored by Modugno and Franco Migliacci, the won the contest and became an enormous success worldwide. It received two Grammy Awards with sales above 22 million copies, and represented Italy in the 1958 Eurovision Song Contest, where it came in third. Modugno used the money gained with Nel blu dipinto di blu to purchase a Ferrari, however, his car was totaled in an accident and this was mentioned in the Alan Sherman song That is why Americas a nice Italian Name. In 1959, Modugno won the Sanremo Music Festival for the time in a row, with Piove. This was a period of time for Modugno who again represented Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest of 1959. Later his hit song Io was sung by Elvis Presley in English with the title Ask Me, in 1962, Modugno won the Sanremo Music Festival a third time with Addio. Four years later, he again represented Italy at Eurovision with Dio, sergio Franchi recorded it in Italian on his 1967 RCA Victor album, From Sergio-with Love. Jack Jones recorded it in English for his 1967 album, Our Song, Modugno was an actor in 44 movies, and was a film producer of two. In the 1970, Modugno focused on classic music genres and profiles, as a singer and as a musician, adapting poetry, acting on television
5.
Italian language
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By most measures, Italian, together with Sardinian, is the closest to Latin of the Romance languages. Italian is a language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City. Italian is spoken by minorities in places such as France, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Crimea and Tunisia and by large expatriate communities in the Americas. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages, Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world. Italian is a major European language, being one of the languages of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is the third most widely spoken first language in the European Union with 65 million native speakers, including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries and on other continents, the total number of speakers is around 85 million. Italian is the working language of the Holy See, serving as the lingua franca in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Italian is known as the language of music because of its use in musical terminology and its influence is also widespread in the arts and in the luxury goods market. Italian has been reported as the fourth or fifth most frequently taught foreign language in the world, Italian was adopted by the state after the Unification of Italy, having previously been a literary language based on Tuscan as spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society. Its development was influenced by other Italian languages and to some minor extent. Its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian, unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latins contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive, however, Italian as a language used in Italy and some surrounding regions has a longer history. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri, written in his native Florentine. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language, and thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the language of Italy. Italian was also one of the recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy has always had a dialect for each city, because the cities. Those dialects now have considerable variety, as Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. Even in the case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages
6.
Volare (song)
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Nel blu dipinto di blu, popularly known as Volare, is a song recorded by Italian singer-songwriter Domenico Modugno. Written by Franco Migliacci and Domenico Modugno, it was released as a single on 1 February 1958. Winning the eighth Sanremo Music Festival, the song was chosen as the Italian entry to the Eurovision Song Contest in 1958 and it spent five non-consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in August and September 1958 and was Billboards number-one single for the year. Modugnos recording subsequently became the first Grammy winner for Record of the Year, the song was later translated in several languages and it was recorded by a wide range of performers. Franco Migliacci started working on the lyrics of the song in June 1957 and he had planned to go to the sea with Domenico Modugno, but while waiting for Modugno to show up, Migliacci started drinking wine and eventually fell asleep. He had vivid dreams, and when he woke up, he looked at the Chagall paintings on the wall, in Le coq rouge was a yellow man suspended in midair, while in Le peintre et la modelle, half the painters face was coloured blue. So he started penning a song about a man who dreams of painting himself blue, later that same night, Migliacci discussed his lyrics with Modugno, and for several days they worked on the song, tentatively entitled Sogno in blu. The song is a ballad in a dramatic style, in which Modugno describes the feeling he has. The song opens with a prelude which the cover versions often left out. Mi dipingevo le mani e la faccia di blu, poi dimprovviso venivo dal vento rapito, the English lyrics were written by Mitchell Parish. Alternative English lyrics were written in 1958 by Dame Gracie Fields and she often changed the words to suit her performance and age. In 1958, the participated in the selection process for the eighth Sanremo Music Festival. The jury charged with selecting the entries to the competition was going to reject Nel blu dipinto di blu, on 31 January 1958, the song was performed for the first time, during the second night of the eighth Sanremo Music Festival, by Domenico Modugno and Johnny Dorelli. It was Dorellis first appearance on the Sanremo Music Festival, according to his team-partner, Dorelli was so nervous that he had to be punched by Modugno to be persuaded to perform on the stage. Dorellis performance didnt have a big impact on the audience, while Modugnos is now considered to be the event which changed the history of Italian music, during his performance, Modugno opened his arms, as if he was going to fly. Following the first place at the Sanremo Music Festival, the song was chosen to represent Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest 1958, Domenico Modugno was chosen as the singer. The song was performed first on the night, preceding the Netherlands Corry Brokken with Heel de wereld. Due to a fault, the song was not heard in all countries transmitting the event, so it was performed at the end as well
7.
Romantica (song)
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Romantica is a song written by Italian singer-songwriter Renato Rascel with Dino Verde. It was performed for the first time during the tenth Sanremo Music Festival in January 1960, the song placed first in the competition. The song was chosen as the Italian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1960. It was performed twelfth on the night, following Germanys Wyn Hoop with Bonne nuit ma chérie, at the close of voting, it had received 5 points, placing it 8th in a field of 13. The song span three foreign versions in 1960, dalidas version topped the French charts for a week. The Estonian version by the Estonian Radio Male Quartet entitled Romantika altered the original by skipping the introduction, for two seasons of the Estonian hit comedy talk show Rahva Oma Kaitse, the Estonian version was featured as the end title piece. One of the editors, Mart Juur commented, Honestly, meanwhile we havent heard anything of the worth of Ringo Starrs No No Song and Romantika by the Male Quartet of the Estonian Radio. Look, there was a time when we used the so-called bozo songs, jane Morgan recorded an English version of the song just after the contest, in 1960. In the late 80s, early 90s, the Norwegian vintage band Lollipop performed and released a version of Romantica, the song was performed by the Norwegian singer, Tor Endresen in Italian. Lollipop was a band that was constructed by Norwegian singer Rune Larsen for a vintage musicshow in Norway and it became very successful with 30 episodes on TV and two tours and also CD rekleases of music from the period 1955 to 1965. As the Italian representative, Romantica was succeeded at the 1961 Contest by Betty Curtis with Al di là
8.
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
"Piove (Ciao, ciao bambina)"
