Neapolitan Music: When a Local Tradition Becomes a Global Issue

What are postcards? Maybe we could define them as eternal shots of a faraway place that help us remember its beauty and keep the fog away from its defined shapes. They are portraits of memories, tributes to a lost beauty, romantic images, bookmarks to have at hand when turning the page and starting a new day.
 
We send postcards to friends and relatives, lovers and colleagues, mothers and children, to share a wonderful experience in some exotic place with them, a touching thought or unexpected sensations and emotions. Or maybe we buy postcards for ourselves, to keep them with the pictures of the trip. Or, finally, we might also purchase some, or even only one, of our own birthplace or hometown to carry it with us wherever we go, just to keep in mind that “there’s no place like home”.
 
Sometimes we just need to touch it and see it, to feel the stiffened paper under  wrinkled fingertips and look at melancholically delineated landscapes.
As Neapolitans, we stop and look at the image of a splendid seashore and we miss Sorrento “Ma nun me lassa', Nun darme stu turmiento! Torna a surruento, Famme campà” (Then say not “goodbye”, Come back again, beloved! Come back to Sorrento, or I must die); or we could meet a girl and think she is just like the one we left back in Italy, the one to whom we dedicated “Anema ‘e core”, “Tenímmoce accussí: ánema e core...nun ce lassammo cchiù, manco pe' n'ora... stu desiderio 'e te mme fa paura... Campá cu te, sempe cu te, pe' nun murí...” (Hug me tight, with your soul and heart; don’t ever leave me behind, not even for an hour; this desire I have of you scares me; I want to live with you, always with you, don’t let me die”.)
 
These images, sounds and notes accompanied Neapolitan peasants and proletarians since the very beginning of the 19th century, when they first emigrated to the United States in search of better fortune. They filled their cardboard suitcases with hundreds of postcards, each one a thought and a piece of their soul. They built their new lives on this fragile  and at the same time solid basis, managing to mix past and future by creating a present founded on a brand new bicultural identity, the Neapolitan-American one.
 

The symposium “Neapolitan Postcards. The Canzone Napoletana as Transnational Subject” aims to study and reflect on the way Neapolitan music has contributed to the integration of people coming from that area of Southern Italy to the United States.  Exploring its contents, analyzing its features, analysts realize that it has represented both a strong bond to Naples but also a spur, an injection of courage that drove these people away. Although typically Mediterranean in rhythm, music and sound, in fact, these songs talk about universal themes such as love, friendship and family. And they can be translated in every possible corner of the world. 
 
The Conference, scheduled for March 20th-21st, will be held at the Calandra Italian American Institute/Queens College and at the CUNY Graduate Center. Sponsored by the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, CUNY, USA, and the International Centre for Music Studies, Newcastle University, UK, and organized in collaboration with the Archivio Sonoro della Canzone Napoletana, RAI, Italy, it will feature the presence of some of the highest experts on the subject who will involve the public in a long voyage through the story of this gender. Musical performances and film screenings will be proposed between a session and another, with the aim of embracing the theme from the widest point of view possible.
 

 Images from  “Chist’è New York: The Mark Pezzano Collection of Neapolitan Sheet Music from New York”. The exibition will be hosted by the J.D. Calandra Intalian American Institute (Queens College, CUNY) from March 19 to June 26.

i-Italy interviewed one of its most active organizers, Joseph Sciorra, the Associate Director for Academic & Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College (CUNY) and a graduate of  University of Pennsylvania. We talked about his relationship with Neapolitan music, the Conference and the essays he is going to present for the occasion.
 
Mr.Sciorra, how did you come up with the idea of the Conference?
 
The idea has been bubbling in my head for a couple of years now but as grown primarly talking to what I call “community scholars” who live here and have an incredible knowledge of the history of Neapolitan music in the United States. Among them, the late Luigi Rossi, who ran “Rossi & Co.” on the corner of Mulberry and Grand Street. He was a major player and seller of Neapolitan music here in the US; Mark Pezzano, who now performs Italian and Neapolitan pieces from the 1920s and ’30 and is incredibly knowledgeable about Neapolitan composers, singers and recording companies. Talking with them over the years has helped me understand the history of that music. Many scholars are also starting their studies in this area. I am thinking in particular of Simona Frasca, who is doing a lot of research on Neapolitan music in the United States before World War II. So, being in constant conversation with her and her colleges, I wanted to organize a conference that could involve all those interested in the subject. This event thus becomes a vehicle that researchers can use to finish the work they might be just thinking about.
 
What is your personal experience with Neapolitan music?
 
I didn’t like Neapolitan music at all. As a child it made me think of Italian weddings, places and celebrations to which I was not interested in going. Especially in New York, moreover, it was performed in a highly orchestrated way, the singing style was somehow bombastic and over-the top. Singers like Jerrry Vale and Jimmy Roselli were indeed very far from the world of a post-Beatles kid! Plus I did not understand the lyrics of the songs, first because I was not paying attention to them and second because they were in Neapolitan. So this really kept me from becoming knowledgeable on the issue.
 
Did your visit to Italy in 1975 change your inclination towards the genre?
 
Not at all. I had the opportunity to meet many Italian singers and composers and appreciated their work, but Neapolitan tradition never attracted me too much. Things started to change as time passed by: I came to understand the different types of singing styles, the different performers and their own styles, the history of the genre, the themes of the songs: this allowed me to appreciate it much more. Today I listen to both old and new Neapolitan authors, and I am also becoming familiar with a couple of neomelodici such as Nino d’Angelo and Gigi Finizio.
 
Do you think Neapolitan music reflects some of the characteristics of the native people of the area?  
 
There are certain issues that are certainly specific to that particular society, or even to just a piece of it, and this is also because these songs are generally, or totally, sung in Neapolitan dialect. However I believe that from the beginning of the XXI century on, some of the production refers and wants to reach a much wider public. Songs like “Core ‘ngrato” or “O sole mio” and “Santa Lucia” just conquered the American public who in most cases did not understand the lyrics at all  but bought that music, the piano rolls, the sheet music, and played it. 
 
Why is that so?
 
There are a couple of reasons to explain the phenomenon. The first is an historical one, and comes from the fact that for a great period Naples was somehow considered the capital of Southern Italy under the reign of the Bourbons. Neapolitan thus became a sort of lingua franca and immigrants who came here from whichever corner of that area, understood and knew those songs and spread them. Plus, during the 19th century Neapolitan theatrical culture became very powerful in the United States, and achieved a sort of hegemony in cultural production, in New York City in particular. There was also other traditional musical compositions coming from other areas of Italy, Sicily for example. But only in the case of Naples did we have great writers and poets putting down verses and translating them into beautiful songs. Just think of Gabriele d’Annunzio or Caruso. There was an international level of success that transcended the limits of a local culture.
 
This said, would you state that it is folk music?
 
I really cannot answer. While I just said that Neapolitan music is made of art songs, produced by poets recognized the world over, on the other hand, some of the rhythms may be considered typically folkloristic. If ever, I would prefer to define it as popular music, the result of a flow going on between the upper and lower classes. 
 

One of the essays you will present at the conference is entitled: “Hybrid Formations in sound”…

 
Yes I chose to talk about this because I think that Neapolitan music is itself a sort of mixture of Hybridic sounds and identities. I believe that looking at it from this particular point of view makes it much more interesting and respects the real nature of the genre. From this perspective, Neapolitan music can be considered a clear example of globalism in the XIX century: when Neapolitans came to America, they kept their relationship with Naples strong and alive. There were also in constant conversation with other small neighborhoods in Montreal and Buenos Aires, where their co-citizens lived. Artists like Gilda Mignonette arrived in New York on a ship and then sailed around the world, exporting Neapolitan music and getting inspiration from places like Argentina, London, Europe. Thanks to people like her we are finding parts of Italian-American movies in Buenos Aires, as well as Neapolitan and Italian-American music archives in Montreal. These artists started an international flow that today is transforming into a transnational one.
 

The second essay you will present is named: “Mediated Renderings and Diasporic Musings: “Core ‘ngrato,” a WOP Song”. You know that WOP comes from “guappo” an appellation also used to refer to Camorra people. What is the point you want to make?
 
I am looking at the word “wop” from two perspectives. I don’t subscribe to the first because it is the American interpretation of it. It means “without papers” and refers to the fact that when Italians came to America they had no legal permission to remain here. This shows how Italians were looked at between the end of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX. When I think of that song, however, the first thing that comes to my mind is that it is maybe the only famous Neapolitan piece written in New York and sung for the first time in New Jersey (by Caruso). Only after that, the song was brought to Naples. For a moment it “lost its papers” and became transnational.
Anyway it remained a WOP, a Neapolitan song. It had been conceived for and by the people that came from that land. It might not be a “Made in Naples” product, but a “Made by Naples” one for sure.
The song has been sung by innumerable performers and artists and also used as a song track for the last episode of the third season of “The Sopranos”. The character Uncle Junior performs at a restaurant after a funeral. The sentimentality of that song in the mouth of a Mafioso to me opens up the possibility to discover it in ways that had not been considered in the past. I will try to explain my point! My research, by the way, made me develop an special bond with that song. In my i-phone I have at least five versions of it and I can’t decide which one I like the best!
 
 
What future can we imagine for the Neapolitan song?
 
I think that people are rediscovering the genre, as part of their original culture. This also happens in America and involves the youngest generations too. So I am kind of optimistic.
I can’t wait to hear what my colleges think about this. At the end of the conference we will present a final document in which we will draft our impression to this regard. We will see….
 
 
 
 
CONFERENCE PROGRAM
 
 
THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2009, 6PM
John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, 25 West 43rd Street, 17th floor, Manhattan (between 5th and 6th Avenues)
 
Welcome and Reception
ANTHONY JULIAN TAMBURRI
John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, CUNY
 
JAMES MUYSKENS
Queens College, CUNY
 
MAURIZIO ANTONINI
Consulate General of Italy in New York
 
JOSEPH SCIORRA
John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, CUNY
 
GOFFREDO PLASTINO
The International Centre for Music Studies, University of Newcastle
 
PAQUITO DEL BOSCO
Archivio Sonoro della Canzone Napoletana (RAI)
 
Film Screening
Closing Time: Storia di un negozio (2006), 30 min.
VERONICA DIAFERIA, director
 
 
FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 2009
CUNY Graduate Center, Elebash Recital Hall, 365 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan (between 34th and 35th Streets)
 
10-11:30AM
THE COMPOSER AND SINGER IN CONTEXT
Chair: GOFFREDO PLASTINO, University of Newcastle
 
Francesco Pennino and the Italian-American Sceneggiata
GIULIANA MUSCIO, University of Padua
 
Enrico Caruso and the Emergency of Italian Identity
SIMONA FRASCA, Federico II, University of Naples
 
The Musical and Literary Neapolitan Chant: The Songs of Aurelio Fierro
GIULIA GUARNIERI, Bronx Community College, CUNY
 
11:45AM -1PM
RITA BERTI: A NEAPOLITAN SINGER IN NEW YORK
Chair: Joseph Sciorra, John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, CUNY
 
In this panel, Ms. Berti will discuss her long career and present a recital of Neapolitan music. She will be accompanied by Emilio Morelli.
 
1-2:30PM
Lunch on your own
 
2:30-4PM
TEMPORAL/SPATIAL CONSIDERATIONS OF THE SONG
Chair: EDWARD SMALDONE, Queens College, CUNY
 
Mediated Renderings and Diasporic Musings: “Core ‘ngrato,” a WOP Song
JOSEPH SCIORRA, John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, CUNY
 
“Maria Mari”/“Oh, Marie”: Acculturation from Neapolitan Song to Italian-American Jazz
SAMUEL PATTI, Independent Scholar
 
“Tammurriata Nera”: Collective Memory, Recuperation, and Contamination in a Neapolitan Song
JENNIFER CAPUTO, University of Alabama
 
4:15-5:45PM
CULTURAL POLITICS AND THE ECONOMICS OF CULTURE
Chair: JAYSON KERR DOBNEY, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
 
Tears and Triumphs: Five Topical Songs in Neapolitan from the United States, 1923-1941
MARK PEZZANO, Independent Scholar
 
The Neapolitan Mandolin and Italian Music Publishing Houses in New York City during the Early Twentieth Century
JOHN LA BARBERA, Bergen Community College
 
Alternative Musics and Alternative Economies in Naples
JASON PINE, Purchase College, SUNY
 
 
SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 2009
CUNY Graduate Center, Elebash Recital Hall, 365 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan (between 34th and 35th Streets)
 
9:30-9:50AM
Napoli International (delivered in Italian)
PAQUITO DEL BOSCO, Archivio Sonoro della Canzone Napoletana
 
10-10:30AM
Neapolitan Heart (2002), 30 min. excerpt
PAOLO SANTONI, director
 
10:45AM-12PM
PERFORMING/SCREENING IDENTITIES
Chair: ANTHONY JULIAN TAMBURRI, John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, CUNY
 
Italian Immigrant Identity in American Sceneggiata Performances
ALAINA WISSNER, Brandeis University
 
You Can Go Home Again: Santa Lucia Luntana, the Film
GIORGIO BERTELLINI, University of Michigan
 
12-1:30PM
Lunch on your own
 
1:30-2:30PM
NEAPOLITAN JUKEBOX
Chair: GOFFREDO PLASTINO, Newcastle University
 
Paquito Del Bosco presents selections from the Archivio Storico della Canzone Napoletana of Neapolitan songs performed by recording artists from around the world.
 
2:45-3:45PM
HYBRIDIC FORMATIONS IN SOUND
Chair: JOSEPH SCIORRA, John D. Calandra Italian American Insititute, CUNY
 
From Canzone Napoletana to Tango Criollo
ANA CARA, Oberlin College
 
Returning to Sorrento: Diasporic Hybridity in Italian-American Popular Music
JIM DE FAZIO, Arizona State University in Tempe
 
4-5:15PM
KEYNOTE
Tutta n’ata storia: Authenticity and Otherness in the Neapolitan Song Canon
GOFFREDO PLASTINO, University of Newcastle
 
 
All presentations are free and open to the public.
SEATING IS LIMITED.
 
 
In conjunction with the “Neapolitan Postcards”conference, theJohn D. Calandra Italian AmericanInstitute presents “Chist’è New York: The Mark Pezzano Collection of Neapolitan Sheet Music from New York” in its 43rd Street gallery space (March 19-June 26). The exhibition is a sampling of New York City’s vibrant Neapolitan music scene during the first half of the twentieth century. It features thirty-one items— sheet music, sceneggiata scripts, and concert programs— that connoisseur Mark Pezzano has collected over the past thirty years. Eduardo “Farfariello” Migliaccio, Gilda Mignonette, Francesco Pennino, and Clara Stella are among the celebrated composers, performers, and publishers represented in the exhibit.
 
Opening reception: Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 6pm
Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm
 
John D. Calandra Italian American Institute
25 West 43rd Street, 17th Floor
New York, NY 10036
(between 5th and 6th Avenues)
 
For further information, visit the Calandra Institute’s Web site www.qc.edu/calandra or call (212) 642-2094.