EDITED BY

FRANCESCO GIANNATTASIO
GIOVANNI GIURIATI

PERSPECTIVES ON A 21st CENTURY

COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY:
ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR
TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

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Series editor: Giovanni Giuriati

Editorial board: Francesco Giannattasio, Maurizio Agamennone,
Vito Di Bernardi, Serena Facci

Editing: Claudio Rizzoni

Translation: Ruggero Bianchin (chapter 10), David Kerr (chapters 12-15),

David J. Graham (revision of chapter 1)

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 EDITED BY
F R A N C E S C O G I A N N AT TA S I O
G I OVA N N I G I U R I AT I

PERSPECTIVES ON A 21st CENTURY

COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY:
ETHNOMUSICOLOGY
OR TRANSCULTURAL
MUSICOLOGY?
Contents

Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pag. 6

Francesco Giannattasio
Perspectives on a 21st Century Comparative Musicology:
an Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pag. 10

Wolfgang Welsch
Transculturality - the Puzzling Form of Cultures Today. . . . . . . . . Pag. 30

Timothy Rice
Toward a Theory-driven Comparative Musicology . . . . . . . . . . . . Pag. 50

Lars-Christian Koch
Tonsinn und Musik
Carl Stumpf’s Discourse on the Mind as a Condition for the Development
of Ethnomusicology and Erich Moritz von Hornbostel’s Proposals for
Music-psychological Examination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pag. 66

Steven Feld
On Post-Ethnomusicology Alternatives: Acoustemology . . . . . . . Pag. 82

Jocelyne Guilbault
The Politics of Musical Bonding
New Prospects for Cosmopolitan Music Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . Pag. 100

Jean-Loup Amselle
From Métissage to the Connection between Cultures . . . . . . . . Pag. 126

Giovanni Giuriati
Some Reflections on a new Perspective in Transcultural Musicology:
the Area of Naples as a Case Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pag. 136

4 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

Giovanni Giuriati
The Music for the Festa dei Gigli in Nola. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pag. 146

Claudio Rizzoni
Tradition and Reframing Processes in the Madonna dell’Arco Ritual Musical
Practices in Naples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pag. 158

Giovanni Vacca
Songs and the City
Itinerant Musicians as Living ‘Song Libraries’ at the Beginning of the 20th
Century in Naples: the ‘Posteggiatori’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pag. 176

Raffaele Di Mauro
Identity Construction and Transcultural Vocation in Neapolitan Song:
a ‘Living Music’ from the Past? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pag. 186

Maurizio Agamennone
Current Research in the Salentine Area: an Introduction . . . . . . Pag. 222

Maurizio Agamennone
An Historical Perspective on Ethnomusicological Enquiry:
Studies in the Salento. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pag. 226

Flavia Gervasi
Rhetoric of Identity and Distinctiveness: Relations between Aesthetic
Criteria and the Success of Salentine Musicians in the Contemporary
Folk Revival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pag. 248

Notes on Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pag. 272

5
 Raffaele Di Mauro

Identity Construction and

Transcultural Vocation in
Neapolitan Song: a ‘Living
Music’ from the Past?

186 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

As the title suggests, on one hand, this paper will attempt to refer to concepts
such as ‘identity’ and ‘transculturalism’, and, on the other, to try and pro-
vide my own personal idea of what may be meant by ‘living music’, some of
the main topics highlighted by Giannattasio in his Introduction. I will seek
to apply these concepts to what has been in my own research experience the
main ield of study in recent years and the subject of my degree dissertation,
i.e. Neapolitan song (Di Mauro 2011).
Here I would like to refer to some concepts used by Josep Martì Perez, an an-
thropologist of music at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Bar-
celona. He has applied the themes of transculturalism in music, for example,
to the Iberian music traditions (especially in the Catalan area), and has been
writing from very interesting perspectives for several years.
I will use three of his concepts that lend themselves particularly well to my
analysis of Neapolitan song:
1. Cultural rame (Martí Pérez 2002a; 2004).his concept goes beyond such
notions as multiculturalism or transculturalism, which are still bound to
an ethnocratic vision of culture, to highlight the importance of trans-
cultural processes, seen, however, as cutting horizontally through vari-
ous societies and also vertically between diferent social strata found in
one given society; in this approach each individual has a speciic cultural
frame and what come together are not abstract ‘cultures’, but individuals,
each bearing his or her own cultural frame.1
2. Social relevance (Martí Pérez 1995a; 1995b). ‘Music belongs to a given
cultural area when it has ‘social relevance’ and ‘music has social relevance
when it has given meanings, customs and functions for the collectivity’;
this concept is meant to go beyond the criterion of ‘ethnic ascription’, so
that we no longer look at ‘song of a given place’, but ‘song in a given place’.2

1 ‘A cultural frame (CF) is constituted by different facts and cultural elements, which are
articulated among one another … the real culture of a given territory, city or whole country will
simply be the addition of all CFs that we can detect in this ambit … There is not one country’s
culture that is an ontological reality. What in fact constitutes the culture of the country is the
combination of many CFs’ (Martí Pérez 2002).
2 ‘La idea de relevancia social constituye un enfoque que evita claramente algunas distor-
siones ideológicas por estar más de acuerdo con la realidad sociocultural. Si segùn el enfoque
tradicional hablamos normalmente de la canción popular de un lugar determinado, de acuerdo
con el segundo, hablariamos de canción popular en un lugar determinado. Preocupándonos
menos por el en, restamos importancia a una idea de adscripción étnica fuertemente subje-
tiva, para otorgar en cambio un mayor protagonismo a la imbricación social de la produción
musical. El concepto de relevancia social aplicado al àmbito musical hace referenzia al grado
de incumbencia de una música para una sociedad determinada. Aprovechando las experien-
cias de la pragmática lingüìstica, diremos que una musica resulta relevante en un contexto si

187
3. Hybridisation, certainly not invented by Martí Pérez, but which he con-
siders to be a bearer of meanings (Martí Pérez 2002b) and from exactly
this point of view, we will try to apply it to Neapolitan song.

Before going into the speciic subject of ‘Neapolitan song’, I would like to
make some remarks on the current state of studies on the musical traditions
in Campania in general.
Apart from some more or less recent admirable studies, such as those on the
tarantella of Montemarano and the Gigli of Nola by Giovanni Giuriati (1982;
1985; D’Agnese and Giuriati 2011) or those on the confraternities of the
Cilento by Maurizio Agamennone (1992a; 1992b; 2004; 2008), the overall
picture is basically still the same as when studied by Roberto De Simone in
the 1970s and especially in his celebrated seven LPs with an enclosed book,3
now reissued as a box set of seven CDs with some additional recordings (De
Simone 2010).
A question that I always wondered about, however, was just how far the ‘pic-
ture’ taken by De Simone in his day coincided with the overall scene of mu-
sical traditions in Campania. he most ‘relevant’ things (canto sul tamburo
– ‘song on the drum’ – in the various local styles, ronne, canto a igliola, the
Montemarano tarantella, etc.) clearly emerged (some repertories, moreover,
were already present in Lomax’s recordings of the 1950s).4 But especially in
the areas explored less by De Simone (such as the Cilento and Benevento areas
and some areas of Caserta) was there really nothing else? On this point I have
always had my doubts. And today, I believe I can reasonably claim that my
doubts are well founded and that the Campania musical scene is, or at least
was, much richer than the picture taken by De Simone. I can say this also in
the light of the archiving and indexing work that I was commissioned to do by
the Altro Sud Association, on behalf of the Archives Network of the Ministry
of Culture, with the aim of constructing a Campania Sound Archives5 carried
out on Campania material preserved mainly in the Museo delle Arti e Tra-
dizioni Popolari in Rome (which houses almost 400 sound tapes concerning
Campania, plus a good deal of video, photo and other materials), but also in

da lugar a efectos contextuales’ (Martí Pérez, 1995b).

3 Roberto De Simone, La tradizione in Campania, set of 7 LPs with enclosed book, EMI,
1979, 3C 164-18432-7.
4 I am referring to some pieces in the 24 T collection: see Walter Brunetto (1995).
5 The Archivio Sonoro Campania is still under construction; its aim is to collect all the docu-
ments (sound recordings, films and photos) concerning the Campania oral-tradition music kept
in the most important public and private archives. See archiviosonoro.org/campania/.

188 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

the Leydi Archives in Bellinzona (where there are more than thirty Campa-
nia collections) or in private archives such as the Teatrogruppo of Salerno (a
folk revival group active in the 1970s).6
herefore one of the possibilities for would-be ‘ethnomusicologists’ or ‘trans-
cultural musicologists’ – call them what you will – wishing to deal with music
traditions in Campania, might be to study and analyse all this material in the
various archives containing the repertories of ‘certain’ music (to borrow Gi-
annattasio’s expression)7 that Italian ethnomusicology has mainly dealt with
up to now. In many cases this music was still collected in ‘context’ and in re-
lation to speciic ‘functions’. But today this is very rare, with a few exceptions,
since we oten have to approach so-called ‘traditional’ music partly or wholly
‘de-contextualised’ and ‘de-functionalised’, or at least ‘re-contextualised’ and
‘re-functionalised’.
Work on archive material should, however, be accompanied by an in-depth his-
torical study concerning the various repertories, even at the risk of becoming, as
Giannattasio has warned, ‘philologists of music formerly in the oral tradition’.8
Ater this, we could then return to the ield, to check out which of these reper-
tories is still ‘living’ and what inevitable transformation processes have taken
place. Here is one example, which concerns me directly: last year I decided to
go and work ‘in the ield’ and search for the Canzone di Zeza. But this only
happened ater, partly due to fortuitous circumstances, I had conducted a par-
allel study on the mainly 19th-century written historical sources concerning
this repertory (again as part of my degree dissertation) while working on all
the sound archive sources (for the Campania Sound Archives) collected by vari-
ous scholars, such as Alan Lomax, Annabella Rossi, Roberto De Simone, Paolo
Apolito, Marialba Russo and many others since the 1950s, speciically on the
subject of the Canzone di Zeza. Now I wonder: what would anyone wishing to
do ieldwork on Zeza as still ‘living music’ understand of the repertory today,
without having previously or simultaneously carried out this kind of twofold
work? I believe very little.
herefore, if one of the possibilities is that of continuing to deal with ‘certain’
music (what was once ‘other’ music), I believe in the current situation we must

6 See in particular the following two records with enclosed booklets: Teatrogruppo di Salerno,
Musica popolare del salernitano. Folk music of the Salerno area, Albatros, Folk music revival,
VPA 8274, Editoriale Sciascia s.a.s., Milan 1976; Teatrogruppo di Salerno, Carnuva’ pecche’
si’ muorto, Albatros, Folk music revival, VPA 8373, Editoriale Sciascia s.a.s., Milan 1977. For
the history of Teatrogruppo, see also: Luciana Libero (2011).
7 See Giannattasio, in this volume, p. 14.
8 See Giannattasio, in this volume, p. 13.

189
inevitably begin by devoting ourselves with less reticence and more conviction
also to ‘urban music’ (or ‘suburban music’ as deined by Bruno Nettl, 2006) and
therefore also what we can commonly call ‘popular music’. his means, there-
fore, dealing with all the music that has – and here I use one of Martì’s concepts
– ‘social relevance’ (whether extensive or reduced, and general or speciic), able
to determine the aforementioned ‘meanings, customs, functions’, etc.

his brings me to the main subject of my paper. For some years now I have
been working on Neapolitan song and I will try to illustrate briely the evo-
lution of my studies starting from a given perspective, roughly based on the
equation ‘Neapolitan song as music product of Neapolitan identity’, for which
I have looked for hypothetical ‘origins’. My research, however, led me to form
completely diferent convictions, which I will now attempt to describe.
he starting point for my enquiry was the need to go beyond what were until a
few years ago (but unfortunately, in some cases still today) the two dominant
theories for interpreting this repertory. hey consider Neapolitan song to be
‘younger sister’ of the cultivated chamber music romance, or the ‘elder sister’ of
the no better deined (and oten misunderstood) ‘popular song’, respectively.
hese over-simplistic interpretations of the phenomenon, apparently diamet-
rically opposed, both stem from clichés due to diferent ‘romantic’ attitudes.
In the irst case, Neapolitan song is seen as a basically ‘cultivated’ product,
which has very little to do with popular music. One of the main ‘fathers’ of
this position was undoubtedly Salvatore Di Giacomo who, to give ‘illustri-
ous origins’ to Neapolitan song, had gone to great lengths to demonstrate (at
times even producing fake documents) the noble paternity of some celebrated
songs: Michelemmà was attributed to Salvator Rosa, Io te voglio bene assaje
to Donizetti and Fenesta che lucivi to Bellini. Having described this attitude
as ‘Donizetti or Bellini at any cost’, Roberto Leydi thought it very curious
insofar as it contrasted with the wholly Neapolitan pride in a musical heritage
usually seen as the most profound expression of the city and its inhabitants
(Leydi 1988: 326).
he ‘opposite’ attitude was, on the other hand, to present Neapolitan song as a
product of the Neapolitan identity, derived from ‘popular song’. An advocate
of this position is, for example, Sebastiano Di Massa, who was among the irst
to raise the issue of the relationship between Neapolitan song and ‘popular
song’. In the wake of the earlier views of Cesare Caravaglios (1979: 90-95),
he deined Neapolitan song as a kind of urban ‘people’s song’ whose greater
or lesser success, to his mind, was due to the greater or lesser adherence to
‘popular song’, and especially to the voices of itinerant vendors, from which it
‘descended’ (Di Massa 1939; 1961).

190 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

For my part, I felt the need for a large-scale work to ‘historicise’ Neapolitan
song, which was reprehensibly lacking in musicological studies, as Diego Car-
pitella had already pointed out in the 1960s, arguing that:

Neapolitan song is an extremely important chapter in the history of Italian music

and unfortunately it has never been the subject of an in-depth historical analysis. As
it has developed over time, various elements have been involved: a synthesis between
the traditional musical heritage of the city and rural areas; a crat continuity that has
undergone cultivated musical inluences ‘up to a certain point’; and a living dialect
presence (Carpitella 1992: 94).

Starting from the title of a well-known essay by De Simone, in which the

various issues were clearly outlined, despite the fact that his acute intuitive
insights and elaborate arguments at times still only rested on a narrow direct
knowledge of the sources, I thought the time had come to try and move on
from ‘notes for a disordered history of Neapolitan song’ (De Simone 1983) to
speciic research studies to achieve a more ‘ordered’ history.
My aim was, on one hand, to make a contribution – through research into
historical sources – to form a sample, and then, in the light of the data gath-
ered and analysed, to try and tackle one of the problematic issues from the
ethnomusicological point of view: i.e. the relationship between Neapolitan
song and its various musical origins. I thus set out to understand, for exam-
ple, if and how the repertory of Neapolitan song had been formed involv-
ing the interaction of three levels mentioned by Carpitella (paysan-populaire,
artisan-populaire and bourgeois-cultivé) and if we could conirm his well-
known theories on the impermeability of the ‘rural’ music world compared to
the ‘crat’ and ‘cultivated’ music worlds, which in his opinion, albeit with ups
and downs, had always been in continuous dialogue (Carpitella 1959).
My initial basic idea was that there existed a third interpretation of the phe-
nomenon of Neapolitan song, seen as one of the earliest examples of hybrid
urban music, the result of continuous complex phenomena of syncretism and
acculturation between a Neapolitan music tradition, with its own clear, dis-
tinct identity, and other diferent musical cultures.
But the key question was: does an ‘authentic’ Neapolitan song really exist with
its own speciic ‘identity’?
I realised that while analysing the history of Neapolitan song in search of its
‘Neapolitanness’, I actually discovered a large number of non-Neapolitan mod-
els and how much therefore of ‘non-Neapolitan’ there was in Neapolitan song.
Hence the theory that Neapolitan song is the identity-building musical product
of the Neapolitan people, or the idea that ‘authentic’ Neapolitan song was actu-

191
ally only an ‘ideological’ construction that occurred in diverse forms in various
historical periods for diferent reasons.
In the wake of these relections, I envisaged three historical periods in which
for various reasons, there was a process of identity-building of Neapolitan song.
he irst major ‘construction’ came with Guglielmo Cottrau. Born in
Paris, he arrived in Naples during the so-called French decade (1806-1815).
On one hand, he was driven by a Herderian vision of identity, culture and
therefore music as the expression of the spirit of a nation. But, on the other
hand, on the grounds of legitimate economic publishing interests (given
that he was primarily a publisher then a musician), he presented Neapoli-
tan song as the national musical product of Naples, in order to sell his own
‘national Neapolitan songs’ (‘canzoncine nazionali napolitane’) as a kind
of sound souvenir for foreign visitors to Naples on the Grand Tour. he
Neapolitan songs published by Cottrau in the collection Passatempi Mu-
sicali,9 however, include works composed by Cottrau himself but sold and
passed of as ‘popular’ pieces. hey even included excerpts from ballads or
narrative songs not speciically of Neapolitan origin (La Pesca dell’Anello,
Convegno notturno, L’Amata morta, etc.) or even songs conceived as imita-
tions of Austrian waltzes (see below) and so on (Di Mauro 2013).
A second stage of identity building came ater the uniication of Italy
(1861) and lasted until the early decades of the 20th century when, in some
cases, Neapolitan songs were presented as emblems of Neapolitan identity,
at times as a reaction to the process of cultural uniication set in motion
by the newly founded Italian state. Signiicantly, in this period there was
an increasingly widespread use of ‘citations’ of folk material, such as the
voice of street sellers, ronne, etc., which constituted a strong element of
identity.10
Lastly the third stage, ater the Second World War, when for some peo-
ple Neapolitan song became a kind of bulwark defending the ‘Neapolitan’
tradition against the invasion of foreign cultures seen as ‘tainting’ local
identity. his comes across in a kind of ‘rejection of hybridisation’, more
yearned for than real, partly due to an attitude derived from the legacy
of the previous nationalistic policies implemented by the Fascist govern-
ment in the period between the two wars. hen, in the 1960s and ‘70s,
exponents of a certain kind of ‘conservatism’ tried to establish what classic

9 On the Passatempi Musicali, see especially: Pasquale Scialò and Francesca Seller, eds,
(2013).
10 On the voices of vendors and other folk repertories in the world of Neapolitan song, see
Di Mauro (2010).

192 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

Neapolitan song was, attempting in this way to ‘ethnicise’ it by rejecting all
hybridisation, seen at that time as a ‘degeneration’ of ‘true’ and ‘authentic’
Neapolitan song.
But in fact, for some time now, hybridisation has clearly been seen as a
process inherent in any kind of music11 and therefore also in Neapolitan
song. We will try to apply this concept of ‘hybridisation’ (which in var-
ious countries is also indicated with the term métissage or meticciato) to
the Neapolitan repertory, in the way suggested by Martì, i.e. as a ‘bearer of
meanings’ and to apply to Neapolitan song three diferent approaches to
hybridisation, which the Spanish scholar used to analyse Catalan ‘popular’
music: hybridisation as innovation and regeneration; masked hybridiza-
tion; and hybridization as rejection (Martí Pérez 2002b).

Hybridisation as innovation and regeneration: Renato Carosone and

Pino Daniele

In this irst case hybridisation is seen as having a positive value and being a fea-
ture of ‘modernity’. In the history of Neapolitan song there are various exam-
ples of artists who have been hailed as positive innovators and their careers have
been characterised by purposeful, well organised searching for forms of hybri-
disation. Two singers in particular come to mind in very diferent ways: Renato
Carosone and Pino Daniele. In their diferent social and temporal contexts, they
have consciously tried to hybridise Neapolitan song with ‘foreign’ music. Sig-
niicantly, Diego Carpitella saw Carosone as one of the most original personal-
ities of Italian song, together with Domenico Modugno and Rafaele Viviani.12
Carosone had a sound training as a classical pianist (he graduated from Naples
Conservatory in 1937) and thanks to his own particular ‘cultural frame’, also
formed by playing in nightclubs, he had tried to combine elements – albeit oten
parodying them – from the so-called classic Neapolitan song with American
music (jazz, swing, etc.) and Latin rhythms (cha-cha-cha, rumba, boogie, mam-

11 ‘Intercultural musical synthesis is not the exception but the rule. Conflict and change are
part of the nature of reality, even in seemingly timeless, static societies. As long as we labor
under the false assumption that there is such a thing as a ‘pure’, ‘untained’ line of musical
tradition, on the one hand, and an ‘acculturated’ or ‘adulterated’ one on the other (and in so
doing imply that the former is more valuable than the latter), then we must logically expect
to disapprove of all the musics that exist, have existed and will exist in the universe at large’
(Kartomi 1981: 230).
12 On this topic, see Diego Carpitella (1956: 11); also quoted in Roberta Tucci (1999-2000:
22-24).

193
bo, etc.), partly because he believed that Neapolitan song was the ‘quintessence
of crossover’.13 Pino Daniele is an artist who requires serious relection to give
him the attention he deserves, now that the emotional wave of his premature
death has subsided. In his youth, Neapolitan song was seen as being in decline,
although fuelled by various ferments from the folk music revival of the Nuova
Compagnia di Canto Popolare to authorial experiments by singer-songwriters,
such as Sergio Bruni of the Levate ‘a maschera Pulecenella, and James Senese’s
band Napoli Centrale. hey were crucial inluences in the formation of the
young Daniele, who later sought to hybridise Neapolitan song with various
‘other’ kinds of music from America (blues, rock, fusion, jazz, bossa nova, etc.).14
But was this innovation and regeneration of Carosone and Daniele really a nov-
elty and an exception in the history of Neapolitan song? We are convinced of
precisely the opposite, because we believe that in any musical practice, and even
more so in an urban popular repertory like that of Neapolitan song, hybridisa-
tion is not only the consequence, but on the contrary, the starting point from
which to explore new ‘forms’.

Masked hybridisation: the case of the Tammurriata nera

As we said, there is a need to look at ‘transcultural’ musical processes and conse-

quently also hybridisation not only horizontally, that is between musical styles

13 ‘In short, I professed, as I still do, my perennial admiration for classic Neapolitan melody,
but I demystified its museumification (what big words have come to me), and laughed at it…
For the purists of Neapolitan song, crossover is a sin and a very serious sin… Neapolitan song
is the quintessence of crossover. Do I have to mention the cultures and peoples who passed
through Naples over the centuries and the city’s receptiveness to foreign novelties? Do I have
to mention the fact that Neapolitan song has international features, like Portuguese and Span-
ish songs and that, arguably, this is the secret of its world success, based on the exchange
between popular and cultivated music and its sudden incorporation in the stylistic models that
are the fashion of the day?’ (Renato Carosone and Federico Vacalebre 2000: 44, 67).
14 ‘As far as the musical content is concerned, Terra mia [his first album] already had the
objective that I pursued in all my later experiments: ‘crossover’, or fusion or convergence
between rock music and blues. I have never abandoned the blues, even when I later became
interested in jazz and Latin music… Even in the experiments with African or Cuban music, I
tied them in with my blues and jazz roots. The result was the Neapolitan sound. It has become
a musical genre […] I think about it over and over again and I conclude that I exist thanks to
Naples, even though I feel I am a foreigner in my homeland. Naples provides the vital sap for
my imagination… Emotions, figures, people, destinies and sensations that converge in the
inspiration that gives me a musical phrase, a chord full of depth and colours, a line of verse or
a thought. And they meet, cross over and then unite with ideas from the musical cultures of
the United States, Africa and the Caribbean. But it was there in the streets of Naples, touched
by the Mediterranean sun and wind, that I felt the first whisperings of love and pain congeal in
a song’ (Pino Daniele, in collaboration with Mimmo Liguoro 1994: 26-27).

194 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

from various societies but also in vertical terms, i.e. between musical practices in
diferent social strata in the same society. Considering this second aspect readily
provides us with some cases of ‘masked hybridisation’ with reference to the rep-
ertory of Neapolitan song. As an emblematic example of masked hybridisation,
I would like to dwell on a fairly well-known song, the Tammurriata nera by
Eduardo Nicolardi and E. A. Mario (1944). But I will analyse it as interpret-
ed by the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare (NCCP) led by Roberto De
Simone.15 he NCCP’s artistically impeccable and certainly convincing perfor-
mance of the piece is based on the decision to present this art song of clearly
urban derivation in a deliberately typical folk key, modelled on the canto sul
tamburo (drum song) of rural origin, which is a very diferent repertory. De
Simone himself must clearly have been aware of this because at that time he
was doing ield research on these repertoires.16 he performance of the song,
moreover, also includes a part extraneous to the original score (i.e. the part that
begins with ‘E signurine ‘e Capodichino/ fanno ammore cu ‘e marrucchine ‘he
girls from Capodichino/ make love with the black boys’) which is due to the
lines of verse improvised by Eugenio Pragliola, a highly original extemporane-
ous popular poet, originally from Giugliano, called Eugenio cu ‘e llente (‘with
the lenses’), because he used to wear large sunglasses.17 Pragliola’s lyrics include a
reference to the American song Pistol Packin ‘Mama by Al Dexter, a hit in 1943
for Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters.18
he NCCP’s interpretation of Tammuriata nera19 seems to be distinguished
by what Martì describes as ‘picturesqueness’, i.e. overdoing the features deemed
to be ‘typical’ (Martì 2002b: 10). In this case the vocal style (which seems to
refer, albeit in theatrical form, to the rural style of the canto sul tamburo) and
the use of ‘ethnic’ musical instruments (frame drum, castanets, putipù and a
transverse lute meant to imitate the phrasing of the sisco, a recorder-like lute
made from lake reeds, used in the canto sul tamburo in the local style of the

15 This song is on the record: Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare, Li Sarracini adorano lu
sole, EMI 3 C064-18026, 1974.
16 See Roberto De Simone, La tradizione in Campania, set of 7 LPs with enclosed book,
EMI, 1979, 3C 164-18432-7.
17 See Mimmo Liguoro (1995: 62-63). On Eugenio Pragliola, see also: De Simone (1983:
83-88) and Pasquale Scialò (2010: 333-334).
18 The lyrics in the refrain of the song, Lay the pistol down / babe, Lay the pistol down / Pis-
tol packin’ mama / Lay the pistol down, become in Pragliola’s extemporary Neapolitan lyrics,
borrowed by the NCCP: E levate ‘a pistuldà / Uè, E levate ‘a pistuldà / Pisti packin’ mama /
E levate ‘a pistuldà.
19 On the issue of how to perform the Tammurriata nera, see especially Enrico Careri (2014).

195
Giugliano area).20 But there is also some ‘polishing’ as they search for techni-
cal perfection in the performance (Marti 2002b: 10). In short, this is a form of
‘masked hybridisation’ which, however, is readily accepted because its ‘seman-
tic’ implications do not contradict what people perceive as the ‘Neapolitan
character’ of the piece of music in question (Martì 2002b: 11). his phenome-
non has meant that the NCCP’s interpretation of Tammurriata nera has col-
lectively been perceived as the most authentic and most Neapolitan possible,
even though it hardly follows the original score by Nicolardi and E. A. Mario,
which was the much more closely followed model for the early performances
by singers such as Eva Nova, who was the irst to record the song. Since then
it has been very diicult for any singer who wishes to reinterpret it to stray far
from the NCCP performance, without being accused of ‘changing’ it. If we
consider the threefold division made by Allan Moore (song, performance and
track; Moore 2012), this becomes a very interesting case (and not the only one
in popular music) in which one speciic performance of a piece (i.e. one of the
many possible interpretations) in the version recorded as a ‘track’, becomes so
socially ‘appreciated’ that it is transmitted through an oral process of a ‘tech-
nical’ type (from the track to the ear; Molino 2006) thus almost completely
replacing the ‘original’ piece, i.e. the initial ‘song’ by Nicolardi and E. A. Ma-
rio, which very few people probably now know.

Hybridisation as rejection: the late songs of Sergio Bruni

Hybridisation can, however, also be rejected when seen as corruption, loss

of ‘genuineness’ and as a potential danger for the preservation of one’s own
musical tradition (Martì 2002b: 7-8). his danger is mentioned in many Ne-
apolitan songs, such as the classic example of Tarantella internazionale by E.
Murolo and E. Tagliaferri (1926) in which they proudly defend their own
‘musica paisana’ (‘homebred music’):

Tarantè
Marí pecché te sì sbizzarrita
cu cchesti mmusiche furastiere?

20 This was even more obvious in a film of the Tammurriata nera recorded in the 1970s
for the RAI and until recently also available on YouTube (it was apparently then blocked and
removed by the RAI). The film showed Roberto De Simone on drum, with Fausta Vetere (voice
and drum), Peppe Barra (voice and castanets), Giovanni Mauriello (voice and putipù), Patrizio
Trampetti (voice and guitar) and Eugenio Bennato (voice and mandola).

196 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

Tarantè
Mo cu ‘Valenzia’, mo cu ‘Paquita’
Napulitano nun cante cchiù!
[…]
Qua’ spagnola? Qua’ americana?
Ma s’ ‘o ccredono o fanno apposta?
Chest’è mmusica paisana!
Chest’è ppane d’ ‘a casa nosta!
Chist’è Nnapule quann’abballa
Tarantella… Tarantella!

(Tarantella! / Maria, why are you crazed / With this foreign music / Tarantella! / Now with
‘Valenzia’, then with ‘Paquita’ / You don’t sing Neapolitan any more! … // What’s this Span-
ish? What’s this American? / Do they believe in it, or are they kidding? / his is homebred
music / his is bread made at home / his is Naples when it dances / Tarantella, Tarantella!)

An example of an approach rejecting hybridisation comes, for example, from

the late career of Sergio Bruni, which we believe to be his less ‘felicitous’ pe-
riod (we are talking about Bruni the performer, not the composer, who on
the contrary, at this time published a series of very interesting songs, especial-
ly those written in partnership with the poet Salvatore Palomba). In his late
years, Bruni set out to safeguard the ‘classicity’ of Neapolitan song.21 Perform-
ing in the theatre of his own house before a select audience, he accompanied
himself on guitar, at times with other guitars and mandolins (there could
hardly be any other instruments, since they were not deemed to be in line
with the performance of ‘authentic’ Neapolitan song). He performed a series
of works of varying types by very diferent authors and from diferent peri-
ods all in the same way, as if there were only one ‘correct’ way of interpreting
Neapolitan song.22

21 On this subject, see the interesting interview ‘Sergio Bruni: la ricerca della perfezione’,
conducted by Pasquale Scialò (1997).
22 See, for example, Sergio Bruni’s collection, Napoli, la sua canzone, first released in 4
LPs in 1984 (GM SB 3302-3305) and re-issued by Bideri in 8 CDs, with additional tracks,
in 1991 (BOR 1745/17901-2 and BOR 1745/17902-2). The collection with orchestrations by
Roberto De Simone, included pieces that ranged from 16th-century villanelles to 18th-century
ariettas and 19th-century canzoni up to the latest compositions by Bruni himself. The songs
were performed by two guitars (played by Bruni and Umberto Leonardo) and a mandolin (An-
tonio Coletti). See also the booklet printed for some concerts held in the Teatro Sannazzaro,
Naples in 1986-1987: Sergio Bruni, La canzone napoletana dal 1500 ad oggi, Teatro Sannaz-
zaro, Stampa et Ars, Naples 1986.

197
Examples of hybridisation in the history of Neapolitan song

I will now present briely some examples of hybridisation in the world of

Neapolitan song by choosing from the many possible examples those that I
feel are particularly signiicant and emblematic in representing a type.

1. La Lanterna magica
he irst is La lanterna magica. Nuova canzoncina napoletana (see ig. 1, pag.
211), a song published by Guglielmo Cottrau for Girard e C. editions in 1844
and then included the following year in the 3° Supplemento ai Passatempi Mu-
sicali. his canzoncina is simply the explicitly declared ‘imitation’ of a waltz
by Joseph Lanner: the Marien waltz op. 143 from 1839. As highlighted in an
advertisement by the publisher Girard of June 1844, this waltz was so famous
that it was played in the streets of Naples on organetti,23 i.e. the so-called ‘orga-
netto di Barberia’ (barrel organ), a forerunner of the mechanical player piano.
‘Lanterne magiche’ (magic lanterns) was the name used in Naples for those
barrel organs and this was due to the fact that the organ players also had a
magic lantern, a device for projecting images, carried by themselves or by some
young lads accompanying them.24
he Neapolitan lyrics to the song in fact ask the ‘new’ instrument, the orga-
netto called the ‘magic lantern’, to become a go-between with a certain Tere-
sella. Here is the text:

Siente organetto
Oje che sonanno
Vaje pe sta strata
De quanno in quanno
‘A casarella
I Teresella
Quann’è sta sera

23 The image of the advertisement is reproduced in R. Di Mauro (2013: 160).

24 Antonio Latanza, who devoted a large monographic study to the barrel organ, rich in im-
ages and sources, comments: ‘The term ‘magic lantern’ did not stand for a musical instrument,
but rather a device for projecting images on a wall, and the projection was accompanied by
music. This combination of images and sounds, intended for the entertainment both of the
populace and the more wealthy classes, was one of the most significant steps towards the
invention of cinema a few decades later. In the streets and squares it attracted the attention of
the public and in the silent commerce of this kind of son et lumière before the letter (the ‘light
and sound’ open-air spectacle in the 1850s), the organetto provided the musical accompani-
ment to the images’ (Latanza 2010: 41).

198 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

Aje da remmà
Tu vide ancoppa
Sta sagliutella
Na loggetella
Là se la fà
E sott’i rasche
De chella preola
Prim’i cocarese
Va a reschià

(Listen barrel organ / Today when playing / Go up this road / As far as / he little house / Of
Teresella / And this evening / You have to stop there/ You will see at the top / Of this small
rise / A porch / Where she spends time / And beneath the branches / Of that pergola / Before
going to bed / she takes the air)

Mente fa’ ammore

Essa co’ a luna
Tu guatto guatto
All’entresatto
St’aria amorosa
Ed azzecosa
Che mo tu suone
Falle sentì

(While she makes love / With the moon / You quietly sneak up / And suddenly / Let her hear
/ his loving / Sweet air / hat you are playing now)

‘Nzo che tu vuoi

Asciame poi
Tu schitt’o core
Le può arapì
Ca la chiù sgrata
Av’a senterese
Co chesta museca
ascevolì

(I don’t know what you want / Leave me then / Only you can / Open her heart / For on hear-
ing / his music / Even the hardest heart / Will melt)

In the case of La Lanterna Magica, Cottrau had simply ‘laid’ the text (the
author is unknown, possibly Cottrau himself) on the melody of Lanner’s cel-

199
ebrated waltz, at the time played both in the parlors and the streets, ‘imitating
it’ and ‘arranging it’ for a singer accompanied by piano.
his song emblematically represents musical hybridisation involving two in-
dividuals with diferent ‘cultural frames’, i.e. Lanner and Cottrau. It occurs
both horizontally, between musical repertories from two diferent ‘societies’
and ‘nations’ (in this case Austria and Naples), and vertically, between musi-
cal practices of diferent social strata in the same city (Naples), i.e. both the
‘cultivated-bourgeois’ class of the parlors and the ‘popular’ class of the street,
attracted to the ‘magic lanterns’. We thus have a clear example of a circular
exchange: a waltz, an instrumental piece of clearly ‘cultivated’ origin, created
for the Austrian parlors by Lanner, became so popular as to be played by the
barrel organ in the streets of Naples by itinerant musicians. It was then imi-
tated by Cottrau, who furnished it with Neapolitan lyrics and in this form
eventually ended up again in the same kind of parlors for which it was created,
thus closing the ‘circle’.
he practice of setting a text to a famous waltz melody was to continue to
be widespread in Naples until at least the early 20th century, when Rafaele
Viviani ‘laid’ the lyrics of his Bammenella on the music of the Valse Brune by
the French composer Georges Krier, and then made a new version with an
original melody that he composed himself (Scialò 2000).

2. Tango napulitano
he second historically representative example of hybridisation in Neapolitan
song that I wish to mention is Tango napulitano, written in 1917 by the poet
Salvatore Di Giacomo with music by Vincenzo Valente.
First, it is worth noting the date of the composition – 1917. According to
Enrique Cámara, that year saw the advent of the tango-canzone when Carlos
Gardel performed Mi noche triste (text by Pascual Contursi with music by
Samuel Castriota).25 he same year a song to the rhythm of the tango was
composed in Naples and, on the grounds of the textual themes and passionate
aspects, we can describe it as a kind of tango-sceneggiata.26 his case is par-
ticularly interesting, therefore, because until that time in what might be con-

25 Enrique Cámara de Landa, Passione argentina. I tanghi italiani degli anni ’30, box set
with booklet and 2 CDs, Discoteca di Stato, Rome 1999, p. 38. See also Enrique Cámara
(2002).
26 The sceneggiata (a musical drama typical of Naples) is usually dated to around this time
and specifically the previous year, 1916, when the song Pupatella by L. Bovio and F. Buon-
giovanni was used by the company Maggio-Coruzzolo-Ciaramella for a play with the same title.
See Pasquale Scialò (2002: 53).

200 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

sidered the initial phase of its difusion in Italy, the tango had only been seen
as a South American dance ‘bringing a bold new choreography’ and only in
the ‘second phase’, in the 1920s and 30s, was there to be a large production of
Italian and Neapolitan songs to the rhythm of the tango.27 Tango napulitano
(unfortunately we don’t know of any recordings) was, therefore, probably one
of the irst if not the irst Italian tango-canzone, and therefore almost contem-
porary with the irst Argentinian tango-canciones.
he young heroine of the song, Rosa, kills her man while dancing a tango be-
cause she is ‘guilty’ of having another lover. A red rose (‘a rosa rossa d’o tango)
falls to the ground and blends in with the red of the blood on the loor and her
hands also become red. Here is the text:

Napulitana, c’abballe e cante,

ca te chìe, lenta, ‘ncopp’ ‘e ddenocchie
ca tutto nzieme – ll’uocchie int’a st’uocchie –
mm’aierre ‘a mano – te strigne a me…
Comme te dice sta rosa rossa
ca pare ‘e sango, Rosa d’ ‘o tango!...
Iammo, ch’è stato?
Ca tutto na vota t’alliente?...
Che buò? Che buò?...
Giura – dicette Rosa –
ca n’ata no p’ ‘a mente nun tiene!
Mm’o’ giure? Mm’o’ giure?
Dimme ca sulamente ca eternamente,
tu sarraie, tu sarraie tutto pe’ me!

(Neapolitan woman, who dances and sings / and slowly bends down on her knees / all of
sudden with eyes staring into my eyes/ you take my hand, clasp me to you / As if this red rose
that seems to be made of blood / Tango Rose! / is saying well then, what has happened? / All
of a sudden you let go / What’s up with you? What’s up with you? / Swear said Rose / that you
think of no one else but me / Do you swear? Do you swear? / Tell me that only and eternally /
you will be / you will be all for me!)

E mo guardate, mm’hanno vestuta

c’ ‘a veste griggia d’ ‘e ccarcerate:
mo sto aspettanno, mmiezz’a tante ate,
che sorta nera mm’ha dd’attuccà….

27 On the reception of the tango in Italy see also: Enrique Cámara de Landa (2000a; 2000b).

201
Cadette ‘a rosa rossa d’ ‘o tango,
nziemm’ a ‘o curtiello, ‘nterra, int’ ‘o sango
Rosa! Ch’è fatto?!
Mm’è acciso! – dicette –
Mm’ ‘ è acciso!
Pecchè? Pecchè?
Giura! – Io ll’avevo ditto –
ca sulo a mme vuò bene!
Mm’ ‘o giure? Ma n’ata teneva!
N’ata! E… abballanno… ‘o tango
‘e mmane rosse ‘e sango, mme so vista addeventà.

(Now look, they have dressed me / in these grey prison clothes: / now I’m waiting with all
the others / what a dark fate will befall on me / he red tango rose fell / together with the
dagger into the blood on the ground / Rose ! what have you done?!/ You’ve killed me! – he
said – You’ve killed me! Why? Why? / Swear – I had said to her that just me you love ! / Do
you swear it to me? But he had another! Another! / And dancing the tango / I saw my hands
grow red with blood.)

From the musical point of view, the song (see ig. 2, p. 214) is in 2/4 meter and
has the characteristic ‘counter-metre behaviour’ of the tango characterised by
syncopation and mobile accents, which are also clearly shown by signs on the
score (both in the introduction and in the second part of the stanza and re-
frain). he song has a two-section macro-form, as did most kinds of popular
music at the time (a trend also found in the River Plate tango)28 with the char-
acteristic bifocal modulation from the F minor of the verse to the F major of
the refrain; this formula was also recurrent in Neapolitan song at the time.

3. Fronn’ Limons’ Facstrott (Napolitanata americaneggiante)

he third example I would like to present is Fronn’ Limons’ Facstrott, with the
subtitle Napolitanata americaneggiante (‘Americanising Neapolitan thing’),
with lyrics and music by E. A. Mario, pseudonym of Giovanni Ermete Gaeta,
the author of many celebrated songs, such as La leggenda del Piave and the
above-mentioned Tammurriata nera. he song was written for the Piedigrot-
ta Festival of 1923 and recorded by several singers, including Rafaele Balsamo
(78 rpm Columbia 14013-F) and Teresa De Matienzo (78 rpm Okeh 9125-
B). Even the title and subtitle clearly reveal a desire to hybridise Neapolitan
song with the foxtrot, a dance invented in America in the 1910s (named ater

28 Cámara de Landa, Passione argentina. I tanghi italiani degli anni ’30, box set with booklet
and 2 CDs, Discoteca di Stato, Rome 1999, p. 46.

202 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

the vaudeville comic Harry Fox, who seems to have invented it). he foxtrot
became very popular in only a few years in Europe, and especially in the early
1920s, it also inluenced the production of Neapolitan songs along with other
danceable rhythms of the age: one step, shimmy, etc.
In the title and text of the song, E. A. Mario refers to the ronna ‘e limone
(lemon leaf), a type of vocal repertory described as a distesa (prolonged), with
no instrumental accompaniment, and typical of the Campania music tradi-
tion.29 he reference is, however, almost only textual, even though the quinary
line ‘Fronna ’e limone’ is used as the incipit in the refrain, almost an attempt
to emulate both at textual and melodic level its use in the traditional reperto-
ry. Focused emblematically on the theme of hybridisation, the text speaks of a
‘fronna ‘e limone’ which irst acquires American citizenship and then loses it
and comes back to Naples, where it claims the Neapolitan superiority of sing-
ing compared to the American music for dancing. So while in America there
are ‘e mmaratone d’o ddanzà’ (dance marathons), ‘a maratona ‘e Napule è ‘o
ccantà’ (‘the marathon in Naples is singing’). Here is the text.

Giacchè mo tutt’e mmusiche

Se cantano cu ‘e piede int’ ‘e salotte,
giacchè pure ‘e ccanzone so’ fostrotte
mo canto nu motivo comm’ ì so!
‘Fronna ‘e limone’, va’, curre in America,
e fatte americana primm’ ‘e mo!

(Since now all music / is sung with a foot in the parlor / since this foxtrot is also a song / I’ll
sing the tune as only I know how / Fronna ‘e limone go run to America / and become Amer-
ican as fast as you can!)

‘Fronna ‘e limone’,
chist’è ‘o mutivo ch’era na canzone,
e tene ‘na ragranza napulitana….
Che ce sta ‘e male
Si ‘o danzano a fostrotte tale e quale?
Piglia ‘a cittadinanza americana!

(Fronna ‘e limone / this is the tune that was a song / and it has a Neapolitan fragrance / What’s
so very wrong / if they dance the foxtrot just as it is? / Get American citizenship!)

29 See De Simone (2010: 34-35). On the use of the Fronna in the world of Neapolitan song,
see also Raffaele Di Mauro (2010).

203
Gnorsì, pure ‘o sassofono
Mettesse ‘na fetecchia addò ce serve,
sinò – comme se dice? – perde ‘a verve,
la giusta espressione ca ce vò
Mettitece ‘e strumente chiù impossibile!
Pure ‘e triccaballacche? E pecchè no?

(Yes sir, even the saxophone / would add a raspberry wherever needed / if not – how do you say
– it loses its verve / that’s the right expression / Add the most impossible instrument! / Even
the triccaballacche [kind of rattle]? And why not?)

‘Fronna ‘e limone’,
si stu mutivo nun è chiù canzone,
perde chella ragranza napulitana!
Che ce sta ‘e male?
‘O danzano a fostrotte tale e quale!
Chest’ è ‘a cittadinanza Americana….

(Fronna ‘e limone / if this tune is no longer a song / it loses its Neapolitan fragrance! / What’s
so very wrong? / hey dance the foxtrot just as it is! / his is American citizenship…)

Però, turnanno a Napule

Chistu mutivo adda restà comm’era
Cantato a chiaro ‘e luna a tarda sera,
se scorda ‘e ‘mmaratone’ d’ ‘o ddanzà…
Tutti i rispetti ai piedi dell’America,
ma ‘a Maratona ‘e Napule è ‘o ccantà!

(But coming back to Naples / his tune must remain as it was / Sung in the moonlight, late in
the evening / forget the ‘dance marathons’ / Pay all our respects to the feet of America / but
the marathon in Naples is singing songs!)

Fronna ‘e limone,
si stu mutivo ccà resta canzone,
acquista na ragranza napulitana…
Che ce sta ‘e male?
Si torna addu ‘e scugnizze tale e quale?
Perde ‘a cittadinanza Americana….

204 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

(Fronna ‘e limone / if this tune remains a song / it acquires a Neapolitan fragrance… / What’s
so very wrong? / If it goes back to the street urchins as it was? / It will lose its American citi-
zenship…)

From the point of view of the music (see ig. 3, p. 215), the song is in 2/2 meter,
typical of the foxtrot, whereas in terms of the melody, there is a noticeable
recurrent use of the augmented fourth and the presence of lowered sevenths
and sixths, almost used as identity markers of Neapolitanness (we will come
back to this in the conclusion). In this case too, there is hybridisation, both
vertically between musical practices that can be referred to various social stra-
ta, i.e. between traditional rural music (Fronna ‘e limone) and Neapolitan ur-
ban song, and at horizontal level, between Neapolitan song and the imported
American rhythm of the foxtrot.

4. Sanacore
he last example of hybridisation I should like to analyse is much more recent
and concerns the song Sanacore, recorded by Almamegretta on the album of
the same title in 1995.30 In this piece we ind a clear reference to the musical
practice of the canto sul tamburo of the Campania (also known as the tam-
murriata). In fact a series of distiches of hendecasyllables typical of the genre
are performed, but to a dub reggae rhythm,31 in the characteristic sound of the
Neapolitan band.
Moreover, the vocal part of the tammurriata is sung on the record by Giuli-
etta Sacco, one of the best-known female vocalists of Neapolitan song in the
second half of the 20th Century. Her performance here, however, has little to
do with the canto sul tamburo of the oral tradition. he parts sung by Sacco
(highlighted in italics in the following text) are characterised by typical frag-
mentations or repetitions of the hendecasyllables of the canto sul tamburo and
alternate with the lines sung by Gennaro Della Volpe, aka Raiz, in full-blown
dub reggae style. Here is the text:

30 Almamegretta, Sanacore, BMG-Anagrumba 7431-28765-2, GDL 740, 1995.

31 The term ‘dub’ is an abbreviation of overdub, i.e. the recording of additional tracks on
previous tracks. This musical style was created in Jamaica in the 1960s by some producers
and sound technicians, such as King Tubby, Lee Perry and Errol Thompson, who worked on
accentuating the rhythmic sections (bass and drums) of a piece, thus developing ‘a technique
that was to have a lasting effect not only on reggae, but also on all modern dance music’
(Salewicz and Boot 2004: 83).

205
Sanacore (Heart-healer)

Io quanne me ‘nzuraje ero guaglione 

Io quanne me ‘nzuraje ero guaglione
uè comm’era sapurita …
uè comm’era sapurita …
uè comm’era sapurita la mogliera 

(When I got hitched I was only a lad / When I got hitched I was only a lad / Hey she was really
gorgeous / Hey she was really gorgeous / Hey the wife was really gorgeous)

La primma notte ca me ce cuccaie 

La primma notte ca me ce cuccaie 
nè a me venette ‘o riddo…
nè a me venette ‘o riddo…
uè a me venette ‘o riddo e a essa ‘a reva
 
(he irst night I slept with her / he irst night I slept with her / Well I came over all cold… /
Well I came over all cold… / Yeah I came over all cold and she had a fever)

Freva e riddo tengo quanno sto vicino a te

m’abbrucia ‘a pelle quanno sto vicino a te

(I get a fever and am all cold when I’m near you / my skins burns when I’m near you)

‘A siconda notte ca me ce cuccaie

‘A siconda notte ca me ce cuccaie 
uè a me passaje ‘o riddo…
uè a me passaje ‘o riddo…
uè a me passaje ‘o riddo e a essa ‘a reva 

(he second night I slept with her / he second night I slept with her / Hey I got over all the
cold… / Hey I got over all the cold… / Hey I got over all the cold and she got over her fever)

Bella igliola comme ve chiammate 

Bella igliola comme ve chiammate 
uè me chiammo Sanacore…
uè me chiammo Sanacore…
uè me chiammo Sanacore e che vulite
 
(Pretty girl what’s your name / Pretty girl what’s your name / Hey they call me Sanacore… /

206 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

Hey they call me Sanacore… / Hey they call me Sanacore and what’s that to you)

Saname stu core oi nè stanotte voglio a te

 songo ‘nnammurato ‘e te 
Saname stu core ca mo sta malato ‘e te
stanotte voglio a te 

(Heal this heart of mine babe, ‘cos I want you tonight / I’ve fallen in love with you / Heal this
heart of mine ‘cos I’m sick for you / tonight I want you)

Io me chiammo Sanacore…
Io me chiammo Sanacore…
Io me chiammo Sanacore e che vulite 

(My name is Sanacore… / My name is Sanacore… / My name is Sanacore and what’s that to
you)

Nun me ne ‘mporta ‘e chi me dice ca te tene

int’ ‘a sti ccose nun se prumette e nun se mantene
Nun se prumette maje nun se mantene maje
pecchè si guardo ll’uocchie tuoje
veco che abbruciano ‘e passione comme ‘e mieje
Si t’abbrucia ‘o stesso fuoco ca me sta abbrucianno a me
tu stanotte sì d’a mia pecchè pure tu si ‘nnamurata ‘e me 
stanotte voglio a te 

(I don’t care who you say you belong to / in these things you never promise and never keep /
never promise and never keep / because if I look into your eyes/ I see they burn with passion
like mine / if you burn with the same ires that burn me / tonight you will be mine because
you are in love with me too / tonight I want you)

Uè sanatamillo ‘o core…
Uè sanatamillo ‘o core…
Uè sanatamillo ‘o core si putite 
E si nun putite vuje…
E si nun putite vuje…
E si nun putite vuje m’ ‘o sana n’ato 

(Hey heal my heart…/ Hey heal my heart…/ Hey heal my heart if you can / And if you can’t…
/ And if you can’t… / And if you can’t someone else will)

207
Nè uè sanamillo a me (stu core)

(But hey heal this heart of mine)

Uè ‘o core nun m’ ‘o sano…

Nè ‘o core nun m’ ‘o sano…
Nè ‘o core nun m’ ‘o sano alli malati 

(Hey I can’t heal my heart… / No I can’t heal my heart… / No I can’t heal my heart from
someone who is sick)

So in Sanacore we also have hybridisation and it is both vertical (between the

elements of popular urban song and the canto sul tamburo repertory) and hor-
izontal (between Neapolitan song and the musical practice of Jamaican-ori-
gin reggae in dub style).

Final remarks

Ater this brief analysis of the examples adduced, and given our recent studies
on the subject, we are increasingly convinced that we must speak of many
‘Neapolitan songs’ and not one ‘Neapolitan song’. his is even more the case
when this latter singular deinition forces us to attribute a hypothetical, inex-
istent ‘common form’ to it or even worse, if we qualify it with adjectives such
as ‘true’ or ‘authentic’, aimed at separating the hypothetical Neapolitan song
into good and bad examples, the latter inevitably being those on the current
music scene, i.e. primarily the so-called ‘neo-melodic’ song.
Over the centuries Neapolitan song has had many ‘forms’ as it adapted to the
contemporary repertories (and in turn inluenced them). Moreover, as a prod-
uct with a transcultural vocation from the outset, it has always involved the
creation of original hybridisations between musical elements from diferent
traditions (folk, popular or parlour music, opera etc.), thus becoming a irst
example of a kind of music that – to use a fashionable neologism – we might
call ‘glocal’.
herefore, while considering the recurrence of a series of melodic tòpoi (aug-
mented fourth, lowered second, etc) and harmonic tòpoi (‘the Neapolitan
sixth’) used as kinds of markers of ‘Neapolitanness’ without being exclusively
Neapolitan (since they are found in many other Italian and foreign reperto-
ries), like all ‘urban music’, in terms of its constitution, Neapolitan song is
a ‘hybrid’ product, the result of ‘transculturation’ processes. Moreover, the

208 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

songs are oten created by non-Neapolitans (such as the Frenchman Cottrau,
the Calabrian Florimo, the Apulian Costa, the Abruzzese Tosti, etc.) who
were working in that weave of ‘cultural frames’ represented by the city of Na-
ples. For centuries, thanks also to speciic historical developments and the
presence of one of the most important ports in the Mediterranean, Naples
witnessed lively exchanges both horizontally, involving the cultural frames
of individuals from other societies, and vertically, between the various social
strata within Neapolitan society. Moreover, they were in perennial, mutual
daily contact thanks to the speciic type of housing in the city where, espe-
cially from the 19th century on, it was not unusual to ind living in the same
building: the lazzaroni or poor on the ground loor and basement; cratsmen
and members of the so-called ‘civic class’ on the irst to third loors; and the
middle/upper classes and nobility on the top loors (Galasso 1978: 141).

At this point a inal question must be raised: is Neapolitan song still ‘living
music’? Some scholars argue that Neapolitan song has been dead for some time
and songs such as Sanacore and Nun te scurdà by Almamegretta or Napule è
and Je so’ pazzo by Pino Daniele, or – to go even further back in time – Tu vuò
fa’ l’americano and ‘O sarracino by Renato Carosone are simply songs ‘written
in Neapolitan’ but no longer ‘Neapolitan song’.
I entirely disagree with this view and believe that Neapolitan song is anything
but ‘dead’ and is still ‘living’ music. What is dead, if anything, is the idea of a
‘classic’, ‘authentic’ and we might even say ‘ethnicised’ Neapolitan song that
never existed in reality and is only the result of ideal ‘constructions’.
We believe, therefore, that the time has come to move on from an outmoded
approach, characterised by an essentialist vision describing Neapolitan song
as an expression of the ‘identity’ of Neapolitan people, to a new approach
which, going beyond the criterion of ‘ethnic ascription’ adopts a more prag-
matic criterion and looks at Neapolitan song as a set of all the forms of hybrid
urban music that have a ‘social relevance’ (determining meanings, customs
and functions) produced also by ‘non-Neapolitans’ in the city of Naples.32
he natural process of the hybridisation of Neapolitan song continues to-
day, albeit in increasingly new and diferent forms in the musical evolution
of the various bands and singers, such as Almamegretta, Enzo Avitabile and,

32 I have adopted the same ‘pragmatic criterion’ used by Ferreira De Castro for Portuguese
music: ‘it may seem at first sight that the best criterion for the definition of Portugueseness
is that which I shall refer to as the pragmatic criterion: all music produced in Portugal by the
Portuguese or even by foreigners participating regularly in Portuguese musical life (and so in
some way naturalized) will be considered Portuguese music.’ (Ferreira De Castro 1997: 163).

209
more recently, Clementino & Rocco Hunt or all those musicians on the new
Neapolitan rap scene, such as Lucariello, Ntò and Luchè (the former mem-
bers of Co Sang), Palù, etc. Neapolitan rap is none other than the most top-
ical form of popular widespread Neapolitan song, with a great ‘social rele-
vance’, especially for young people and adolescents. In this case, too, some
‘Neapolitan’ features are still visible – starting from the only truly indispens-
able element, the use of the Neapolitan ‘language’ – within the inevitable pro-
cesses of musical hybridisation (in this case rap from the United States). More-
over, as we have seen, hybridisation is not an acquisition of our own age, and
was not even begun by Renato Carosone or Pino Daniele, but is an essential
component, almost a genetic element in a repertory that from the outset had
a transcultural vocation. And to provide an answer to the question in the title
of this paper, this is precisely one of the reasons that has enabled ‘Neapolitan
song’ to continue to be ‘living music’ of today and not only of the past.

210 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

fig. 1: La Lanterna Magica. Nuova canzonetta napoletana. Imitazione di un valzer di Lanner
(Girard e C. 1844)

211
212 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?
213
fig. 2: Tango napulitano, lyrics by Salvatore Di Giacomo and music by Vincenzo Valente
(Piedigrotta Valente 1917)

214 PERSPECTIVES ON A 21 ST CENTURY COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OR TRANSCULTURAL MUSICOLOGY?

fig. 3: Fronn’ limons’ facstrott. Napolitanata americaneggiante, lyrics and music by E. A. Mario
(Piedigrotta, E. A. Mario 1923)

215
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