Traditional music Italian Folk/traditional Songs (also in dialects) and Dances

Sicilia Bedda...Beautiful Sicily...sung by the great Operatic Tenor Roberto Alagna, who is Sicilian by descent if French by nationality.

Translation:
I'm a Sicilian and I'm in America,
I left my land to find work,
With that work- I made money,
But in truth, I think of Sicily...


Beautiful Sicily, my Sicily,
I think of you always, I'm homesick,
And some day, my Sicily,
I'll come back to you and never leave you again...


To see your gardens in bloom,
Bathed in golden sunlight,
To hear the harps sing,
That is my wish...


Beautiful Sicily, my Sicily,
I think of you always, I'm homesick,
And some day, my Sicily,
I'll come back to you and never leave you again...


Here in America there are many riches,
But I think of my Sicily,
If I close my eyes, with my imagination,
It feels like I'm really there...


Beautiful Sicily, my Sicily,
And some day, my Sicily,
I'll come back to you and never leave you again...


I always think of you, my Sicily,
and some day, my Sicily,
I'll come back to you and never leave again..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siBFFjaHoa0
 
Angela said:
Sicilia Bedda...Beautiful Sicily...sung by the great Operatic Tenor Roberto Alagna, who is Sicilian by descent if French by nationality.

Translation:
I'm a Sicilian and I'm in America,
I left my land to find work,
With that work- I made money,
But in truth, I think of Sicily...


Beautiful Sicily, my Sicily,
I think of you always, I'm homesick,
And some day, my Sicily,
I'll come back to you and never leave you again...


To see your gardens in bloom,
Bathed in golden sunlight,
To hear the harps sing,
That is my wish...


Beautiful Sicily, my Sicily,
I think of you always, I'm homesick,
And some day, my Sicily,
I'll come back to you and never leave you again...


Here in America there are many riches,
But I think of my Sicily,
If I close my eyes, with my imagination,
It feels like I'm really there...


Beautiful Sicily, my Sicily,
And some day, my Sicily,
I'll come back to you and never leave you again...


I always think of you, my Sicily,
and some day, my Sicily,
I'll come back to you and never leave again..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siBFFjaHoa0
Click to expand...

Very beautiful song....se capichi ce si dice...


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blevins13 said:
Very beautiful song....se capichi ce si dice...


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Click to expand...

I find all songs about emigrant nostalgia moving, having lived with it myself. Perhaps my favorite comes from my own part of Italy. It's called "Ma Se Ghe Pensu", "But if I think about", in the dialect of Genoa. The context is that an old man somewhere in South America becomes very homesick and wants to go back to Genoa, and the argument he has about it with his son. I've posted it before, but someone called "Francess", who sounds a bit American to me, sings an English version of the song which I just discovered recently and which I like very much. The youtube video is below. After that is a video where the song is sung in dialect in a restaurant in Genoa. Finally, a group of real Zenesi from Genoa sing it to Pope Francis, a man whose own Italian ancestors left Piemonte (not too far away) to go to Argentina, but who returned to Italy as Pope. It's an amazing thing.

The English version, which while not word for word is very true to the original:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5CvEnRQqkA


This is sung in dialect by a young woman. To speakers of only "standard" Italian it's as impenetrable as Sicilian.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH4qzSo-krk

As sung to the Pope: I love how even someone who grew up speaking Piemontese can't understand it. :) Once it's translated for him he lights up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

This is one of the really old versions by Bruno Lauzi, with period photographs. You can really hear the dialect here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCdgK0GQWfQ

While Genoa has changed a lot, the lanterna is still there:
Genova.jpg
 
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La Notte Della Taranta -Antonio Castrignanò

It actually starts about two minutes in...by four minutes they're blowing it out...He's absolutely stupendous-Catharsis through music and dance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Luljdcxxto

Another of his...Core Meu...My Heart

The legend is...
Let's play hide and seek
Fine, but if I find you I'm going to kiss you
Ok, if you can't find me I'll be behind the door

:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe9GaPB4vaI
 
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Gods luck with that. In the dance of the Taranta there is not touching of any kind. The Woman bitted by the spider in order to overcome the poison must dance until she collapse, can't be touched or Stopped otherwise she'll dies . So my people say.


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Salento said:
Gods luck with that. In the dance of the Taranta there is not touching of any kind. The Woman bitted by the spider in order to overcome the poison must dance until she collapse, can't be touched or Stopped otherwise she'll dies . So my people say.


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Click to expand...

The pizzica of today is not the pizzica of hundreds of years ago, or even the pizzica of sixty years ago, as I'm sure you know better than I.

It has transformed in a lot of ways. I have seen a few performances that are supposed to be a recreation of the original forms of the dance, but they've been sanitized and are still quite different from the few film clips I've seen of actual women fifty or more years ago in the throes of tarantismo, which are, to my mind, not at all beautiful, and, in fact, are extremely disturbing to watch. I've also seen, in San Rocco, the version where men dance miming sword fighting.

Both of those forms of pizzica are very far indeed from the performances of today during events like the Taranta Festival where women dance alone, and even more different are the forms where men and women dance together. Those latter dances portray the age old symbolic dance between men and women, the man approaching, sometimes the woman drawing the man forward but then moving away. It's very true, of course, that there is no kissing or touching between the man and the woman. That doesn't mean it's not sensual. Then there's also the dancing that is just for the sheer joy of moving your body to the rhythm of the music, involving children, old people, everyone.

I don't know if you've seen the following, but the professor gives a very informative talk about the development of the pizzica from Bacchanalian rites of ancient Greece, and then the changes over the century.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-tJSaJrrUQ

This is the kind of male/female dancing I'm talking about. It's in all the piazzas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsV93f8f-VY

Both the first and second couple are excellent, better than a lot of the "professional" dancers, imo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZaTQ4d2_Yg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQXpw_GrGx8

As for the video of the song Lu Core Meu, the little legend is above a picture of two children. It is not meant to imply that there is any kissing or any physical contact at all even in the modern pizzica. You are being far too literal. What it is implying is that the game which men and women play with one another is even played innocently in childhood.
 
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Grecanico music of Calabria (the still Greek dialect speaking ones).

These people are so familiar to me. You can hear them speaking starting at about 2 minutes in. The dancing becomes more complex around 4 minutes in. It's all about the rhythm. There are onscreen Italian subtitles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZFq5bWa7Lk

I don't know if opera star Roberto Alagna has ancestry from there, but he has a lot of their "look".
Roberto-Alagna.JPG
 
Apropos of the thread on the muscular development of farming women through history, this is an Italian folk song about a "laundry girl" or "washing day". Although the song talks about the dawn to dusk labor, the swollen hands, and the pain, it all looks very pretty, which I'm sure it wasn't in reality. Well, at least there was a kiss at the end of it.

 
Northern Italian folksong: Maslana

"From Bondione, you can see the lodges in the golden sun.
A great feast of colors, the meadows are blossoming.
Leave your work, come to Maslana with me.
Come come come come, you beautiful beautiful beautiful brunette,
come to Maslana with me.
Come come come come, you beautiful beautiful beautiful brunette,
come to Maslana with me.

And while I’m lighting the fire, you lay the table
Put the bowl on the table, don’t forget it.
Polenta2 is ready already, come see it smoking.
Eat eat eat eat, drink drink drink drink,
and then start singing.
Eat eat eat eat, drink drink drink drink,
and then start singing.

On this green field, I started singing,
to the tune of a harmonica, I started dancing.
Come on, clap your hands like the highlanders do.
Clap clap clap clap, good good good good,
oh you nice baby of love.
Clap clap clap clap, good good good good,
oh you nice baby of love.

Now I’m going to teach you a song of the valley;
it is about a little basket full of desire for love.
You play the second voice, be careful not to get it wrong.
Sing sing sing sing, softly softly softly softly,
baby, don’t turn me down.
Sing sing sing sing, softly softly softly softly,
baby, don’t turn me down."

Now who could resist that? It would take an awful lot of willpower! :)

 
From Piemonte, and no it's not "Irish" music.

People, including the ones who commented, aren't aware that Irish music has its roots in the music of continental Europe during the Middle Ages and later, i.e. the "giga" which became the "Irish jig". I doubt it has anything to do with "Gallic-Celtic" migrations in the first millennium BC from France into northwestern Italy.

 
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Angela said:
Grecanico music of Calabria (the still Greek dialect speaking ones).

These people are so familiar to me. You can hear them speaking starting at about 2 minutes in. The dancing becomes more complex around 4 minutes in. It's all about the rhythm. There are onscreen Italian subtitles.
Click to expand...

KaliNifta in Griko (Grecia Salentina)
f6747c1f77fd943e3448247905448586.jpg

https://youtu.be/IidZ3YGkqPQ


English Version
https://youtu.be/4dyCoMgVGlc
 
Salento Music, Notte della Taranta (Night of the Spider) opening song.
 
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