eMates eMates 4th Issue May 2017 | Page 50

ITALIAN MUSIC
Italy has been the fatherland of classical music with great authors as Tomaso
Albinoni, Pietro Mascagni, Antonio Vivaldi, but it was also the fatherland of the
musical drama with authors as Gaetano Donizzetti. The birth of modern music in
Italy was influenced by the melodrama and from the Napolitan song. In the 1920s
with the spreading of the gramophone and the radio in Italy it was possible to listen
to foreign music. Between the Sixties and Seventies Rock'n'roll coming from the
United States of America influenced and modified the Italian songs. At this point
young singers as Mina, Adriano Celentano, Rita Pavone and Gianni Morandi started
their own careers. But the originality of the Italian music of those years was a socially
committed pop, with songwriters as Fabrizio De André and Roberto Vecchioni.
During the seventies Lucio Battisti's music represented one of the most original forms
of Italian pop. Other important names of Italian pop songwriters Claudio Baglioni,
Antonello Venditti, Francesco De Gregori and Francesco Guccini. In the eighties new
names like Vasco Rossi, Ligabue ,Zucchero, started their career. The Italian pop
music is represented also by singers and musicians whose music is inspired by Jazz,
like Paolo Conte, or by Blues like Pino Daniele and Vinicio Capossela,or by folk
music,like Angelo Branduardi. For some of the above names, like Fabrizio De Andrè
or Paolo Conte, it is very difficult to draw the line between song writing and
literature, as their texts are so refined that they can be appreciated as poems. Every
year since 1951 the most important festival of Italian music takes place in Sanremo,
with a competition that has millions of audience and is the biggest event on Italian
TV.
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