7. UN FIORE PER TE - A FLOWER FOR YOU (Tarantelta - Waltz tempo) (Aiello-Russo) Domenico D'Agata and his Orchestra

8. MARIA GRAZIELLA (Mazurka) (Basi le-Caruso-Mazzucca) Francesco Basile and his Orchestra

9. A RIC<YITARA - THE CHEESE WOMAN (Stomelti Calabresi) (Sa lvatore Ida-Augimeri Enzo) Salvatore Ida and his Orchestra

Flower of sweet quince )'our perfume caresses my heart. I am like a bee in love. with every kiss, exquisite one, I suck )'our honey. Eyes 0/ ripe eggplant. breath a/your mother, color 0/ sky and sea. I am, oh exquisite ont like a lost sheep without )'ou-I can live no more. You afe an angel with beautiful wings up in the sky, my exquisite one, I will nol leI ),ou slay up there-I'll climb the stars olle by one until I reach )'ou. Last night I dreamed that I »''as with you and that I held ),ou tighl. Oh dear beautiful daughter-delicate as a winged IilJlrd-lasl night I felt like the king of all the world, but now I awake feeling ill. Ill, beautiful one, because I dOli" have you. I think of)'ou always. exquisite one. (And )'ou think of me.) And I say farewell my dove.

10. CONCA D'ORO - VALLEY OF GOLD (Tarantella Sicilian a) (De Paoli,) Aiello and his Orchestra

II .A MALA MUGGHIERI - THE BAD WIFE (Tarantella Calabrese) (Salvatore Ida-Augimeri Enzo) Salvatore Ida and his Orchestra

Ubmen are good-when they are born. They are sweet as water-melons. biller buttasry. Before I married she looked like sugar and honey. Cursed be 'he day that I "/(Jilted my wife. She looks like a devil now-who came out of Hell. She treats me like a cabbage, she is like an ugly winter. What can I do? Must I kill her? Should I cut off her head? When she looks at me I am struck dumb. I ,ake her in my anns and she throws me down a well. Then comes morning and she wakes me from sleep. With her sing-song she starts the cursed day. Then she decides she must have me. If I don't respond she throws me Olll oibed. She stands up afterwards with her short skirt, like a ballerina, like a broken bowl.

She looked so sweet in her pretty skirt. She combed her hair as a cat does. She walks like a dove. She puts a ribbon on her blouse and a poppy in her hair. She disturbs the whole town when she walks through the streets. I run after her, I shed my clothes.

My sons leave me. This wife is going to kill me. But better )'OIIr mother who cries fo r your anguish (han the sun of March which will turn )'OU black.

12. FUOCO DI PAGLIA - STRAW FIRE (Waltz) (Budriesi) Giovani Garofani and his Orchestra Campagnolo

MONIIDR PRESENTS

FESTA ITALIANA Introduction and notes By HENRIE'ITA YURCHENKO

Tucked away in villages lost in the hills and on the Italian islands situated in the Mediterranean there exists a rich fund of folk music styles. The adventurous student of folkJore will find unexpecled treasures - work songs of the tuna fisherman strangely reminiscent oftbe African . Moorish melcxlies; ancient polyphonic choral singing, Balkan group singing using the drone principle. Provenc;.al-like airs. and dances dating their origins back to Etruscan and Greek limes. This profuse variety of folk song has survived through the centuries, unheralded and unknown to the world at large, overshadowed. no doubt, by ltaly 's tremendous contribution to art music. Not until the movement for Italy's unification in the 19th century was anything like a national folk music created. The Piedmontese songs. and the Neapolitan tunes became the popular song of Italy, the property of everyone.

There are two kinds of folk music in Italy. One is purely local in character. the other is national. The music presented on this recording belongs to the second category. the dances and songs popular throughout the Italian peninsula. Some were born on the soil of Italy. A few were brought from other European countries. Regardless of their origins. they are truly Italian now. The long years of sojourn in the caressing atmosphere of this Mediterranean land have softened the edges of the German. French. and Polish dances brought to Italy in the early 19th century. The shimmering emerald-green and blue water. the pale pastel-tinted houses, the sun-drenched vineyards with their promise of sparkJing spumonti wrought subtle changes in these foreign dances which gradually came to renect the exuberant lyricism and the sunny warmth characteristic of their adopted land and its people. Rich and jX>Or. city folk and villagers, Venetians and Calabrese, all know the dances. Every fiesta and wedding. every social and family gathering comes alive when the singing and dancing begin.

TARANTELLA In Italy, a great epidemic broke out in the 16th century which was believed to be caused by the bite of the Apulian spider, the

tarantula. named for the town of Taranto. The disease caused a kind of hysteria which took various strange forms - violent craving for water to the extent where people were prevented from throwing themselves into the sea , and averse affects caused by different colors. hs victims were subject to the most violent contortions. Only one remedy was prescribed, the dancing of the tarantella. Bands of musicians used to wander from town to town to play for the dancers. Each manifestation of the disease had its own special air. The patients danced until they dropped from exhaustion.

Most of the early tunes used to cure tarantism long disappeared from the memory of man. Fortunately, a few fragments were collected by a Jesuit priest in 1641. According to his writings they were all rustic improvisations but the airs he gives are written in the ecclesiastical modes , and with one exception in 4/4 time. They bear no resemblance to the 6/8 of the modem dance melodies. Today, the curative dance is still performed, notably in Salento, but it has lost its ritual significance and is pure entertainment.

Unti l the confusion is cleared up we can only say that the tarantella is a dance in 4/4 . 6/8 or 12/8 time. danced by a single person to cure a disease , or by a couple intent on infecting themselves with an illness of another kind - love.

QUADRILLE History tells us that Catherine the Great of Russia danced the quadrille in SI. Petersburg as early as 1741. Actually, the quadrille

was settled into its present form at the beginning of the nineteenth century when it became the rage in Paris after the fall of Napoleon. Visitors to the French capital fell victim to its charms and before long it was danced in England. Italy and wherever polite society gathered. It was even danced in Liberia as learned by the ex-slaves on the plantations of our own South.

The quadrille e;tecuted by an equal number of couples drawn up into square formation , has ancient antecedents. The Naga of Upper Burma and the East Frisians of Sumatra use the same square formation in a fertility dance of great agility and nimbleness. In modern cultures. the brando of Italy, a relative of the French brante and the Spanish sequidifla have a similar formation. The dance consists of a number of sets named after the contra-dances to which it owes its origins. Music for the quadrille is not original. Operatic and popular tunes were strung together.

MAZURKA Like the quadrille, the Mazurka is of foreign origin. It originated in the Polish countryside about the 16th century and spread

from there to other countries. It was so universally popular in Russia that both the upper classes and peasants were partial to it. The Mazurka. in 3/4 or 3/8 time usually with an accent on the third beat. is a choral dance with an exceedingly wide variety of figures and steps which the dancers can improvise upon. The only characteristic steps are the stamping of the feet and the strik ing together of the heels.

WALTZ Before the waltz became the smooth, romantic Viennese dance associated with it. it was a rather indecent dance which had

just lately evolved from the peasant liindler of South Germany. An observer at a dance in a small vi ll age noted , and not without embarrassment , that the bodies of the couples were brought as close together as possible. the turning went on in the most indecent positions. and as the dancers waltzed to (he darker side of the room, the embraces and kisses became bolder and more lascivious.

But the waltz as we know it is the dance par excellence to express the rapture and exultation of love. Because it was a dance in which the couples were in close physical contact with each other, the waltz drew disapproval from court circles and dancing masters all over Europe. and it was forbidden in many places. Meanwhile, it gained popularity everywhere where the middle classes had power. In France alone by 1797 there were 684 dance halls where it was performed. in spite of warnings of the terrible consequences of dancing so wi ldly.

In the course of the 19th century each country created its own version but the most popular was the Viennese. It was faster and smoother than the others. Because of the speed the strong accent was placed on the first rather than the second beat and the eight measure period of the old German waltz was extended to 16 measures.

STORNELLI Since the 16th century the people of Central and Southern Italy have practiced the customs of setting short verses, the stomeJli.

to music. These slornelJi. generally three lines long. were usually sung by a man and a woman as a kind of battle of wits. If they were in love. they sang compliments to each other, if they were not. they exchanged insults. Traditionally. they were accompanied on tambourines. Although the custom is dying out , today they can be heard at carnival time performed by old women. The version heard on this recording is a modern adaptation sung to guitar accompaniment.

FESTA ITALIANA

I. CU ABBALLA ABBALLA (Tarantella Commandata) (O'AgaUl-Aiello-Russo) Aie llo and his Orchestra

2 . LA MAZURCA DI V1CENZINA (Mazurka) (Basile-Caruso-Mazzucca) Francesco Basile and his Orchestra

3 . L'AMMAZZU - I WILL KILL HER (Tarantella) (S. Ida) Salvatore Ida and his Orchestra

I feel like dying and I die for you. Do" 't leave me-I love you still. If you go away I will gel into mischief You are wicked but )'Ou are so beautiful. I WILL KILL HER-what are you saying? I WILL KILL HER- when? I WILL KILL HER. Yes her look drives me mad. J'// kill her. J'lItaK.e her and strangle her, I 'll tear her into pieces and throw her down the well. I 'll make believe I'm crazy, I'll rip off her ann, I'll cut offher head. I 'll take her. I 'll grab her, I'll push her away. With a blow of a shovel I'll strike her dead. I cannot live any more. This love for me is like the sea-so silvery. When I think of you I go OUi of my mind. Put an elld to this jealousy"

4 . TARANTELLA D'ALTRI TEMPI - TARANTELLA OF TIMES PAST (Tarantella) (Basile·Caruso-Mazzucca) Francesco Basile and his Orchestra

5 . DONNA CAPRICCIUSA - THE CAPRICIOUS WOMAN (Wall<) (Trimboli-Gaudio) Salvatore Ida and his Orchestra

Oh beautiful woman. of much splendor, you are the bud of all the flowers. You are more beautiful than the sun and the sea. Even the slars stand and gaze at )'Ou. You are the queen of all loves and reign over sinners. You give warmth to the hean, the dearest kisses, the worst misfortunes. I'm so sad when I think of you because you damn my soul. You are full of caprice alld spite and there is ItO hean which you do not tonnent. I love you more thall my life but you make me sick-I am jealous of you and you always get me into trouble.

6 . QUADRIGLIA IN OTfO (Double Quadrille) (Basile-Caruso-Mazzucca) Francesco Basile and his Orchestra

FESTA ITALIANA Italian Songs & Dances

1. CU ABBALLA ABBALLA 2:34 (Tarantella Commandata)

2. LA MAZURCA DI VINCENZINA 2:41 (Mazurka)

3. L'AMMAZZU 3:05 (Tarantella)

4. TARANTELLA D'ALTRI TEMPI 2:21 (Tarantella)

5. DONNA CAPRICCIUSA 3:28 (Waltz)

6. QUADRIGLIA IN OI'TO 2:23 (Quadrille)

~ Note: Selections 3, 5, 9 and 11 are vocals. ~ Original recording by CGD.

~ ... ~ rIl

t: (illOO§rn3 DIGITAL AUDIO

7. UN FIORE PER TE 2:58 (Tarantella - Waltz Tempo)

8. MARIA GRAZIELLA 2:41 (Mazurka)

9. A RICOTTARA 3:21 (Stornelli Calabresi)

10. CONCA D'ORO 2:59 (Tarantella Siciliana)

11. A MALA MUGGHIERI 3:04 (Tarantella Calabrese)

12. FUOCO DI PAGLIA 2:45 (Waltz)

II

FESTA ITALIANA Italian Songs & Dances

A MONI1OR INTERNATIONAL COMPACf DISC