Music of Italy

Italian music has been held up in high esteem in history and many pieces of Italian music are considered high art. More than other elements of Italian culture, music is generally eclectic, but unique from other nations' music. The country's historical contributions to music are also an important part of national pride. The relatively recent history of Italy includes the development of an opera tradition that has spread throughout the world; prior to the development of Italian identity or a unified Italian state, the Italian peninsula contributed to important innovations in music including the development of musical notation and Gregorian chant. Social identity Italy has a strong sense of national identity through distinctive culture – a sense of an appreciation of beauty and emotionality, which is strongly evidenced in the music. Cultural, political and social issues are often also expressed through music in Italy. Allegiance to music is integrally woven into the social identity of Italians but no single style has been considered a characteristic "national style". Most folk music is localized, and unique to a small region or city. Italy's classical legacy, however, is an important point of the country's identity, particularly opera; traditional operatic pieces remain a popular part of music and an integral component of national identity. The musical output of Italy remains characterized by "great diversity and creative independence (with) a rich variety of types of expression". , Milan, is the world's most famous opera house. Music and politics have been intertwined for centuries in Italy. Just as many works of art in the Italian Renaissance were commissioned by royalty and the Catholic Church, much music was likewise composed on the basis of such commissions—incidental court music, music for coronations, for the birth of a royal heir, royal marches, and other occasions. Composers who strayed ran certain risks. Among the best known of such cases was the Neapolitan composer Domenico Cimarosa, who composed the Republican hymn for the short-lived Neapolitan Republic of 1799. When the republic fell, he was tried for treason along with other revolutionaries. Cimarosa was not executed by the restored monarchy, but he was exiled. Music also played a role in the unification of the peninsula. During this period, some leaders attempted to use music to forge a unifying cultural identity. One example is the chorus "Va, pensiero" from Giuseppe Verdi's opera Nabucco. The opera is about ancient Babylon kingdom, but the chorus contains the phrase "O mia Patria", ostensibly about the struggle of the Israelites confederation, but also a thinly veiled reference to the destiny of a not-yet-united Italy; the entire chorus became the unofficial anthem of the Risorgimento, the drive to unify Italy in the 19th century. Even Verdi's name was a synonym for Italian unity because "Verdi" could be read as an acronym for ''Vittorio Emanuele Re d'Italia, Victor Emanuel King of Italy, the Savoy monarch who eventually became Victor Emanuel II, the first king of united Italy. Thus, "Viva Verdi" was a rallying cry for patriots and often appeared in graffiti in Milan and other cities in what was then part of Austro-Hungarian territory. Verdi had problems with censorship before the unification of Italy. His opera Un ballo in maschera was originally entitled Gustavo III'' and was presented to the San Carlo opera in Naples, the capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in the late 1850s. The Neapolitan censors objected to the realistic plot about the assassination of Gustav III, King of Sweden, in the 1790s. Even after the plot was changed, the Neapolitan censors still rejected it. Later, in the Fascist era of the 1920s and 30s, government censorship and interference with music occurred, though not on a systematic basis. Prominent examples include the notorious anti-modernist manifesto of 1932 and Mussolini's banning of G.F. Malipiero's opera La favola del figlio cambiato after one performance in 1934. The music media often criticized music that was perceived as either politically radical or insufficiently Italian. gets the same neutral and distant treatment with no mention at all of his "anti-regime" stance. Perhaps the best-known episode of music colliding with politics involves Toscanini. He had been forced out of the musical directorship at La Scala in Milan in 1929 because he refused to begin every performance with the fascist song, "Giovinezza". For this insult to the regime, he was attacked and beaten on the street outside the Bologne opera after a performance in 1931. During the Fascist era, political pressure stymied the development of classical music, although censorship was not as systematic as in Nazi Germany. A series of "racial laws" was passed in 1938, thus denying to Jewish composers and musicians membership in professional and artistic associations. Although there was not a massive flight of Italian Jews from Italy during this period (compared to the situation in Germany) composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, an Italian Jew, was one of those who emigrated. Some non-Jewish foes of the regime also emigrated—Toscanini, for one. More recently, in the later part of the 20th century, especially in the 1970s and beyond, music became further enmeshed in Italian politics. The revivalist scene thus became associated with the opposition, and became a vehicle for "protest against free-market capitalism". Similarly, the avant-garde classical music scene has, since the 1970s, been associated with and promoted by the Italian Communist Party, a change that can be traced back to the 1968 student revolts and protests. == Classical music ==

Italy has long been a center for European classical music, and by the beginning of the 20th century, Italian classical music had forged a distinct national sound that was decidedly Romantic and melodic. As typified by the operas of Verdi, it was music in which "... The vocal lines always dominate the tonal complex and are never overshadowed by the instrumental accompaniments ..." Italian classical music had resisted the "German harmonic juggernaut"—that is, the dense harmonies of Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. Italian music also had little in common with the French reaction to that German music—the impressionism of Claude Debussy, for example, in which melodic development is largely abandoned for the creation of mood and atmosphere through the sounds of individual chords. European classical music changed greatly in the 20th century. New music abandoned much of the historical, nationally developed schools of harmony and melody in favor of experimental music, atonality, minimalism and electronic music, all of which employ features that have become common to European music in general and not Italy specifically. These changes have also made classical music less accessible to many people. Important composers of the period include Ottorino Respighi, Ferruccio Busoni, Alfredo Casella, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Franco Alfano, Bruno Maderna, Luciano Berio, Luigi Nono, Sylvano Bussotti, Salvatore Sciarrino, Luigi Dallapiccola, Carlo Jachino, Gian Carlo Menotti, Jacopo Napoli, and Goffredo Petrassi. Opera , one of the most popular and acclaimed opera composers Opera originated in Italy in the late 16th century during the time of the Florentine Camerata. Through the centuries that followed, opera traditions developed in Naples and Venice; the operas of Claudio Monteverdi, Alessandro Scarlatti, Giambattista Pergolesi, and, later, of Gioacchino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gaetano Donizetti flourished. Opera has remained the musical form most closely linked with Italian music and Italian identity. This was most obvious in the 19th century through the works of Giuseppe Verdi, an icon of Italian culture and pan-Italian unity. Italy retained a Romantic operatic musical tradition in the early 20th century, exemplified by composers of the so-called Giovane Scuola, whose music was anchored in the previous century, including Arrigo Boito, Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Pietro Mascagni, and Francesco Cilea. Giacomo Puccini, who was a realist composer, has been described by Encyclopædia Britannica Online as the man who "virtually brought the history of Italian opera to an end". After World War I, however, opera declined in comparison to the popular heights of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Causes included the general cultural shift away from Romanticism and the rise of the cinema, which became a major source of entertainment. A third cause is the fact that "internationalism" had brought contemporary Italian opera to a state where it was no longer "Italian". This was the opinion of at least one prominent Italian musicologist and critic, Fausto Terrefranca, who, in a 1912 pamphlet entitled Giaccomo Puccini and International Opera, accused Puccini of "commercialism" and of having deserted Italian traditions. Traditional Romantic opera remained popular; indeed, the dominant opera publisher in the early 20th century was Casa Ricordi, which focused almost exclusively on popular operas until the 1930s, when the company allowed more unusual composers with less mainstream appeal. The rise of relatively new publishers such as Carisch and Suvini Zerboni also helped to fuel the diversification of Italian opera. The advent of Vatican II, however, nearly obliterated all Latin-language music from the Church, once again substituting it with a more popular style. Instrumental music Baroque and Classical The dominance of opera in Italian music tends to overshadow the important area of instrumental music. Historically, such music includes the vast array of sacred instrumental music, instrumental concertos, and orchestral music in the works of Andrea Gabrieli, Giovanni Gabrieli, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Tomaso Albinoni, Arcangelo Corelli, Antonio Vivaldi, Domenico Scarlatti, Luigi Boccherini, Muzio Clementi, Giuseppe Gariboldi, Luigi Cherubini, Giovanni Battista Viotti and Niccolò Paganini. (Even opera composers occasionally worked in other forms—Giuseppe Verdi's String Quartet in E minor, for example. Even Donizetti, whose name is identified with the beginnings of Italian lyric opera, wrote 18 string quartets.) In the early 20th century, instrumental music began growing in importance, a process that started around 1904 with Giuseppe Martucci's Second Symphony, a work that Gian Francesco Malipiero called "the starting point of the renaissance of non-operatic Italian music." Several early composers from this era, such as Leone Sinigaglia, used native folk traditions. Romantic to Modern The early 20th century is also marked by the presence of a group of composers called the ''generazione dell'ottanta'' (generation of 1880), including Franco Alfano, Alfredo Casella, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Ildebrando Pizzetti, and Ottorino Respighi. These composers usually concentrated on writing instrumental works, rather than opera. Members of this generation were the dominant figures in Italian music after Puccini's death in 1924. better known by the French version of his name, Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx. Early ballet was accompanied by considerable instrumentation, with the playing of horns, trombones, kettle drums, dulcimers, bagpipes, etc. Although the music has not survived, there is speculation that dancers, themselves, may have played instruments on stage. Then, in the wake of the French Revolution, Italy again became a center of ballet, largely through the efforts of Salvatore Viganò, a choreographer who worked with some of the most prominent composers of the day. He became balletmaster at La Scala in 1812. Similarly, Luigi Russolo, the Italian Futurist painter and composer, wrote of the possibilities of new music in his 1913 manifestoes The Art of Noises and Musica Futurista. He also invented and built instruments such as the intonarumori, mostly percussion, which were used in a precursor to the style known as musique concrète. One of the most influential events in early 20th century music was the return of Alfredo Casella from France in 1915; Casella founded the Società Italiana di Musica Moderna, which promoted several composers in disparate styles, ranging from experimental to traditional. After a dispute over the value of experimental music in 1923, Casella formed the Corporazione delle Nuove Musiche to promote modern experimental music. This focus on popular historical composers has helped to maintain a continued presence of classical music across a broad spectrum of Italian society. When music is part of a public display or gathering, it is often chosen from a very eclectic repertoire that is as likely to include well-known classical music as popular music. A few recent works have become a part of the modern repertoire, including scores and theatrical works by composers such as Luciano Berio, Luigi Nono, Franco Donatoni, and Sylvano Bussotti. These composers are not part of a distinct school or tradition, though they do share certain techniques and influences. By the 1970s, avant-garde classical music had become linked to the Italian Communist Party, while a revival of popular interest continued into the next decade, with foundations, festivals and organization created to promote modern music. Near the end of the 20th century, government sponsorship of musical institutions began to decline, and several RAI choirs and city orchestras were closed. Despite this, a number of composers gained international reputations in the early 21st century. == Folk music ==

Italian folk music has a deep and complex history. Because national unification came late to the Italian peninsula, the traditional music of its many hundreds of cultures exhibit no homogeneous national character. Rather, each region and community possesses a unique musical tradition that reflects the history, language, and ethnic composition of that particular locale. These traditions reflect Italy's geographic position in southern Europe and in the centre of the Mediterranean; Celtic, Slavic, Greek, and Byzantine influences, as well as rough geography and the historic dominance of small city states, have all combined to allow diverse musical styles to coexist in close proximity. Italian folk styles are very diverse, and include monophonic, polyphonic, and responsorial song, choral, instrumental and vocal music, and other styles. Choral singing and polyphonic song forms are primarily found in northern Italy, while south of Naples, solo singing is more common, and groups usually use unison singing in two or three parts carried by a single performer. Northern ballad-singing is syllabic, with a strict tempo and intelligible lyrics, while southern styles use a rubato tempo, and a strained, tense vocal style. Folk musicians use the dialect of their own regional tradition; this rejection of the standard Italian language in folk song is nearly universal. There is little perception of a common Italian folk tradition, and the country's folk music never became a national symbol. Regions Folk music is sometimes divided into several spheres of geographic influence, a classification system of three regions, southern, central and northern, proposed by Alan Lomax in 1956 and often repeated. Additionally, Curt Sachs proposed the existence of two quite distinct kinds of folk music in Europe: continental and Mediterranean. Others have placed the transition zone from the former to the latter roughly in north-central Italy, approximately between Pesaro and La Spezia. The central, northern and southern parts of the peninsula each share certain musical characteristics, and are each distinct from the music of Sardinia. In parts of Apulia (Grecìa Salentina, for example) the Griko dialect is commonly used in song. The Apulian city of Taranto is a home of the tarantella, a rhythmic dance widely performed in southern Italy. Apulian music in general, and Salentine music in particular, has been well researched and documented by ethnomusicologists and by Aramirè. The music of the island of Sardinia is best known for the polyphonic chanting of the tenores. The sound of the tenores recalls the roots of Gregorian chant, and is similar to but distinctive from the Ligurian trallalero. Typical instruments include the launeddas, a Sardinian triplepipe used in a sophisticated and complex manner. Efisio Melis was a well-known master launeddas player of the 1930s. Songs Italian folk songs include ballads, lyrical songs, lullabies and children's songs, seasonal songs based around holidays such as Christmas, life-cycle songs that celebrate weddings, baptisms and other important events, dance songs, cattle calls and occupational songs, tied to professions such as fishermen, shepherds and soldiers. Ballads (canti epico-lirici) and lyric songs (canti lirico-monostrofici) are two important categories. Ballads are most common in northern Italy, while lyric songs prevail further south. Ballads are closely tied to the English form, with some British ballads existing in exact correspondence with an Italian song. Other Italian ballads are more closely based on French models. Lyric songs are a diverse category that consist of lullabies, serenades and work songs, and are frequently improvised though based on a traditional repertoire. Italian folk instruments can be divided into string, wind and percussion categories. Common instruments include the , an accordion most closely associated with the ; the diatonic button is most common in central Italy, while chromatic accordions prevail in the north. Many municipalities are home to brass bands, which perform with roots revival groups; these ensembles are based around the clarinet, accordion, violin and small drums, adorned with bells. A ceramic pitcher called the is also used as a wind instrument, by blowing across an opening in the narrow bottle neck; it is found in eastern Sicily and Campania. Single- () and double-reed () pipes are commonly played in groups of two or three. There are also dances of love and courting, such as the duru-duru dance in Sardinia. Many of these dances are group activities, the group setting up in rows or circles; some—the love and courting dances—involve couples, either a single couple or more. The (performed to the sound of the tambourine) is a couple dance performed in southern Italy and accompanied by a lyric song called a . Other couples dances are collectively referred to as saltarello. There are, however, also solo dances; most typical of these are the "flag dances" of various regions of Italy, in which the dancer passes a town flag or pennant around the neck, through the legs, behind the back, often tossing it high in the air and catching it. These dances can also be done in groups of solo dancers acting in unison or by coordinating flag passing between dancers. Northern Italy is also home to the , an accompanied dance that was incorporated in Western art music by the composer Muzio Clementi. Academic interest in the study of dance from the perspectives of sociology and anthropology has traditionally been neglected in Italy but is currently showing renewed life at the university and post-graduate level. == Popular music ==

The earliest Italian popular music was the opera of the 19th century. Opera has had a lasting effect on Italy's classical and popular music. Opera tunes spread through brass bands and itinerant ensembles. Canzone Napoletana, or Neapolitan song, is a distinct tradition that became a part of popular music in the 19th century, and was an iconic image of Italian music abroad by the end of the 20th century. In the 1950s, American styles became more prominent, especially rock. The singer-songwriter cantautori tradition was a major development of the later 1960s, while the Italian rock scene soon diversified into progressive, punk, funk and folk-based styles. the regional minority language of Campania. Neapolitan songs typically use simple harmonies, and are structured in two sections, a refrain and narrative verses, often in contrasting relative or parallel major and minor keys. There is some genre cross-over between the cantautori and those who are viewed as singers of "protest music". Piginicelentano.jpg|Adriano Celentano Anna Maria Mazzini (1972).jpg|Mina, the estimated best-selling Italian singer Mia Martini 1973b.jpg|Mia Martini, critically acclaimed singer Sanremo 1969 Lucio Battisti.jpg|Lucio Battisti Lucio Dalla Festival di Sanremo 1971.png|Lucio Dalla Modern pop From the 1980s through the early 2000s, Italian music continued evolving, incorporating a broader range of genres and production styles. Artists such as Zucchero, with his blues-influenced pop-rock, and Mango, known for his melodic, Mediterranean sound, rose to prominence. The rock edge of Vasco Rossi and the powerful vocals of Gianna Nannini brought a new energy to the Italian scene. This era also marked the rise of international superstars like Laura Pausini, whose heartfelt ballads found global success, and Andrea Bocelli, a tenor who bridged classical and pop music with worldwide acclaim. In the later part of his career, Lucio Battisti continued to innovate, blending his earlier pop-rock sound with genres like synthpop, rap, techno, and Eurodance, showing a remarkable adaptability to contemporary trends. Meanwhile, artists such as Angelo Branduardi and Franco Battiato pursued more eclectic paths, drawing from traditional Italian music, classical influences, and experimental sounds, contributing to a rich and diverse pop landscape. Italian pop music in the 2000s managed to cross national borders thanks, among others, to Laura Pausini, Eros Ramazzotti, Zucchero, Andrea Bocelli, Tiziano Ferro, and Il Volo. Gino_Paoli_daticamera.jpg|Gino Paoli AndreaBocelliMar10.jpg|Andrea Bocelli Laura Pausini 03 - Bercy - Avril 2012 (7076250493).jpg|Laura Pausini Francesco De Gregori.jpg|Francesco De Gregori Giorgia.png|Giorgia Italian singer Elisa (cropped).jpg|Elisa Tiziano Ferro.jpg|Tiziano Ferro ESC2013 - Italy 04.jpg|Marco Mengoni Modern dance , pioneer of Italo disco and EDM , one of Italy's most popular electronic groups Italy has been an important country with regards to electronic dance music, especially ever since the creation of Italo disco in the late 1970s to early 1980s. The genre, originating from disco, blended "melancholy melodies" with pop and electronic music, making usage of synthesizers and drum machines, which often gave it a futuristic sound. According to an article in The Guardian, in cities such as Verona and Milan, producers would work with singers, using mass-made synthesizers and drum machines, and incorporating them into a mix of experimental music with a "classic-pop sensibility" Also, a subgenre of Italo dance known as Lento Violento ("slow and violent") was developed by Gigi D'Agostino as a much slower and harder type of music. The BPM is often reduced to the half of typical Italo dance tracks. The bass is often noticeably loud, and dominates the song. Over the years, there have been several important Italian dance music composers and producers, such as Giorgio Moroder, who won three Academy Awards and four Golden Globes for his music. His work with synthesizers heavily influenced several music genres such as new wave, techno and house music; he is credited by Allmusic as "One of the principal architects of the disco sound", and is also dubbed the "Father of Disco". Yet, even before that, Italy received an inkling of new music from across the Atlantic in the form of Creole singers and dancers who performed at the Eden Theater in Milan in 1904; they billed themselves as the "creators of the cakewalk." The first real jazz orchestras in Italy, however, were formed during the 1920s by bandleaders such as Arturo Agazzi and enjoyed immediate success. Italy was at the forefront of the progressive rock movement of the 1970s, a style that primarily developed in Europe but also gained audiences elsewhere in the world. It is sometimes considered a separate genre, Italian progressive rock. Italian bands such as The Trip, Area, Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM), Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, New Trolls, Goblin, Osanna, Saint Just and Le Orme incorporated a mix of symphonic rock and Italian folk music and were popular throughout Europe and the United States as well. Other progressive bands such as Perigeo, Balletto di Bronzo, Museo Rosenbach, Rovescio della Medaglia, Biglietto Per L'Inferno or Alphataurus remained little known, but their albums are today considered classics by collectors. A few avant-garde rock bands or artists (Area, Picchio dal Pozzo, Opus Avantra, Stormy Six, Saint Just, Giovanni Lindo Ferretti) gained notoriety for their innovative sound. Progressive rock concerts in Italy tended to have a strong political undertone and an energetic atmosphere. Popular Italian metal bands include Rhapsody of Fire, Lacuna Coil, Elvenking, Forgotten Tomb, and Fleshgod Apocalypse. The Italian hip hop scene began in the early 1990s with Articolo 31 from Milan, whose style was mainly influenced by East Coast rap. Other early hip hop crews were typically politically oriented, like 99 Posse, who later became more influenced by British trip hop. More recent crews include gangster rappers like Sardinia's La Fossa. Other recently imported styles include techno, trance, and electronica performed by artists including Gabry Ponte, Eiffel 65, and Gigi D`Agostino. Hip hop is especially liked in southern Italy, joined with the southern concept of rispetto (respect, honor), a form of verbal jousting; both facts have helped identify southern Italian music with the African American hip hop style. Additionally, there are many bands in Italy that play a style called patchanka, which is characterized by a mixture of traditional music, punk, reggae, rock and political lyrics. Modena City Ramblers are one of the more popular bands known for their mix of Irish, Italian, punk, reggae and many other forms of music. Italy has also become a home for a number of Mediterranean fusion projects. These include Al Darawish, a multicultural band based in Sicily and led by Palestinian Nabil Ben Salaméh. The Luigi Cinque Tarantula Hypertext Orchestra is another example, as is the TaraGnawa project by Phaleg and Nour Eddine. Mango is one of the best-known artists who fused pop with world and mediterranean sounds, albums such as Adesso, Sirtaki and ''Come l'acqua are examples of his style. The Neapolitan popular singer, Massimo Ranieri has also released a CD, Oggi o dimane, of traditional canzone Napoletana'' with North African rhythms and instruments. == Industry ==

The music industry in Italy made €2.3 billion in 2004. That sum refers to the sale of CDs, music electronics, musical instruments, and ticket sales for live performances. By way of comparison, the Italian recording industry ranks eighth in the world; Italians own 0.7 music albums per capita as opposed to the US, in first-place with 2.7. Nationwide, there are three state-run and three private TV networks. All provide live music at least some of the time. Many large cities in Italy have local TV stations, as well, which may provide live folk or dialect music often of interest only to the immediate area. The largest of these book and CD chain is Feltrinelli. == Venues, festivals and holidays ==

is a popular music venue in Italy. Here, an orchestra starts to set up on a stage overlooking the Amalfi coast. Venues for music in Italy include concerts at the many music conservatories, symphony halls and opera houses. Italy also has many well-known international music festivals each year, including the Festival of Spoleto, the Festival Puccini and the Wagner Festival in Ravello. Some festivals offer venues to younger composers in classical music by producing and staging winning entries in competitions. The winner, for example, of the "Orpheus" International Competition for New Opera and Chamber music—besides winning considerable prize money—gets to see his or her musical work performed at The Spoleto Festival. There are also dozens of privately sponsored master classes in music each year that put on concerts for the public. Italy is also a common destination for well-known orchestras from abroad; at almost any given time during the busiest season, at least one major orchestra from elsewhere in Europe or North America is playing a concert in Italy. Additionally, public music may be heard at dozens of pop and rock concerts throughout the year. Open-air opera may even be heard, for example, at the ancient Roman amphitheater, the Verona Arena. military band Military bands, too, are popular in Italy. At a national level, one of the best-known of these is the concert band of the Guardia di Finanza (Italian Customs/Border Police); it performs many times a year. Many theaters also routinely stage not just Italian translations of American musicals, but true Italian musical comedy, which are called by the English term musical. In Italian, that term describes a kind of musical drama not native to Italy, a form that employs the American idiom of jazz-pop-and rock-based music and rhythms to move a story along in a combination of songs and dialogue. Music in religious rituals, especially Catholic, manifests itself in a number of ways. Parish bands, for example, are quite common throughout Italy. They may be as small as four or five members to as many as 20 or 30. They commonly perform at religious festivals specific to a particular town, usually in honor of the town's patron saint. The historic orchestral/choral masterpieces performed in church by professionals are well-known; these include such works as the Stabat Mater by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and Verdi's Requiem. The Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965 revolutionized music in the Catholic Church, leading to an increase in the number of amateur choirs that perform regularly for services; the council also encouraged the congregational singing of hymns, and a vast repertoire of new hymns has been composed in the last 40 years. during the Sanremo Music Festival 2013 There is not a great deal of native Italian Christmas music. The most popular Italian Christmas carol is "Tu scendi dalle stelle", the modern Italian words to which were written by Pope Pius IX in 1870. The melody is a major-key version of an older, minor-key Neapolitan carol "Quanno Nascette Ninno" of Alphonsus Liguori. Other than that, Italians largely sing translations of carols that come from the German and English tradition ("Silent Night", for example). There is no native Italian secular Christmas music, which accounts for the popularity of Italian-language versions of "Jingle Bells" and "White Christmas". The Sanremo Music Festival is an important venue for popular music in Italy. It has been held annually since 1951 and is currently staged at the Teatro Ariston in Sanremo. It runs for one week in February, and gives veteran and new performers a chance to present new songs. Winning the contest has often been a springboard to industry success. The festival is televised nationally for three hours a night, is hosted by the best-known Italian TV personalities, and has been a vehicle for such performers as Domenico Modugno, perhaps the best-known Italian pop singer of the last 50 years. Television variety shows are the widest venue for popular music. They change often, but Buona Domenica, Domenica In, and I raccomandati are popular. The longest running musical broadcast in Italy is La Corrida, a three-hour weekly program of amateurs and would-be musicians. It started on the radio in 1968 and moved to TV in 1988. The studio audience bring cow-bells and sirens and are encouraged to show good-natured disapproval. The city with the highest number of rock concerts (of national and international artists) is Milan, with a number close to the other European music capitals, as Paris, London and Berlin. == Education ==

Many institutes of higher education teach music in Italy. About 75 music conservatories provide advanced training for future professional musicians. There are also many private music schools and workshops for instrument building and repair. Private teaching is also quite common in Italy. Elementary and high school students can expect to have one or two weekly hours of music teaching, generally in choral singing and basic music theory, though extracurricular opportunities are rare. Though most Italian universities have classes in related subjects such as music history, performance is not a common feature of university education. Italy has a specialized system of high schools; students attend, as they choose, a high school for humanities, science, foreign languages, or art—and music (in the "liceo musicale", where instruments, musical theory, composing and musical history are taught as the main subject). Italy does have ambitious, recent programs to expose children to more music. Furthermore, with the recent education reform a specific Liceo musicale e coreutico (2nd level secondary school, ages 14–15 to 18–19) is explicitly indicated by the law decrees. Yet this kind of school has not been set up and is not effectively operational. The state-run television network has started a program to use modern satellite technology to broadcast choral music into public schools. == Scholarship ==

Scholarship in the field of collecting, preserving and cataloguing all varieties of music is vast. In Italy, as elsewhere, these tasks are spread over a number of agencies and organizations. Most large music conservatories maintain departments that oversee the research connected with their own collections. Such research is coordinated on a national and international scale via the internet. One prominent institution in Italy is IBIMUS, the Istituto di Bibliografia Musicale, in Rome. It works with other agencies on an international scale through RISM, the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales, an inventory and index of source material. Also, the Discoteca di Stato (National Archives of Recordings) in Rome, founded in 1928, holds the largest public collection of recorded music in Italy with some 230,000 examples of classical music, folk music, jazz, and rock, recorded on everything from antique wax cylinders to modern electronic media. The scholarly study of traditional Italian music began in about 1850, with a group of early philological ethnographers who studied the impact of music on a pan-Italian national identity. A unified Italian identity only just started to develop after the political integration of the peninsula in 1860. The focus at that time was on the lyrical and literary value of music, rather than the instrumentation; this focus remained until the early 1960s. Two folkloric journals helped to encourage the burgeoning field of study, the Rivista Italiana delle Tradizioni Popolari and Lares, founded in 1894 and 1912, respectively. The earliest major musical studies were on the Sardinian launeddas in 1913–1914 by Mario Giulio Fara; on Sicilian music, published in 1907 and 1921 by Alberto Favara; and studies of the music of Emilia Romagna in 1941 by Francesco Balilla Pratella. The earliest recordings of Italian traditional music came in the 1920s, but they were rare until the establishment of the Centro Nazionale Studi di Musica Popolare at the National Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome. The Center sponsored numerous song collection trips across the peninsula, especially to southern and central Italy. Giorgio Nataletti was an instrumental figure in the center, and also made numerous recordings himself. The American scholar Alan Lomax and the Italian, Diego Carpitella, made an exhaustive survey of the peninsula in 1954. By the early 1960s, a roots revival encouraged more study, especially of northern musical cultures, which many scholars had previously assumed maintained little folk culture. The most prominent scholars of this era included Roberto Leydi, Ottavio Tiby and Leo Levi. During the 1970s, Leydi and Carpitella were appointed to the first two chairs of ethnomusicology at universities, with Carpitella at the University of Rome and Leydi at the University of Bologna. In the 1980s, Italian scholars began focusing less on making recordings, and more on studying and synthesizing the information already collected. Others studied Italian music in the United States and Australia, and the folk musics of recent immigrants to Italy. ==See also==