Italian Folk Songs

Comprising of a rich musical heritage, Italian folkSlavic influences. Central Italy has peasant poets
music comprises of diverse styles, dance formsor poeti contadini who sing poems of Homer and
and musical instruments. With the country'sDante, focusing on the political and social situations
gradual unification, hundreds of music styles fromin that specific region. This medieval style of
different Italian regions came together quite late inpoetry is sometimes competitive in nature while
the 20th century. Italy's folk music has hadleaving room for interpretation and improvisations.
several regional influences especially from theDuring the 1970's roots revival, roots revivalists
south of Europe as well as Celtic, Persian, African,were greatly influenced by jazz music played
Roma and Arabic. Sardinia's music compared toentirely on acoustic settings.
the rest of Italy is distinctive, in that it is bestEthnic Greeks have been residing in cities like
known for its chanting of the tenores.Calabria and Puglia for a very long time. Traditional
With pockets of small city states in every region,folk music emerging from this region includes a
diverse music styles have coexisted for a veryreligious piece Passiuna tu Christù, which
long time combining traditions like narrative andnarrates and describes the Passion of Christ.
ballad singing. American Alan Lomax in 1956Sicily's music is more diverse in nature, comprising
proposed to unify Italy's musical heritage throughof devotional and religious songs, harvest folk
a classification system and it has often beensongs and songs of the peasant workforce.
repeated since. Italian Diego Carpitella, FrancoMusical accompaniments are an important facet
Coggiola and Roberto Leydi carried out variousof Italian folk music. Some of their instruments
field recordings and captured various folkare used only for certain religious occasions or
traditions.rituals like the zampogna bagpipe which is heard
Italian folk songs talk about important events andonly during Christmas. Their main instruments are
celebrations. They also comprise of ballads,broken down into three groups - string, percussion
lullabies, serenades, epic songs and children's songs.and wind. Dancing also plays an integral part of
In 1966, Gianni Bosio founded the Istituto Ernestomost folk ritual songs. While there are group
de Martino and from here Italian folk music wasdances, solo and couple dances also co-exist such
revived and brought once again into the limelightas the courting dance called the duru-duru dance
on a larger scale. Soon various Italian folk bandsin Sardinia.
gained prominence including La Lionetta, La CiapaTo download cool Italian songs or Japanese songs
Rusa, Re Niliu, Calicanto, and Baraban.or even Spanish songs please click on these links.
Regions to the north of Italy have deep Celtic and