Music of Italy

[1] Italy's most famous composers include the Renaissance Palestrina, Monteverdi, and Gesualdo; the Baroque Scarlatti, and Vivaldi; the classical Paganini, and Rossini; and the Romantic Verdi and Puccini.

Classical music has a strong hold in Italy, as evidenced by the fame of its opera houses such as La Scala, and performers such as the pianist Maurizio Pollini and tenor Luciano Pavarotti.

The Canzone Napoletana—the Neapolitan Song, and the cantautori singer-songwriter traditions are also popular domestic styles that form an important part of the Italian music industry.

Italy was represented in the progressive rock and pop movements of the 1970s, with bands such as PFM, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, Le Orme, Goblin, and Pooh.

Singers such as Domenico Modugno, Mina, Andrea Bocelli, Raffaella Carrà, Il Volo, Al Bano, Toto Cutugno, Nek, Umberto Tozzi, Giorgia, Grammy winner Laura Pausini, Eros Ramazzotti, Tiziano Ferro, Måneskin, Mahmood, Ghali have received international acclaim.

Prominent examples include the notorious anti-modernist manifesto of 1932[17] and Mussolini's banning of G.F. Malipiero's opera La favola del figlio cambiato after one performance in 1934.

[11] 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.

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.

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.

Guido M. Gatti's founding of the periodical Il Pianoforte and then La rassegna musicale also helped to promote a broader view of music than the political and social climate allowed.

[12] Italy is also the homeland of important interpreters, such as Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Quartetto Italiano, I Musici, Salvatore Accardo, Maurizio Pollini, Uto Ughi, Aldo Ciccolini, Severino Gazzelloni, Arturo Toscanini, Mario Brunello, Ferruccio Busoni, Claudio Abbado, Ruggero Chiesa, Bruno Canino, Carlo Maria Giulini, Oscar Ghiglia and Riccardo Muti.

Italian classical music grew gradually more experimental and progressive into the mid-20th century, while popular tastes have tended to stick with well established composers and compositions of the past.

[39] 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.

[41] 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[42] and often repeated.

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.

[40] Existing, rooted and widespread traditions confirm the production of ephemeral and toy instruments made of bark, reed (arundo donax), leaves, fibers and stems, as it emerges, for example, from Fabio Lombardi's research.

[40] 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.

In the 18th century, many composers, including Alessandro Scarlatti, Leonardo Vinci, and Giovanni Paisiello, contributed to the Neapolitan tradition by using the local language for the texts of some of their comic operas.

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.

[40] Among the best-known Italian pop musicians of the last few decades are Domenico Modugno, Mina, Mia Martini, Adriano Celentano, Claudio Baglioni, Ornella Vanoni, Patty Pravo and, more recently, Zucchero, Mango, Vasco Rossi, Gianna Nannini and international superstar Laura Pausini and Andrea Bocelli.

Their compositions typically focus on topics of social relevance and are often protest songs: this wave began in the 1960s with musicians like Fabrizio De André, Paolo Conte, Giorgio Gaber, Umberto Bindi, Gino Paoli and Luigi Tenco.

[61] 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.

The genre, originating from disco, blended "melancholy melodies" with pop and electronic music,[63] 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"[63] which would be aimed for nightclubs.

[72] 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."

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.

[75] 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.

The Neapolitan popular singer, Massimo Ranieri has also released a CD, Oggi o dimane, of traditional canzone Napoletana with North African rhythms and instruments.

[40] 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.