Italian Language Blog

It’s summer, time for open air events once again. A few evenings ago we went to a free concert in Piazza della Repubblica here in Pontremoli to see our favourite choir perform : Il Coro degli Alpini Monte Sillara di Bagnone, whom I wrote about last year in: il coro degli Alpini. At the end of the concert, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Unità d’Italia (Unification of Italy), they sang La Bella Gigogin, a song that I used to love when I was a child. We had it on an old 33rpm LP of Alpini songs which I used to play very often, and this song was one of my favourite tracks.

La Bella Gigogin  belongs to the Italian patriotic songs repertoire. It was composed three years before the unification of Italy, in 1858, by Paolo Giorza from Milano. Giorza was inspired by folk songs from northern Italy, especially those from Piemonte and Lombardia. The text of the song, by the well know ‘anon.’, is a collage of folk songs, and is written partly in Italian and partly in the Lombardo-Piemontese dialect. Hidden behind the main theme of the pretty lass (Gigogin, which is a diminutive for the name Teresa in Piemontese) there is a political innuendo: the line “daghela avanti un passo” (or “fai un passo avanti” in Italian, meaning “take a step forward”) is interpreted as an invitation to the Piedmontese king Vittorio Emanuele II di Savoia to attack the Austrians and throw them out of Lombardy.

La Bella Gigogin was officially performed for the first time in public on the 31st of December 1858 at the Teatro Carcano a Milano by the civic band. The song was received with such enthusiasm by the audience that the band had to perform it eight times, and it quickly became very popular with military bands. In fact even the Austrians, not understanding the hidden meaning of the song, began to perform it. Legend has it that on the 4th of June 1859, at the start of la Battaglia di Magenta, during the Italian second war of independence, the Austrians accompanied their attack with the music of la Bella Gigogin, to which their enemies, the French-Piedmontese army, replied by playing the refrain from the same song, “daghela avanti un passo” (take a step forward)!

Listen to La Bella Gigogin performed by the Coro Michele Novaro and read the lyrics at the same time by clicking on this link: La Bella Gigogin

(N.B. for the not too computer literate: clicking on the blue text below will take you to a web page or video)

Fabrizio De André – (born: Genova, 18 febbraio 1940 – passed away: Milano, 11 gennaio 1999) was one of our most important and revered cantautori italiani (Italian singer songwriters). I recently heard for the first time his version of Leonard Cohen’s song  Joan of Arc. I know only too well how difficult it is to translate successfully from English to Italian and vice versa, especially when the text in question is poetry or a song, and it pays testimony to De André’s skill as a songwriter/poet that he makes such a beautiful job of it in his version. See if you can spot the major changes made by De André in order to give the song fluidity and rhythm in Italian.

Here is Giovanna d’Arco performed by De André.

Giovanna d’Arco

Attraverso il buio Giovanna d’Arco
precedeva le fiamme cavalcando,
nessuna luna per la sua  corazza ed il manto,
nessun uomo nella sua fumosa notte al suo fianco.
Della guerra sono stanca ormai,
al lavoro di un tempo tornerei,
a un vestito da sposa o a qualcosa di bianco
per nascondere questa mia vocazione al trionfo ed al pianto.

 
Son parole le tue che volevo ascoltare,
ti ho spiata ogni giorno cavalcare
e a sentirti così ora so cosa voglio:
vincere un’eroina così fredda, abbracciarne l’orgoglio.
E chi sei tu? lei disse divertendosi al gioco,
chi sei tu che mi parli così senza riguardo?
Veramente stai parlando col fuoco
e amo la tua solitudine, amo il tuo sguardo.

 
E se tu sei il fuoco raffreddati un poco,
le tue mani ora avranno da tenere qualcosa,
e tacendo gli si arrampicò dentro
ad offrirgli il suo modo migliore di essere sposa.
E nel profondo del suo cuore rovente
lui prese ad avvolgere Giovanna d’Arco,
e là in alto e davanti alla gente
lui appese le ceneri inutili del suo abito bianco.

E fu dal profondo del suo cuore rovente
che lui prese Giovanna e la colpì nel segno
e lei capì chiaramente
che se lui era il fuoco lei doveva essere il legno.

N.B. The following lines which are part of the original song by Cohen are not sung in this version by De André

Ho visto la smorfia del suo dolore,
ho visto la gloria nel suo sguardo raggiante
anche io vorrei luce ed amore
ma se arriva deve essere sempre così crudele e accecante?

The original lyrics by Leonard Cohen

Joan of Arc

Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc
As she came riding through the dark;
No moon to keep her armor bright,
No man to get her through this very smoky night.
She said, I’m tired of the war,
I want the kind of work I had before,
A wedding dress or something white
To wear upon my swollen appetite.

 
Well, I’m glad to hear you talk this way,
You know I’ve watched you riding every day
And something in me yearns to win
Such a cold and lonesome heroine.
And who are you? she sternly spoke
To the one beneath the smoke.
Why, I’m fire, he replied,
And I love your solitude, I love your pride.

 
Then fire, make your body cold,
I’m going to give you mine to hold,
Saying this she climbed inside
To be his one, to be his only bride.
And deep into his fiery heart
He took the dust of Joan of Arc,
And high above the wedding guests
He hung the ashes of her wedding dress.

 
It was deep into his fiery heart
He took the dust of Joan of Arc,
And then she clearly understood
If he was fire, oh then she must be wood.
I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
I saw the glory in her eye.
Myself I long for love and light,
But must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?

Which version do you prefer?

Last Saturday evening we went to the Teatro della Rosa in Pontremoli for a concert of choral works by Giuseppe Verdi. The performers were from Teatro Regio di Parma, one of Italy’s most important Opera Houses, which specializes in performing Verdi’s Operas. In fact Verdi was born in 1813 just a few kilometers from Parma, in Busseto.

The concert, which was free, was organized by the Comune di Pontremoli both as a Christmas gift to the citizens, and as the inauguration of the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy which will take place in the year 2011. Why choose the music of Giuseppe Verdi to open the celebrations of the unification of Italy? Well, the name of Verdi is inextricably linked with the main protagonists of the Risorgimento (the name given to the historical period covering the wars for the independence and unification of Italy). When we were children our school textbooks always linked the Risorgimento with the images of six persons:

Vittorio Emanuele II di Savoia, who became the first Italian king;

Camillo Benso Conte di Cavour, the main politician;

Giuseppe Mazzini, the mind behind the unification;

Giuseppe Garibaldi, the warrior;

Alessandro Manzoni, the poet and writer;

Giuseppe Verdi, the musician.

Some of Verdi’s Operas, in particular Nabucco, I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata and Macbeth, were adopted by the Italian patriots as metaphors for the fight of the Italians against their oppressors. It is said that in Milano, which was under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the population would stand outside the Teatro alla Scala and shout: "Viva Verdi!" (long live Verdi!), however, the name Verdi was intended as an acronym for Vittorio Emanuele Re Di Italia. All this has contributed to create the myth of Verdi as the great patriot. There is a famous piece of Verdi’s music called "Va pensiero" from the Opera "Nabucco", that even today is considered to be the unofficial Italian National Anthem. This lovely theme was sung by the Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma at the end of their concert as a bis (encore), much to the great delight of the audience. To finish the evening on a really patriotic note, the choir spontaneously performed "L’Inno di Mameli", also know by the name "Fratelli d’Italia", taken from the first line of the text, which is Italy’s official national anthem.

l’Inno di Mameli was written by Goffredo Mameli and composed by Michele Novaro in 1847, at the beginning of the Risorgimento wars, immediately becoming a very popular revolutionary song. It was sung at the time by Garibaldi’s Mille Camicie Rosse (Thousand Red Shirts), and the melody was played by the Bersaglieri when they entered Roma in 1870. Verdi incorporated Fratelli d’Italia along with the Marseilles and ‘God save the Queen’ in his "Inno delle Nazioni" (Anthem of the Nations) composed for the Great Expo held in London in 1864 .

On the 12th of October 1946 Fratelli d’Italia was chosen as the provisional national anthem of the newly born Italian Republic. Nothing in Italy is more permanent than the provisional, and L’Inno di Mameli was eventually ratified as the official national anthem in 2005!

Last Saturday was the first time I’ve ever been present at a public performance in which the national anthem was sung, and I must say that the audience, who all stood up, seemed very pleased and appreciative, especially as it was performed, for a change, by a professional choir without the blasting of a military band in the background.