Salvatore di giacomo,the poetry in music

Salvatore Di Giacomo

In the 1860 Naples was very beautiful, flood of fragrant gardens of flowers, terraces and enchantment harbors, counted already 600.000 inhabitants while in any other city of the Kingdom the 20.000 was reached! The Vesuvius with the perennial dark plume spread odor of sulphur wherever, licking up the near communes. The climate and the sweet music, the sea, the warm sun and the moon pander, served as frame to the terrestrial passions of the human kind.

Savior had only 5 months when Joseph Garibaldi arrived to Naples and spoke from the balcony of plaza of the Spirit Saint. His/her father Francis Saverio, pediatrician, held him/it in arm while you/he/she was assisting to the installation of the Argentinian dictator. This change epocale will influence the history of the whole south in consequence of the end of the Kingdom Of the Two Sicilies and the move of the government to Rome. Of Giacomo is destined to become the Neapolitan Poet, rather Italian that will bring the poetry to the fresh sources of the Greek lyric.The 12 March of 1860 is born in Naples and, after having completed the classical studies, it enrolls him in Medicine and Surgery to satisfy his/her father; in the meantime however he/she writes poetries and novellas... A gruesome episode induced him/it, after three years, to abandon the university: a morning, a school janitor nicknamed " Sieve ", falling from the staircases poured him, almost on, a full basin of human rests that you/they had served to the students to practice... Dismayed savior him made account instantly that the undertaken one was not his/her road and it abandoned the studies. It passed his/her apprenticeship of reporter to the militant journalism and the " Messenger in Naples " of Eduardo Scarfoglio and Matilde Serao it started. After a brief period however, it accepted to direct the library Lucchesi Palli near the National Library where the annotations can still be found again done with its minute but clear writing. In the meantime its fame had become great and after the uproarious success of "Assunta Spina" in 1908, it knew in the Annulled library Avigliano, a fresh girl of slender and uninhibited degree, of which he fell in love. The poet having also reached the 46° year of definite age to marry her/it. In the 1924 Mussolini it named Of Giacomo senator together with Ugo Ojetti. The Senate however he/she rejected the nomination, that had been very supported by Benedict Croce, because it was said: "Piedigrotta cannot enter Senate" and Ugo Ojetti had write to after having refused": I would blush to the thought to enter for estate to the Senate where, only because poor, you/he/she has not been able to enter a great poet." It had a small revenge Mr. Savior when, in 1929, you/he/she was named Academic of Italy, but you/he/she could not also participate never in the sessions because it didn't possess the uniform. It had only an old coat that started to become inpresentabile": It was of a so beautiful brown color, but you/he/she is becoming Rousseau now; it needs that I/you/he/she make him/it Voltaire"... it joked Of Giacomo. This way Max Vajro writes in his/her preface to the harvest of poetries Digiacomiane edite from Fortunate Florentine":... Of Giacomo has written of Naples everything that that a poet was able, composing the most fascinating and aching portrait in the city: Chronicles of court, scenes of silent poverty, raging loves and abandonments, representations of the bitter life of the found us reconstructions of agreeable scenes of the seven hundred one; vivacious sonnets, sometimes malicious; songs become very famous and symbolic in the world, comedies and plays, rievocazioni in prose that you/they have strength of poetry; you/he/she has narrated the love of the lost women and his/her mothers, from "Month Mariano" to "Assunta Spina"; the turpitude of the gangsterism; and the elegance of the Neapolitan classicità that from centuries riaffiora every time that words of poetry question her/it, as if the semblances of a marmoreal city emerged to the song of the sirens. You/he/she has composed a sacred book that moves who recognizes in it places and people, traditions and feelings, but that every reader in every language can recognize as universal and eternal voice of poetry. And that it speaks in Neapolitan, it is a since it grows - for us Neapolitan - of a value that is already absolute: sign of love of which it needs to be thankful to a poet that was a trembling tangle of echi and feelings lived for us giving breath to a city through his/her voice. "... Savior, would have adored subsequently the seven hundred one for that, that indeed you/he/she was; a period of great cultural and artistic ferments. It loved, particularly, the music of Domenico Cimarosa and he liked a lot to go for being able him to detain to observe the people, the nature and the things of his/her city afoot, with the eye of whom loves deeply what of time in time discovers and it welcomes in his/her great heart. We have gotten used to consider him/it, with affection and respect, the poet of the yearning feelings that has known better than anyone else to sing the emotions and the tragedies in a noble Naples but also flood of endless poverty; it had, however, also an unsociable character and to way his/her rebel; to such intention we read the thought of Maria Angarano Moscarelli that so it describes Of Giacomo in his/her book: "Giacomo's librarian Salvatore, stories few notes of a known poet" of Liguori Editore...." It was the obsession of all of his/her life, the fixed place, the salary at the end of the month, without having however the necessary humility to complete all it draws her/it that, inevitably, in every job it needs to cross before reaching the degree that feels him to deserve. To this a notably touchy character was added, poorly endowed with the necessary tolerance to cohabit in the different social contexts and constantly lowered to scrutinize his/her own tiredness and melancholies. Slowly all of this flowed in a real illness, that nevrastenia that was him fatal. And to think that with the few friends, that were perhaps forever such because you/they had understood him/it and you/they had accepted him/it as it was, another seemed: spontaneous, often full of humor, straight uninhibited. None of these friends belonged to the world of the libraries, that he/she remained only for him the place whether to earn him the liberty to write, even if, more ahead in the years and in the career, from that world they came him satisfactions and recognitions."... And' underlines from more parts that Savior Of Giacomo also being very careful to the behaviors of the people and the Neapolitan middle class, he/she always dreamt a return to the glorious past of the city, as he felt to be able to mostly appreciate him/it: The Six hundred painting, the music and the theater of the Seven hundred one; the two centuries when Naples was prepared to become a great European capital, together with Paris, to Vienna, to London, up to the splendid but tragic burst of the Republic Partenopea. It became studious of " certain ancient " things exploiting with intelligence his/her job of Librarian near the Conservatory of S. Pietro to Majella, to the National one and the Lucchesi Palli. Don Savior devoted him to searches on St. Carlino on the Conservatories and on the prostitution, but you/he/she described in general the slow end of a Kingdom submitting to his/her writings, the message of beauty and nostalgia of a great civilization in decline. The presence of Of Giacomo in her "beautiful èpoque" partenopea has a that of original, in fact you/he/she was disdainfully detached by the literary fashions that, in that time, they raged: The professorial classicism of Carducci, the pathetic decadence of Pastures and Corazzini, the immaginifico Baroque mannerism of Of announcement...(what also in Naples it was of house)...

Ghirelli writes": Lowered on the white sheet as a great artisan Mr. Savior isolates him from the noise of the gazette and the living rooms, devoting himself/herself/itself rather to bring to extreme perfection a personal tool that doesn't resemble to any other, the vernacular, mediate him from the popular reality but highly filtered through sophisticated experiences, that go from the Greek lyricists of the epoch of Saffo, to the funny work of the epoch of Paisiello, passing for the fiction of the Polite one and the Found her. The fusion that he realizes between the cultured structure of its dialect and the spoken tradition draws the perfection in the verses of the Ariettes and the new Songs, where the word frees " him in a musical aere "and it appears" prepared to live for rhythms and meters in an anxious aura of suggestions ".

We quote Alberto Consiglio: "Savior Of Giacomo has been studied by the maximum brains of the last three quarters of century. On his/her poetry the analysis of the greatest Italian critics is practiced: from Cross to Russian, from De Robertis to Borgese, from Vinciguerra to Flora. Among the first one and the second decade of the century, it was of fashion to compose some theses of degree on the poetry of Savior Of Giacomo. Of this thin lyricist, critics and foreign translators are largely also occupied."

...and Max Vajro:..."Luigi Russo - that on the poet you/he/she had written in the '21 a stupendous wise man - it found him/it intabarrato in an old shawl, framed by a handkerchief canter the beautiful head." The poet said

"Does cross know as I have been reduced?"; and Cross, forgetting the seven year-old episode before (during which were not met anymore) ever felt a wave of ancient out affection, and it made to ask from his/her wife to Annulled if you/he/she could approach from the dying friend. He tells him/it same": I found him/it that you/he/she was given to read, to spend the time, every sort of novels, of the most childish, and it had rinunziato to write. We spoke of him and of the gone times: I didn't make things political allusions. The conversation developed him as if it continued those usual among us. The mottos good mind, tried to persuade him/it that you/he/she would be reestablished. When I left him/it, and we still held back there a po with his/her wife, while we were being for andar street it reappeared on the door of his/her room, standing, smiling, as for the surprise that did us and for the test that had given entirely not to himself of his exhausted vigor, and he/she still greeted us on the door."

Savior of Giacomo died the 4 April of 1934 in his/her house of street S. Pasquale where you/he/she had gone to live two years before: and where in 1984 a headstone was affixed. His wife will survive him for a trentennio, in the last years fading away among the memoirs: a believer friend found that you/he/she took of food a portrait of gentleman of the Seven hundred suspended on the couch, remembering in the confused mind the love of his/her Savior for those figures in wig making to him a transversal homage of tenderness. And when this was known, any ironizzò on the pathetic care that the old one Mrs. he/she took of that unknown, that to her vaguely it brought the words of his/her Companion, during the hours to the tavolino under the lamp, between the dear books and the echis of Cimarosa...

And' notices that in the whole production

of Of Giacomo the word: NAPLES

it applies only three times: as if you/he/she had wanted to keep silent the name of his/her preferred lover for deep devotion and endless respect... and perhaps this must be considered his "legacy"... the love, the endless love for his/her city and for the men, that as Him, you/they have made the greatness possible of it.

Savior of Giacomo and the song

In 1882 the Neapolitan song meets he who it will give her the necessary vigor to become a real form of art. The great sensibility and the endless culture are the job table of the great artisan of the poetry, wisely He melts the popular tradition and the new tendencies of dialect lexicon drawing a new form of it, artistically evolved; he/she doesn't write finalizing the verse to the possible music since it is already integral and indissoluble part of it. The musical composition is born from the poetry of Of Giacomo in spontaneous way, happy, obviously however this birth subtends a thin tuning with the sensibility and also the "work" of the composer: the cantabilità of the principal theme, the witty one, and at the same time, simple harmonic construction, the lyric thickness of the verses and, that that is defined today "orecchiabilità", they furnish the bases for the production of passages that once listened they stay imprisoned in the emotional depth and they resurface for tearing an instant of emotion being, also, easily details ricollegabili moments of the life of each. The intensity, the wealth espositiva and evocative of Of Giacomo they found in Pasquale Mario the perfect " translator it Costs in music ". It costs musicò, with appointment and love, well 22 poetries of our Poet and none of them ever heard again of one some difference of qualitative level; being a lot of friends, the two has had the opportunity to know him to fund and, surely without calculation, you/they have transposed their affection befriend her and the mutual respect in the production of masterpieces that I/you/they are by now in the history of the music and not only Neapolitan. Among the other musicians that have" dressed" of sounds the job of Of Giacomo, you/they must certainly be remembered: De Leva, Of Capua, Gambardella, E.A.Mario, Nardella, Nutìle, Toasts and Capable... to quote the greatest.... Artists and composers of great professionalism and sensibility.

The matter prince of the poetry of Of Giacomo is the love, that for the Donna, that of his/her/their mother, that universal, that functional to the relationships interpersonali; but also the poverty, the art to get by typical of Naples, the tied up problem list to the justice applied to the least well-to-do classes; the portraits of charismatic and historical characters and the same history; you/they are faced by Ours with mastery and absolute mastery, competence deep and great passion. It was usual to say that it occupied him of: "certain ancient things" the artist that knew how to paint with the word and it never used to say - poetry - speaking of himself or of his/her works.

Citharas I like from: "History of the Neapolitan song from 1400 to 1900" of Sebastiano of Mass, Fortunate Florentine Publishing Naples 1961: "The rebirth of the Neapolitan song, after 1860, you/he/she would never have made true in so vigorous and original way if a poet had not carried and amalgamate, with the exceptional his/her sensibility, the traditional elements of the song and the spirit of the people of his/her time, in whose life intensely participated. The unparalleled song of Savior of Giacomo had arouse to the awakening of other energies in the poetic field and in that what you/they competed to give shine to this form of art all our. Gradually the of Giacomo acquires new elements to his/her song, and it abandons the schemes in which the recent tradition had forced mortifying him/it the folksy song. One is the cultural element, through which the new song is connected to the traditional popular songs of Naples and Campania and also of other regions. The other element is constituted by the share of the poet to the life of the people of its city, particularly characteristic life of that years. These elements of cultural and external nature find the spark, that revives them and that it gives novelty of spirit and form to the song, in the sensibility of Savior of Giacomo."

With Savior of Giacomo, as Vincent Valente writes, the song "you/he/she was a miracle of compatibility between urgency of song and purification from the cinders of the easy one to versify" .Poeta, historical, lettered, studious, journalist, librarian, created a production of verses for the music with an artistic value of great breath. It had in life numerous recognitions, its work was translated in different languages. Realist, lyric, realist, subjective, courtly, for us it has little importance. Its tied up production to the song often stirs from a color to the other without particular discriminating but with one unmistakable aristocratic style of his. The Cross the considera:... "one of the rare sincere poets of our times... Loving temperament, melancholy, sad and also passionate, bitterness and tragedian" .... and Pasquale Scialò: ..."Of Giacomo represents the intellectual class that looks for in the vernacular a different expressive virginity from that of the forms stantii of the academicians. Not by chance in fact the Academy of the - filopadriti - it attaches him/it for his/her innovations inside the Neapolitan dialect. The poet in the verses for the song often unsheathes a folksy position and together gathered, of great impact. And' impossible to list the verses of the over 250 mock thin to now verify, musicate in an arc of time that has gone since 1882, with" and ghiammoncenne mè!" on music of Mario Costa, up to 1978 with

" Goodbye song " on music of Jacopo Napoli. Its verses for the music always show an availability to the various tied up sons-in-law to the song: from that lyric to that more popular from the dark dramatic tones, thin to reach that sonority of the ariettes in which he extends to an overcoming of the same form of the song." Vittorio Viviani finally writes: "You production of S. Of Giacomo was tense to subjectively pursue that ideal that purifies and straps through the form the reality with one of tendency toward the endless one and the universal one."