Salvatore di Giacomo Under Vesuvius

After a short period, however, agreed to direct the library Lucchesi Palli at the National Library where you can still find the notes made by his writing tiny but very clear. Meanwhile his fame had become great and after the resounding success of "Assunta Spina" in 1908, met in the library Avigliano Elisa, a girl fresh degree lean and relaxed, with whom he fell in love. The poet, despite having reached the age of 46 he decided to marry her. In 1924 Mussolini appointed Senator Di Giacomo together with Ugo Ojetti. The Senate, however, vetoed the appointment, which had been much favored by Benedetto Croce, because he said: "Piedigrotta can not get in the Senate" and Hugh Ojetti he wrote after he refused: "blush at the thought of wealth to come to the Senate where, only because he was poor, could not get a great poet. " Don Salvatore had a little revenge when, in 1929, was nominated Academic of Italy, but could never attend the meetings because did not have a uniform. He had only an old coat that was beginning to become inpresentabile: "It was such a beautiful brown color, but now is becoming Rousseau, Voltaire must do so" ... By James joked. Thus he writes in his preface to Max Vajro collection of poems published by Fausto Digiacomiane Fiorentino: "... By James wrote of Naples all that a poet could, composing the most fascinating and painful portrait of the city: Chronicles of court scenes silent misery, loves, and furious abandon, representations of the bitter life of the stores, lovely eighteenth century reconstructions of scenes, sonnets bright, sometimes mischievous, and emblematic songs became very famous in the world, comedies and dramas, re-enactments have the force of poetry, prose; he narrated the love of fallen women and mothers, "Marian month" to "Assunta Spina" the turpitude of the crime, and the elegance of the classic Neapolitan centuries that resurfaces every time the words of the poem should ask, as if the appearance of a marble city emerged in the singing of the sirens. He composed a sacred book that moves in it who sees people and places, traditions and feelings, but that every player in every language can recognize as universal and eternal voice of poetry. And that it speaks in Naples, is a figure that grows - Neapolitan for us - a value that is already absolute sign of love that we must be grateful to a poet who was a quivering mass of echoes and sensations experienced by us, giving breath a city through his voice. "... Savior, then the eighteenth century would have loved for what it actually was, a period of great cultural and artistic. He loved, in particular, the music of Domenico Cimarosa and he liked to walk in order to dwell in people-watching, nature and things in his city, with the 'eye of someone who really loves what he discovers from time to time and welcomes in his big heart. We are accustomed to regard him with affection and respect, the poet of the poignant feelings that better than anyone else has been able to sing the emotion and tragedy of a noble Naples but also full of endless misery, had, however, a cantankerous character and its own way rebel at the thought that we read about Mary Angarano Moscarelli which he describes in his book of James: "The librarian Salvatore Di Giacomo, little known story of a famous poet," Liguori Editore .... "It was an obsession with all his life, the place fixed salary at the end of the month, but without having the humility necessary to perform all the rigmarole that, inevitably, in every job you have to go before the degree that you feel you deserve. To this was added a character remarkably touchy, scarce tolerance required to live in different social contexts and constantly bending over to peer into their weariness and melancholy. This slowly led to a real disease, neurasthenia one that was fatal. And to think that with the few friends, who remained so for ever, perhaps because they had understood and had accepted it as it was, seemed to be another: spontaneous, often filled with humor, even uninhibited. None of these friends belonged to the library world, which remained for him only the place where you gain the freedom to write, although, in later life and career, from that world were the satisfactions and rewards. "... It 'was pointed out by several parties that Salvatore Di Giacomo while being very attentive to the behavior of the people and the Neapolitan bourgeoisie, always dreamed of a return to the glorious past of the city, as he felt better appreciate it: The painting of the seventeenth century, the music and the theater of the eighteenth century, the century when Naples was prepared to become a great European capital, along with Paris, Vienna, London, to the beautiful but tragic outbreak of the Neapolitan Republic. He became a student of "old things" intelligently using his work as a librarian at the Conservatory of S. Pietro a Majella, the National and Lucchesi Palli. Don Salvatore is devoted to research on the San Carlino on Conservatives and prostitution, but more generally described the slow end of a Kingdom by giving to his writings, the message of beauty and nostalgia of a great civilization in decline. The presence of Di Giacomo in the "belle époque" Naples has something original, it was contemptuously aloof from literary fashion that, at that time, raged: The classicism of professorial Carducci, Pascoli and the pathetic decadent Corazzini, the imaginative baroque D'Annunzio ... (who was at home in Naples) ...

Ghirelli writes: "I bow on the white sheet as a master craftsman Don Salvatore is isolated from the noise of Official and lounges, devoting himself instead to bring to perfection a very personal tool that is unlike any other, the vernacular, is mediated by the popular reality but filtered through highly sophisticated experiences, ranging from the Greek lyric poets Sappho's era, the era of Paisiello opera buffa, through the narrative of Cortese and Basile. The merger between the structure realizes that he learned of his dialect and the spoken tradition draws lines in the perfection of new Songs and Arlette, where speech is free "air in a Musical" and is "prepared to live rhythms and meters in a trepidantissima aura of suggestions."

We quote Albert Council: "Salvatore Di Giacomo has been studied by the greatest minds of the last three quarters of a century. On his poetry is based on an analysis of the major Italian critics: from Croce to Russo, De Robertis in Borgese, by Vinciguerra in Flora . Between the first and second decades of the century, it was fashionable to compose thesis on the poetry of Salvatore Di Giacomo. By this subtle lyric, you are also widely employed foreign translators and critics. "

Vajro ... and Max ... "Luigi Russo - that the poet had written a wonderful essay in '21 - intabarrato found him in an old shawl, framed by a scarf populate the beautiful head." The poet said

"Cross knows how I reduced?", And Cross, forgetting the episode of the first seven years (during which there had never met) felt a wave of old affection never died, and had to ask his wife if Elisa could go by his dying. He tells himself: "I found that it was given to read, to pass the time, all sorts of novels, the most childish, and had given up writing. Him and talked of old times: I made no allusion to political affairs. The conversation took place as if it continued as usual between us. I gave him good cheer, I tried to persuade him that it would be restored. When I left him, and we tarried a while with his wife while we were going out the door of his reappeared room, standing, smiling, as in surprise and that there was evidence that he had given himself his not entirely spent force, even at the door and greeted us. "

Salvatore di Giacomo died April 4, 1934 at his home on S. Pasquale where he went to live two years before: and where in 1984 a plaque was affixed. His wife will survive for three decades, in recent years between the fading memories: a loyal friend found her food imboccava a portrait of a gentleman of the eighteenth century on the sofa hung, confused mind in remembering the love of his Savior for those figures with wig making him a free cross-tenderness. And when this became known, no one mocked the pathetic old lady that took care of that unknown, that she vaguely reported the words of his companion, during the hours at the table under the lamp, including the beloved books and the echoes of Cimarosa ...

It 's been noted that in all production

Di Giacomo the word: NAPOLI

occurs only three times: as if to silence the name of his favorite mistress for deep devotion and infinite respect ... and maybe this should be considered his "legacy" ... love, infinite love for his city and for people who like him, have made possible the greatness.

Salvatore di Giacomo and the song

In 1882 the Neapolitan song meets the man who will give her the strength needed to become a true art form. The high sensitivity and culture are endless work table of the great craftsman of poetry, he skillfully blends the folk tradition and new trends in lexical dialect which made a new form, evolved artistically, does not write the verse to finalizing any music for it there is already an integral and inseparable. The musical composition created by the poetry of Di Giacomo in a spontaneous, happy, of course, but this birth behind a thin line with the sensitivity and also the "occupation" of the composer: main theme of the cantabile, the witty, and at the same time, simple harmonic structure, the thickness of lyric verse, and what today is called "catchiness", provide the basis for the production of songs that once listened to remain imprisoned in the deep emotional and emerge to snatch a moment of emotion being too easily linked with a particular moments in everyone's life. The intensity, richness and evocative exhibition of Giacomo Di Pasquale Mario Costa found in the perfect 'translator into music. " Costa set to music, with commitment and love, as many as 22 poems of our poet, and none of them ever suffered from any difference in quality, being very close friends, the two have got to know each other deeply, and certainly without calculation, transposing the Their affection, friendship and mutual respect in the production of masterpieces that are now in the history of music and not just in Naples. Among the other musicians who have "dressed" by the sounds of James's work, to be reliably remember: De Leva, Di Capua, Gambardella, EAMario, Nardella, Nutile, Tosti and Valens ... to quote the most .... Artists and composers of great professionalism and sensitivity.

The main topic of poetry by Di Giacomo is love, that for the woman, the mother, the universal, the functional interpersonal relationships, but also the misery, the art of getting by typical of Naples, the issues connected Justice applied to the poorer classes, portraits of colorful characters and history and history itself, are dealt with by our skill and absolute mastery, competence and deep passion. He used to say that dealt with "old things" the artist who could paint with words and never allowed to say - poetry - speaking of himself or of his works.

I like to quote from: "History of the Neapolitan song from 1400 to 1900" by Sebastian Massa, Fausto Fiorentino Napoli Publisher 1961: "The rebirth of Neapolitan song, after 1860, would never come true so if a vigorous and original poet had not channeled and amalgamated with its exceptional sensitivity, the traditional elements of song and spirit of the people of his time, whose life he participated intensely. The song unmatched by Salvatore di Giacomo was to provoke the awakening of other energies, in field in the musical and poetic that combined to give luster to our art form throughout. Gradually the James acquires new elements to his singing, and he abandoned his plans in the recent tradition which had forced mortificandolo, folksy singing. One is the cultural element, through which the new song is reconnected to traditional folk songs of Naples and Campania and also from other regions. The other element is the participation of the poet in the life of the people of his city, life is particularly characteristic of those years. These elements of cultural and outdoor are the spark that enlivens and gives them new spirit and shape to the song, the sensitivity of Salvatore di Giacomo. "

By Salvatore di Giacomo writes Vincenzo Valente, the song was "a miracle of compatibility between urgency and purification of singing from the dross of easy versification." Poet, historian, writer, scholar, journalist, librarian, created a production lines for music with a breath of great artistic value. He lives in numerous awards, his work was translated into several languages. Realistic, lyrical, realistic, subjective, courtly, has little importance for us. His production is often linked to the song moves from one color to another without special discriminatory but one of his unmistakable style aristocrat. The Cross considers him: ... "One of the few outspoken poets of our time ... loving temperament, melancholy, sad and even passionate, bitter and tragic" .... and Pasquale Scialò: ... "Di Giacomo is the intellectual class that seeks a virginity in the vernacular different from that of the expressive forms of academic stale. no coincidence that the 'Academy - filopadriti - attacking him for his innovations in the Neapolitan dialect. The poet's verses for the song draws a charge often with folk and classical, of great impact. It 'impossible to list the verses of the more than 250 songs so far ascertained, set to music over a period extending from 1882, "and ghiammoncenne me!" with music by Mario Costa, with up to 1978

"Farewell Song" with music by Jacopo Napoli. His lyrics for the music always show a willingness to various kinds related to song: from the lyrical to the most popular by dark dramatic tones, until you get to the sound of arias in which he tends to overcome the very form of the song " . Finally Vittorio Viviani writes: "The production of S. James was anxious to pursue that ideal which purifies and corrects subjectively by the form of a real trend towards the infinite and universal. "