7/17/2015

CurrentTrendsinItalianPopularMusicStudies

CurrentTrendsinItalianPopularMusicStudies
TaleofaresearchcolloquiuminHull

MUSICINTHEWESTERNMEDITERRANEAN

Thoughtsontheopeningdayofthe...
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The Research Networking Colloquium Current Trends in Italian Popular Music Studies,
organised by Rachel Haworth, was held in at the WISE Institute, University of Hull, on 1819
March2015.LetmeclarifyonefundamentalthingbeforeIstart:theColloquiumwasabsolutely
great,fullofinterestingpapersandverywellorganised.Ineededtomakethisclearinadvance,
becauseIwouldliketoopenwithanegativecomment,whichisnotreallydirectedattheevent
itself, but rather at a general tendency that is diffused in academia and that, in this particular
occasion,madeusreacharatherparadoxicalsituation.
A few months ago, I wrote about an event in Valencia where delegates interacted in various
languages, often within the same conversation, making it hard to single out a dominant
conferencelanguage.Nowthen,theItalianPopularMusicColloquiuminHullwastheopposite:
thefirstdaywasentirelydominatedbytheEnglishlanguageexceptforasinglepresentation
plusQ&AandanotherQ&Asession,bothofwhichhappenedinItaliandespitethefactthatthe
eventwasdeclaredlybilingualandthatallthedelegateswerefluentItalianspeakers,withavast
majority of native speakers among them. Not that I am blaming the custom of writing and

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disseminatingresearchinEnglish,asthishappenstobethebestwayforscholarstomaximise
the impact of their work. Similarly, once one has written a paper in English, it is quite
understandablethattheywillwanttopresentitinthesamelanguage.Butwhydidwethenfeel
obligedtoaskquestionsandanswertheminEnglish?Evenwhenmostofthematerialsreferred
to in the papers and a good portion of the terminology were in Italian (or in Italys regional
languages)?AndevenwhenwefoundperfectlynormaltocontinuethevariousdebatesinItalian
duringcoffeebreaks?WhycouldwenotstartthedebatesinItalianstraightaway,inthevery
conferenceroom?
I am tempted here to blame the imperialism of the English language and deplore our silent
agreement to conform to its use, as a social protocol necessary to underscore the official
academic status of the event and instrumental to relegate Italian to the more informal and
carnivalisticsettingofthecoffeebreaks.ThisBakhtinianordervs.carnivalreadingiscertainly
apossibleone,butIbelievethereismoretoourbehaviour,andwillclarifythislateron.
TheColloquiumopenedwithasessionentirelydedicatedtoFabrizioDeAndr.Thefirstpaper,
byRiccardoOrlandi,proposedananalysisofDeAndrsalbumIndianocentredonthepolitical
useofSardinianidentityasameanstoreconfigureimpegno within Italian politically committed
art.DanieleBuenzafollowedwithaquitebraveandconvincingcontributionontheconstruction
ofDeAndrsroleascantautoreimpegnatoasabyproductoflatecapitalisteconomiclogic,in
line with Frederic Jamesons critique of postmodernism. Vera Vecchiarelli followed with her
researchonDeAndrshandwrittennotesonhiscollectionofpoetrybooksasevidenceofhis
compositionalprocess.
In his keynote address, Franco Fabbri illustrated the numerous problems encountered by
Popular Music Studies in Italian academia, mainly connected to the structure of the national
university system, that functions in a way to exclude several internationally recognised
academic disciplines from the official selection of subject areas that count: in a nutshell, this
means that scholars with a main interest in Popular Music Studies (or, similarly, in Cultural
StudiesorevenSemiotics),thatmighthaveanoutstandingresearchprofilewithpublicationsin
topjournalsandsoforth,havenohopeofevergettinganacademicjobinItaly.Thisisnotonlya
massiveproblemforthemyriadsoftalentedItalianacademicswhohavetomigratetofindan
academic job: it is a tragedy for all the students who are given the message that what is
commonlyunderstoodasPopularMusicisunworthyofattentioninthehallsofuniversities,in
linewitharigidhierarchicalorganisationofknowledge.Twootherprominentscholarswhowere
attheconference,PhilipTaggandGoffredoPlastino,startedapetitionafewyearsagourging
theItalianMinistryofEducationtoreviewthesystem:apartfrombeingrepeatedlyignoredbythe
Ministry,thepetition(subscribed,atthemoment,by552signatoriesfrom45differentcountries)
also encountered the hostility of some Italian academics, described by Tagg as the
musicologicalandethnomusicologicalgatekeepersofpowerinsidetheItalianuniversitysystem
(Tagg, 2015). Not only, then, they got indifference, but also hostility, from pieces of a highly
hierarchizedstate,animpassivecolossusthatconductsitsownmonologueonknowledge.Far
from trying to commend British academia with its enormous problems, many of us at the
Colloquium could not refrain from noting that, compared to the Italian system, the British one
seemsalmostacceptable.
AProfessorattheUniversityofTurinandfoundingmemberofIASPM(InternationalAssociation
for the Study of Popular Music), Franco Fabbri is also known for his rock band Stormy Six,
active especially between the mid1960s and the early 1980s and distinguished for an
uncompromisingleftwingpoliticalmilitancy.StormySixs1972albumLunitisamongthevery
firstexamplesofmusicaldeconstructionofthemythofItalianUnification:Fabbrispresenceat
theColloquiumwasparticularlysignificantforme,asmycontributionfocussedexactlyonsongs
proposing a revisionism of the Unification. The song Pontelandolfo about the massacre
committed on 14 August 1861 by the Italian army against the unarmed population of
Pontelandolfo, has become a classic and has been rediscovered in the last few years in the
context of the new revisionist ferments that have accompanied the celebrations for the 150th
Anniversary of the Italian Unification. Fabbri told me that some time ago the people of a
PontelandolfeseexpatcommunityinCanadacontactedhimtoexpresstheirthankfulness:they
gathereveryyeartocommemoratethe1861massacre,andontheseoccasionsachildrenchoir
sings Pontelandolfo for many years, before finding out that the song had been written by
Fabbri, they had been thinking it was a 19th century traditional song. This is exactly what
happenedwithanotherclassicofrevisionistmusic,MusicanovasBrigantesemore,written by
Eugenio Bennato and Carlo DAngi in 1979 and for many years passed on as a traditional
song,notwithoutoccasionalmodificationstoaccommodatethecontentideologically(Bennato,
2010).Now,thisoblivionoftheauthor,togetherwiththespontaneousappropriationofthesongs
by the public, contribute to make both Brigante se more and Pontelandolfo legendary songs,

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capable of reconstructing, dignifying and reuniting the histories and aspirations of entire
communities. Many other Stormy Six songs can be described in similar terms, and certainly
Stalingrado (about the Battle of Stalingrad in 19421943) is among these in a 2005
cover/rewritingofthiswork,99PossesleadsingeroZulstatesthatWedontneednewantifa
songs(thisisalsothetitleofthecover),asiftosaythatStalingradoistheultimateantifascist
song,tothepointthatthereisnoneedfornewones.
Comingbacktothestatemonologue,thealbumLunitwascensoredbytheRAI(ItalianPublic
Broadcasting Organisation), but also criticised over its content, along with Stalingrado, by the
Movimento Studentesco, a youth leftwing extraparliament political movement active in the
1960sand1970s(Fabbri,2004).Thenationstatepontificatesonknowledgeandhistorythrough
itsestablishedprofessors,throughthestatetelevision,oreventhroughradicalextraparliament
movements. As Joseph Pugliese puts it, this monologue is symbolically embodied by the
statesimpositionofahegemonicmonolingualism(2008:10),withapure and artificial Italian
language imposed as national language. To some extent, then, it is possible to reinterpret our
preferenceforEnglishduringtheconferenceasacollective(ifsubconscious)disavowalofthis
nationalItalianmonologuebyavoidingcommunicationinItalianasmuchaspossiblewewere
excludingItalianofficialknowledge,withitsdistortionsandomissions,fromthedialogue.Atthe
sametime,wewereusingEnglish(steeringclearofitsimperialisticlegacy)asaneutralterritory
wheretoreconstructanddignifyanareaofscholarlyinvestigationthat,asseenabove,doesnot
havearecognisedplaceinItalianacademia.
TheafternoonsessionhostedGuglielmoPerfettiscomparisonbetweenGianniMilanosliterary
work and Cantacronaches songs between the late 1950s and the early 1960s, and a
presentationbyElenaPorcianiontherepresentationsofpopularmusicinthefictionalliterature
between 1955 and 1965. In the last session, Fruela Fernndez presented on the reception of
Franco Battiato in Spain, which shifted from mainstream to indie between the 1980s and the
2000s,andIcontributedwithmyaforementionedworkonthehistoricalrevisionismoftheItalian
UnificationinSouthernItaliansongsbetween2009and2014.RachelHaworthclosedtheday
with a very interesting paper on Minas Caroselli advertisements in 19651970, revealing the
enormous deal of ambivalence constructed by Minas character in the intersection of various
mediaandartforms.
Quitetypically,IcouldnotattendthesecondandlastdayoftheColloquium,andhadtomiss
many other interesting papers and the keynote address on Neapolitan song by Goffredo
Plastino,withwhomIstillmanagedtohaveaveryinterestingdebateonneomelodicamusicand
KalafrossongBriganti.
ManycomplimentstoRachelHaworthfororganisingsuchadenseandstimulatingevent,and
symbolic thanks to Hull for providing a temporary shelter to the exiled Italian Popular Music
Studiescommunity.
MarcelloMessina

References
Bennato,Eugenio.Brigantesemore:ViaggionellamusicadelSud.Rome,Coniglio,2010.
DeAndr,Fabrizio.UntitledAlbum(knownasIndiano).DischiRicordi,1981.
Fabbri,Franco."Igruppi raccontano la storia". Storia e problemi contemporanei 18.39 (2005).
<http://www.francofabbri.net/files/Testi_per_Studenti/Gruppi_raccontano.pdf>.
Kalafro."Briganti."Briganti.Honiro,2009.
Messina,Marcello."MusicintheWestern Mediterranean: Thoughts on the opening day of the
first

AVAMUS

congress",

Sneris.

Revista

de

musicologa

2014.

<http://sineris.es/avamus_music_western_mediterranean.html>.
Musicanova. "Brigante se more". Brigante se more. By Eugenio Bennato and Carlo D'Angi.
PhilipsRecords,1980.
'oZul."Wedon'tneednewantifasongs".'oZulintheAlMukawamaexperiment3.Bycover
ofStormySix's"Stalingrado".Novenove,2005.
Pugliese,Joseph."WhitenessandtheblackeningofItaly:Laguerracafona,extracommunitari
and provisional street justice." PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 5.2

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(2008).
StormySix."Pontelandolfo".L'unit.ByPaoloFabbriandFrancoFabbri.First,1972.
Stormy Six. "Stalingrado". Un biglietto del tram. By Umberto Fiori and Tommaso Leddi.
L'Orchestra,1975.
Tagg,Philip.Negativereactions from some music academics inside the Italian system. 2014.
<http://tagg.org/xpdfs/NegativeReactions1.pdf>.
.

Popular

Music

Studies

in

Italian

Universities

petition.

2015.

<http://tagg.org/html/Petition1405.html>.

Imagentomadadewww.antiwarsongs.org<.

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