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Post by marchesarosa on Jan 30, 2011 21:27:38 GMT 1
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 30, 2011 21:45:13 GMT 1
Ungrateful bitch! You seek new conquests with your bitter-sweet songs and leave me here abandoned and heartbroken!
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Post by carnyx on Jan 30, 2011 22:28:12 GMT 1
MR!
How are your Italian studies going?
(BTW there is a new edition out ..)
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Post by marchesarosa on Jan 30, 2011 22:58:14 GMT 1
I have ceased my study of Italian, sim, I packed it in quite a few years ago. Seven years of evening classes inevitably got a bit samey! But I got my A-level!
I have not foresaken YOU, nay, dear heart!
I was just going through my bookmarked web pages when I came across Core 'ngrato again. Such a heart-rending melody and words. Twas, you, dear heart, who first brought it to my attention as a Neapolitan love song. And I now spread it around my pals as a special treat. Jim, is absolutely besotted with it. Thinks its the most lovely thing he has ever heard. This particular singer, Roberto Murolo has (had) a fantastic voice. He delivers this melody without any of the straining and melodrama you get with the famous tenors. He makes it seem effortless - just like talking, in fact.
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 31, 2011 10:26:05 GMT 1
Yes MR a beautiful rendition sung in exactly the right Neapolitan manner I have probably told you this little tale before. We were in a lovely llittle reataurant jusy off the Campo di Fiori in Rome - the curved back wall of the restaurant is in fact a wall of Pompey's Theatre in Rome where Caesar was stabbed to death (in the days I am talking of -25 year ago the Campo di Fiori was a charming place with lots of characer - now it is filled with steel-backed chairs served by with-it Phillipino waiters from blue-lit grottoes and is quite ghastly -Bruno must turn in his grave). Well there was this thin shabby-gentile person walking around the restaurant asking if he could sing for the couples there. Most simply turned him away but he did sing for one table and it was quite a tuneless affair He came to iour table and there was something about him - he was wearing a shirt and tie - frayed and only slightly grubby - his suit had seen much better days, his shoes clean but well worn. He seemed quite lost as if abandonedby life -prhaps a case of there but for...... So I asked him to sing Caterine, which he did . His voice was not good, but the overall effect of this poor man singing that beautiful song in a plaintive, lost voice was quite emotionally overpowerng. Others felt it too because he received scattered applause.
Naturally I didn't tip him because I do not believe in encouraging the indigent to be out of work
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Post by marchesarosa on Jan 31, 2011 11:02:04 GMT 1
Thanks for the reminder.
One thing I learned from studying Italian is that the Meridione is another world entirely from the North with an entirely different history which could not be stitched together by Unification. The rationale ultimately, apparently, was cash - the Treasury of Il Regno delle Due Sicilie was overflowing whereas the Northern Kingdom was bankrupt.
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