When I was eight years old, my mother and father gave me the gift of a chord organ, a single keyboard with a left hand portion which played chords at the push of a single key. To say I loved it was an understatement. With the organ came a paperback book of sheet music, which included some songs I already knew even at the tender age of eight. But many of the songs were just lines and circles on the page to me back then. I taught myself to play them all in short order, but one song I particularly loved was “Come Back to Sorrento.” I’m pretty sure that I had no clear idea where Sorrento was, but I did know that every time my father’s best friend visited the house, he’d ask me to play the song, and he’d wipe a little tear from his eye as I played.
My dad’s friend, Vincent Viglione, was a first-generation Italian-American whose own father had immigrated to New York City as a young man and had married a nice Italian girl. The Italian immigrants of the early part of the 20th century brought with them a love of music, and their ranks produced the likes of great American crooners whose names were household words by mid-century: Perry Como, Mario Lanza, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Al Martino, Louis Prima, Vic Damone, Buddy Greco — too many to list them all here. Today’s song is in the tradition of the Neapolitan song, with lyrics composed in Neapolitan, the dialect spoken in Naples and in much of southern Italy before the unification. Neapolitan songs were typically written for male solo singers, and the lyrics were composed as love songs or serenades or — as in the case of this week’s song — nostalgic longing for someplace near Naples.
I recall learning and loving one of these Neapolitan songs, “Santa Lucia,” in my grade school choir. But other such songs were “in the air,” particularly “O Sole Mio,” “"Funiculì, Funiculà," and the ever-popular “O Marie” (which as a child I heard as “OY Marie” — a childlike mistake particular to my part of the American melting pot). I grew up hearing “O Marie” sung by pretty much every one of the crooners I listed above. Everyone loved, and everyone with a heart, I’d venture to say, still can’t help but love these fine old Neapolitan songs.
Today I chose not to give you our song done by one of our great American crooners, not even “the Voice,” Mr. Sinatra, who recorded it twice. Instead I chose for you the incomparable Luciano Pavarotti, who loved all kinds of music and recorded three albums of Italian folk songs. Pavarotti was for our time like The Great Caruso was for his — bringing together operatic and popular music in a way that enriches us all. I can’t listen to this song without longing to return to Sorrento myself!
Recorded at the Royal Albert Hall, 1982.
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I, too, had one of those chord organs. From there I moved on to a parlor organ and then to the pipe organ. Not only did we learn music in grade school, but we had a music teacher and a music room. There were also pianos in almost every classroom and instruction in various instruments was available to all who wished to avail themselves.
My grandfather emigrated from the hill town of Capestrano—known not for the return of swallows but for the great Franciscan Saint Giovanni da Capestrano—and he played the guitar and mandolin. One aunt was an opera singer in Boston. Others played the concertina among other instruments. My mother recalls them all getting together on a Sunday afternoon and playing and singing the Neapolitan songs they learned in childhood. Unfortunately the songs and the language were not passed on due to the strong push for Americanization in the war years and fear of recriminations.
Sorry for rambling so. Your posts always stir up memories.
My fifth grade teacher, Mr. Waltzer, included classical music in his curriculum. It was 1967. My memory is that it was all instrumental. We’d come in from afternoon recess (usually exhausted and perspiring from running around the playground) and then chill out by sitting at our desks. He allowed us to lay our heads down on the desk as we listened to classics such as Ferdi Grofe’s Grand Canyon Suite and Slavonian Dance by Dvorak. We were required to listen and learn the title of each piece, then take a quiz every Friday. In retrospect, it was a great way to spend the last 30 minutes of each school day that year.