Unknown

Gennarino wrote:

Today, I was talking to Violeta, who wouldn't sit still for a moment and, at one point, I said to her: Do you want to stay still! What, are you dancing the tarantella?

And there it is, the Tarantella! You will say. But where does this damned man want to drag us!

Well, I want to drag you before the taranta!

Yes, because it is from the taranta (dialect name for the tarantula, a poisonous spider) that the Tarantella takes its name: historically, it served as a therapy against tarantism, a disease that leads to convulsions and delirium and which was thought to be caused by the feared spider.

The cure, tarantellare consisted in the obsessive and increasing repetition of the Tarantella rhythm by musicians performing clinical tasks, and in the corresponding dance practiced by those afflicted by the disease.

Even today, the Tarantella is practiced in Puglia as a choreo-musical cure.

In reality, it is believed, the taranta is a symbol of the things that frighten us and the Tarantella is a kind of macabre dance to free ourselves from fears.

The Tarantella then evolved, thanks to fantastic folk elaboration, into a dance with a wild and infernal rhythm punctuated by tambourines or similar instruments, with strongly erotic characteristics, oriented mainly towards courtship, although variants with different motivations are not lacking.

In the folk realm, the tarantella is widespread in the regions of Southern Italy, including Campania, Molise, Calabria, Puglia, and Sicily.

In Campania, a variant of the family is the tammuriata: of the various variants I like very much, also because I come from those parts, the tammuriata of the Amalfi Coast, which is based on a triplet rhythm punctuated by the drum.

The Tarantella has fascinated many composers, who have included it in their works.

Among them, there is even an unexpected one!

Listen first of all to this Tarantella (played live by Aldo Ciccolini on the occasion of his 85th birthday!) and then tell me who the author is!

If you guess, you can read the sheet music! If not, you can simply just cast a languid glance!

GREAT GENNARINO!!! I too have humble Vesuvian roots...

regards

saverio

Dearest Gennarino,... but it is our beloved Chopin!!!!!!!!

It is not an easy piece.

Chopin was a great admirer of Italian opera. When he sent the manuscript to his friend Fontana, he wrote to him that he had not decided which time signature to use, whether 6/8 or 12/8.... he told him ..."anyway, copy it in the same tempo with which Rossini's tarantella was written"

It is a piece that I like very much. Thank you