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AVVENNE A NAPOLI passione per voce e piano SPECIAL EDITION

The release contains: the double vinyl and the CD with 20 of the most evocative songs of the repertoire; the book “Storie del Canzoniere Napoletano” by Federico Vacalebre; the music scores of the songs performed and elaborated by Eduardo De Crescenzo singing and accordion and Julian Oliver Mazzariello piano; the preface in Italian and English by Federico Vacalebre.

On December 12 at 6:00 p.m. Eduardo De Crescenzo and Julian Oliver Mazzariello present Avvenne a Napoli at an emblematic place for the repertoire: the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella. The presentation will be followed by a concert by the artists. Introduced by Federico Vacalebre. The project published in CD version in May 2022 together with Federico Vacalebre’s book, “Storie del Canzoniere Napoletano “, is now enriched with the double vinyl version and the music scores with the elaborations of Eduardo singing and accordion and Julian piano and reveals with greater clarity the informative and didactic character of the entire project. “La Canzone”, freed from oleographs and stereotypes, from lying stories, is a precious heritage to be brought back to concert halls, to the great classical music festivals, to be proposed to UNESCO as an intangible heritage of humanity. Like flamenco, lied… it is the expression of a magical time, of a very noble Naples that knew how to make art the center of the heart and was sung by the whole world.

The imaginary journey begins around 1800, with Julian’s parachopin-like introduction to “Fenesta vascia” sublimated by a breathtaking interpretation by Eduardo who in a flash frees the song from the crusts of time, from the thousand often senseless remakes that still afflict the repertoire. Together they cross more than a century of music, following the imagined sounds of the time. We are in 1950, it will still be a worldwide Neapolitan success, but the music is already in a beguine style contaminated by African-American sounds. It is so contaminated that Eduardo and Julian interpret it, take advantage of it to re-enter the shoes of the blues man and the jazz musician, in the music to which they themselves belong and mark the end of the journey.

In between, the golden age of singing Naples, the song of art and people, of musicians and poets, master composers and anonymous “whistlers”.

THE ALBUM “AVVENNE A NAPOLI passione per voce e piano”, on CD and DOUBLE VINYL: the iconic voice of Eduardo De Crescenzo and the eurocentric piano of Julian Oliver Mazzariello, interpret twenty great Neapolitan classics. They retrace the prestigious “Canzoniere” from its beginnings, around 1800, until 1950 when, with the landing of the American allies, jazz arrived in Italy and music changed forever. A magical and talented artistic work but also of historical and musical research. He is looking for “the lost sound”, Eduardo, the sound that the Neapolitan Song must have had in its time, before it was overwhelmed by a thousand senseless remakes, by a thousand cultural misunderstandings.

In the BOOK “Storie del Canzoniere Napoletano”, Federico Vacalebre recounts the musical, cultural, but also historical, political and social moods that determined the glory and fall of an artistic phenomenon that still identifies, together with the Opera, Italian music in the world. The book opens with an evocative essay by Eduardo De Crescenzo that describes the genesis and motivations of the project.

The MUSIC SCORES of the twenty songs performed and elaborated by Eduardo De Crescenzo singing and accordion and Julian Oliver Mazzariello piano with a preface in italian and english by Federico Vacalebre, to underline the internationality of the Italian repertoire, together with the Opera, the most famous in the world.

THE PROJECT

It is my homage to the Masters who taught me the Art of Feelings: because emotions have a precise sound, they have precise words but to recognize them, you must learn them.

I was born in Naples in 1951. For those of my generation it was like drinking from a magical spring. That extraordinary period between the 19th century and the 1900s or thereabouts – which had gathered the knowledge of so many poets and musicians on a genre that we define as “Classical Neapolitan Songs” – was already at dusk but strong and alive were the emotions that it had left imprinted in the hearts of men. Those songs had been in the youth of our parents, had educated and inflamed their loves, had comforted their adolescence torn by the war. Our mothers sang them as they rocked us or to comfort us after a desperate cry. For me, it was like living immersed in an open-air theater where I could read the roots of my life at any moment of the day. When at the age of only three I had a toy accordion in my hands, it was natural to play by ear the only repertoire I knew, and I certainly was not aware that I was attending a school of life that would influence my whole future. Then the music around began to change with the war came the Americans with jazz and rock which in Naples became Renato Carosone; at home, Uncle Vincenzo, my father’s brother, writes the verses of “Luna rossa” but Vian’r music is already an African- American inspired beguine. I too have walked in the contaminated sounds of my time but “that invisible guide” has always been at my side, like a loving and wise teacher who is now part of your thinking.

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THE CONCERT

Eduardo De Crescenzo vocie and accordion
Julian Oliver Mazzariello
piano

Introduces at heed
Federico Vacalebre

“AVVENNE A NAPOLI passion for voce and piano” is a concert suspended between the best Italian tradition and innovation. Eduardo De Crescenzo, already an icon of elegance, already an expression of modern classicism, interprets for the first time LA CANZONE CLASSICA NAPOLETANA (The classic Neapolitan song) of the period widely indicated between 1800 and 1950. Fenesta vascia, Era de Maggio, Luna nova, ‘A vucchella, I’ te vurria vasa’, Uocchie c’arraggiunate, Voce ‘e notte, Passione, Serenata napulitana, Silenzio cantatore, Maria Mari’… they are pearls of the repertoire that formed him, albeit in the evolution of his musical personality, of that “unique” style that makes him a recognizable artist, a recognizable Neapolitan.
A concert to tell the new generations a miracle HAPPENED IN NAPLES (AVVENNE A NAPOLI), when valuable musicians and great poets intertwined their talents and the singing became “Art”. They created a repertoire, son of the opera – but also its modern evolution – to invent the “song form” as we still practice it today. It is also in this repertoire that the figure “of the interpreter” is noted over that of the “singer”: the operatic singing, however virtuous and noble, however technically valuable, is no longer exhaustive, it is necessary that the singer enters the poet’s verses and makes them his to make them relive every time. Inspired by the stylistic dictates of the period, the formation in duo “voice and piano”, typical in the “periodicals”, meetings of the privileged in cultural circles and in patrician houses to listen to the music of art. Only Eduardo’s accordion will be an exception, the instrument that has always inspired his singing. The talented and international piano of Julian Oliver Mazzariello accompanies this magical journey. A precious musical tribute that wants to give us back the authentic spirit of that time in all its unsurpassed modernity, which wants to free some pearls of this repertoire from the crusts of time, from inappropriate contaminations, to restore them to the timelessness of the classics.
Introduces to heed, Federico Vacalebre, journalist, music critic, film and theater author, Neapolitan. A wise guide in the musical, cultural, but also historical, political and social moods that determined the glory and the fall of an artistic phenomenon that still identifies, together with the Opera, Italian music in the world.

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