Musiques-Images-Instruments
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Book Series
Music and Visual Cultures, vol. 7
- Pages: 204 p.
- Size:216 x 280 mm
- Illustrations:37 b/w, 85 col.
- Language(s):English
- Publication Year:2025
- € 95,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-58842-1
- Paperback
- Forthcoming (Nov/25)
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The rediscovery of a unique, powerful and today almost unknown European music scene through the rare and never-before-seen photographs of its performers.
Subject(s)
BIO
Goffredo Plastino is Reader in Musicology at Newcastle University (UK). Editor of book and recording series, he has published on ethnomusicology, jazz, folk revival, organology, popular music and photography. Among his volumes: Made in Italy: Studies in Popular Music (with Franco Fabbri, 2013), Jazz Worlds / World Jazz (with Philip V. Bohlman, 2016), La musica folk. Storie, protagonisti e documenti del revival in Italia (2016), Rumore rosso. Patti Smith in Italia: rock e politica negli anni settanta (2023).
Summary
Since the 1880s, Neapolitan Song entered a new phase of popularity that further amplified its impact. Neapolitan songs were eagerly listened to, played and recorded worldwide, by following what many thought was then an irresistible musical ‘fashion’. In Performing Naples Goffredo Plastino explores for the first time the visual evidence of this global phenomenon: the photographs depicting itinerant musicians published in Europe as picture postcards. Self-produced by the bands for their promotion, printed by the venues or distributed during large-scale events, the photographs testified to the thriving vitality of a substantial music market. These fragile and rare ephemera embodied a figurative tradition shared between the singers, the players and their audiences, related to a well-established European ideal representation of the Neapolitans dating back to the 18th century. Unknown and startling, the images collected in this unique volume reveal to our gaze a performance culture long gone and all but forgotten, attesting to the essential role of photography in music iconography.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Part I. Seeing Neapolitan Sounds
A Mandolinetto
Small Travelling Orchestras
Picturing Neapolitans
Jeunes Filles au Tambourin
Seamen and Improvisers
Ballo di Napoli
Accordions, Harps and Harp Guitars
Programmes
Part II. Bands, Compagnie, Troupes & Other Ensembles
Early Photographs
The Compagnia Bella Italia
The Ensemble Addio Napoli
The Della Rosa and Volcano Bands
The Masaniello Ensembles
To the Clients’ Wishes
Everyone was Neapolitan
A Close Affinity
Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
