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Realism: Music Goes Down into the Street (1875–1890)
At the end of the nineteenth century, Italian song left behind the dreams of Romantic idealism and turned its gaze toward truth. Thus musical Realism emerged: a current that combined social observation (Positivism) with inner analysis (Naturalism), transforming melody into a human document capable of narrating the social and psychological reality of post-unification Italy.
Lyric Song and the Search for Truth
Realism manifested itself in opera (preparing the way for Verismo) through the need for more concrete characters and situations. Lyric song (the aria) shed abstract virtuosity in order to become a direct, lucid expression of inner drama.
Alfredo Catalani (La Wally, 1892) was a pioneer of this early Realism. His songs—set, in Wally, among the Tyrolean mountains—focus on elemental passions (love, revenge, jealousy, sacrifice) and use the orchestra as a tool of environmental truth, able to evoke harsh, fatalistic nature. The female protagonist, Wally, is an extraordinary figure who embodies the conflict between individual and environment: a hallmark of psychological Realism.
Antonio Bazzini (teacher of Puccini and Catalani), with the opera Turanda (1867), anticipated Realism. The songs of Turanda embody a concrete social and psychological conflict: they refuse a role imposed by patriarchal society and treat emotions with measure and concreteness, avoiding conventional pathos. This transformation of myth into a human parable is an authentically realist trait.
The Grammar of a New Language
Composers such as Giuseppe Martucci (who chose not to write opera in order to claim the dignity of symphonic writing) and Giovanni Sgambati provided the melodic, harmonic, and timbral grammar for this new song-language. Their melodies—while preserving Italian cantabilità—were bent toward verisimilitude and sober elegance (as in Martucci’s Notturno), anticipating the direct, non-rhetorical writing of Verismo.
What Do We Mean by Song
Throughout this journey, the term “song” is understood in the original sense of our tradition, that of Dante Alighieri, who defines the song as the final union of words and music. The song includes arias, salon romances, and chamber vocal pieces. They are all forms of the same great Italian family of sung poetry, and it is important to remember this in order to avoid modern misunderstandings that separate what historically has always been united.
Realism in Everyday Life and Society
Realism did not remain confined to grand theater: it permeated genres intended for popular and domestic consumption, turning song into social chronicle. The songs known as salon romances stripped themselves of Romantic idealization and took on psychological, almost decadent traits. The lyrics—often tied to the climate of the Milanese Scapigliatura—became more melancholic and ambiguous, exploring the neurosis and sensuality of the late-century bourgeoisie. Their music does not idealize: it simply registers states of mind.
Late-nineteenth-century song comes closer to today’s song in themes and dissemination. Alongside urban songs, it became a powerful vehicle of social Realism, recounting everyday life, betrayed love, and nostalgia in a frank, authentic language (in parallel with literary Verismo).
The Role of the Band
Band music (civilian and military) democratized listening. Performing not only marches but also songs (that is, romances and arranged operatic arias) in public squares, bands transformed cultivated motifs into true urban popular songs, continuing the long-standing habit—reiterated over centuries—of making music an integral part of daily life. In this way, they fixed the nineteenth-century national melodic heritage in collective memory.
In short, Italian musical Realism was a widespread, vital language that carried our song—its emphasis on melody and drama—toward the modernity of the twentieth century.
Why Does Italian Song Begin Here in the Middle Ages?
In this history we do not separate what, in Italian culture, has always been united. For centuries, “song” meant what today we would call a poetic-musical form, regardless of duration. The troubadours, the Sicilian School, Dante, Petrarch, the madrigalists, opera composers—all wrote songs. The fracture between art music and song is a late nineteenth-century idea, and it is not even ours: it comes from the German-speaking world. It reflects other realities. For this reason, narrating the history of the Italian song means following a single thread that runs through seven centuries—from the Stil Novo to Metastasio, from monody to opera, from Monteverdi to Cherubini, from Puccini to our singer-songwriters. It is a continuous path, not a collection of disconnected episodes.
© Collezione Varrone & Romano (Tutti i diritti riservati).
Read the first complete and documented history of the Italian song tradition, with extended analysis and theoretical references.
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