Neapolitan song－dingding的部落格

Neapolitan song

It is a generic term for a traditional form of music sung in the Neapolitan language, ordinarily for the male voice singing solo, and expressed in familiar genres such as the lover's complaint or the serenade. It consists of a large body of composed popular music—such songs as O sole mio, Torna a Surriento, Funiculì, Funiculà, Santa Lucia and others.

Many of the Neapolitan songs are world-famous because they were taken abroad by emigrants from Naples and southern Italy roughly between 1880 and 1920. The music was also popularized abroad by performers such as Enrico Caruso, who took to singing the popular music of his native city as encores at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in the early 1900s.

Here is the video of Torna a Surriento (also by De Curtis) sung by Luciano Pavarotti in the Three Tenors concert 1990

TORNA A SURRIENTO (Neapolitan Dialect)

Vide ’o mare quant’è bello.
Spira tanta sentimento
Comme tu, a chi tiene mente
Ca, scetato, ’o faje sunnà.

Guarda, guá’ chisti ciardine.
Siente sié’ sti sciure ’arancio
Un prufumo accussí fino.
Dint’ ’o core se ne na.

Refrain : E tu dice, « Io parto, addio ! »
T’alluntane da stu core.
Da la terra de ’ll ammore
Tiene ’o core en un turná?
Ma nun me lassá.
Nun darme stu turmiento.
Torna a Surriento.
Famme campá!

Vide ’o mare di Surriento,
Che tesore tene ’nfunno,
Chi a girato tutt’ ’o munno.
Nun ll’ha visto comm’a ccá!

Guarda, attuorno, sti Ssirene,
Ca te guardano ’ncantate,
E te vono tantu bene
Te vulessero vasá!

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Come back to Sorrento: Aveling/de Curtis

Hear the music of the waters,
bars of tender passion sighing
like thy heart to which go flying,
all my thoughts in wakeful dream.

See the lovely dewey garden,
breathing orange perfumed greetings;
Nought can set my heart a-beating,
like the frangrance of its bloom.

Now I hear that thou must leave me,
thou and I will soon be parted
Can\'st though leave me broken hearted ?
Will thou never more return?

Now I hear that thou must leave me
thou and I will soon be parted
can\'st thou leave me broken hearted ?
Will thou never more return ?

Then say not \'goodbye\'
Come back again, beloved
Back to Sorrento, or I must die

(Source: www.wikipedia.org; http://www.ondaverde.it/images/sorrento_italien.jpg, http://www.virtualsorrento.com/pictures/panorami/image.html, http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/06mar/article054.html)