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ITALIANS AT WAR: AN HISTORY BY MUSIC
The military history of Italy from the music of its armed forces, soldiers, volunteers, and whoever believed or believes in the concept of Country. But sang, as well, from the voices of those who felt abandoned from Country when in front of the supreme sacrifice of war, or of those who, born on Italian ground, fought, willing or conscripted, under other flags.
This torrent encloses some 1300 mp3 pieces with a military or patriotic theme, from any recent times.
The thematic line chosen keeps this archive apart from habitual similar ones, making it an unpublished unicum. Its originality is not yet limited to this. In fact pieces number and, overall, the accuracy and care with which every single one was elaborated, makes this archives the largest, most complete and painstaking collection of its kind available on the web, not just regarding Italy, but in absolute.
The archive is subdivided, in a tree of folders, into Sections and Sub-sections. Sections represent large homogeneous arguments overall under the archivistical point of view, while Sub-sections are made of musical pieces regrouped under a historical and political homogeneous argument, organized such as both theme and listening fully work together.
SECTIONS
1 - NATIONAL ANTHEMS (from pre-unitary nations till today);
2 - UNIFICATION (Italian unification, from ‘800 until the end of the Great War);
3 - FASCISM (it encloses wars of the ‘30s and stops in 1939);
4 - WWII (2nd World War);
5 - PRESENT (Armed Forces music, specific of units and/or still in use);
6 - VARIOUS (Armed Forces music for a more generic and/or occasional use);
7 - ARCHIVE OF DOUBLES.
SUB-SECTIONS
1 - NATIONAL ANTHEMS.
This is the only one Section having no Sub-sections. It’s quite small and encloses only versions of Marcia Reale (royal march), of the current National Anthem and of older and pre-unitary national anthems, plus a few strongly institutional pieces.
2 – UNIFICATION.
This is dedicated to Italian unification in a chronological order:
2.1 - NAPOLEONIC (from late ‘700 to 1815; still very small, unfortunately);
2.2 - RISORGIMENTO (circa from 1816 to 1870; hymns, songs and marches from all over and all flags of the Peninsula, in an exalted contradictory);
2.3 - COLONIAL WARS (Italian colonial wars from 1884 to 1912);
2.4 - WWI (songs, hymns and marches of the Great War);
2.5 - WWI ALTERNATIVE (songs against Great War).
3 – FASCISM.
This Section covers fascist period until the start of WWII:
3.1 - PEACE TIME (political, popular and military regime songs, from 1922 to 1939);
3.2 - ETHIOPIA (songs, marches and pop songs from the war 1935-1936);
3.3 - SPAIN (songs, marches and pop songs from the war 1937-1938).
4 – WWII.
This covers 2nd World War and late fascist period:
4.1 - 1940-43 (songs, hymns and marches of early war);
4.2 - RSI (songs and marches of Repubblica Sociale Italiana, 1943-1945);
4.3 - PARTISANS (partisan songs from 1943 to 1945);
4.4 - 1940-43 ALTERNATIVE (songs against war).
5 – PRESENT.
Strictly military marches, hymns and songs of our armed Forces:
5.1 - ALL SPECIALTIES (a celebration of Italian Armed Forces: Corps and Specialties altogether);
5.2 - POLICE FORCES (marches and songs of Carabinieri and other police forces);
5.3 - NAVY (marches of Marina Militare);
5.4 - CAVALRY (marches of cavalry, some are old and no longer in use);
5.5 - ARTILLERY
5.6 - INFANTRY (it encloses Granatieri di Sardegna, but not Alpini, Bersaglieri and Paratroopers);
5.7 - PARATROOPERS;
5.8 - ALPINI (=mountain troops; a cappella choirs overall);
5.9 - BERSAGLIERI (fanfares overall).
6 – VARIOUS.
This encloses marches and bugle calls:
6.1 - MILITARY MARCHES (brass marches not related with specific units or specialties);
6.2 - MILITARY SONGS (songs of the second postwar with a military theme);
6.3 - CONCERT MARCHES (brass symphonic marches and the like);
6.4 - BUGLE CALLS (this is furthermore subdivided into: All specialties, Cavalry, and Fire Department).
7 - ARCHIVE OF DOUBLES.
In the research, it happens to meet more version of a same piece. When appropriate, these are split under more Sub-sections. But if these are too many, it would be too bad both to erase surplus ones or to abuse of them; for this reason, surplus doubles are archived here:
7.1 - NATIONAL ANTHEMS DOUBLES;
7.2 - UNIFICATION DOUBLES;
7.3 - FASCISM DOUBLES;
7.4 - PARTISANS DOUBLES;
7.5 - ARMED FORCES DOUBLES;
7.6 - ALPINI DOUBLES;
7.7 - BERSAGLIERI DOUBLES;
7.8 - VARIOUS DOUBLES.
The archive is consolidated: what’s proposed here for the first time on TNT is, in effects, its fifth edition . Precedent ones are in part still available (1st and 4th) on the web under the name of MILITARY MUSIC IN ITALY - RISORGIMENTO, WWI, FASCISM, WWII, PRESENT, numbered MK II - MK IV (first edition had not the MK label). Just like in the past, existing archive has been closely fully conserved (really few pieced were erased or substituted) and substantially enlarged. Yet this time a large revision of older files was operated, both on the audio quality and on the general unattached info (texts and authors). A particular care was given into eliminating strong volume differences among pieces, so making listening in series a lot more pleasant. Excessive silences and claps were cutted off, truncated pieces were softened.
DENOMINATION. Pieces have a double denomination: file name, and title. Title is simply the most famous name of that piece; it’s written inside the file and appears only during reproduction.
File name is a lot more rich and encloses many info: a) all known titles of that piece (eg: “Pippo – Pappo – Peppo – ”); b) execution form (brass, orchestral, choir, a cappella, solo, duo, etc.; vocal means solo and choir, brass is generic for wind ensemble); c) nationality, if not Italian nor Piemontese (eg: [Regno delle Due Sicilie]); a numerical distinction, when there are pieces identical for both title and execution somewhere in the archive (eg: “Pippo – brass (1)”, “Pippo – brass (2)”); d) a numerical attribute, when two pieces have identical title but different text and/or melody (eg: “Pippo 1 – choir”, “Pippo 2 – choir”); e) eventual presence of more than one piece in the same file (eg: “Pippo + Poppo – brass”).
PROPERTIES. Each file contains many info; these are accessible by right-clicking upon them and selecting “properties”: authors, executors, text (when applicable), etc. Part of these can be also turned visible, when folder file details are shown, by right-clicking on the high folder bar and selecting the following options: artists, gender, classification, comments, and title. Some are also automatically visible while running.
TEXTS. Maximum care was given to sang–pieces texts, in their correspondence with audio executions, in their completeness and punctuation, to the point that to find better ones, even in books, is unlikely. Texts have been added directly to their files and can be read while running with Realplayer: left-click upon its title (below to the left in the window), then select “text”. Texts can also be read by right-clicking upon the file and selecting “properties”-“details”-“text” (doesn’t work with Vista).
FOLDER OPTIONS. The folder option “classification”, of easy view, gives a brief evaluation for each file, based on the stars number:
* = Insufficient (no such pieces were enclosed, but successive downgrading due to personal taste is possible).
** = Poor: due to audio quality, execution and/or composition quality. However, when there are two or more pieces with the same title (1)-(2)-(3) etc., it is simply the less good in the series.
*** = Average.
**** =Either good, or average but important due to institutional or traditional reasons.
***** = Either excellent, or good but essential due to institutional or traditional reasons.
The option “comments” doubles the above, but with symbols different showing last revision (* = 1st ed., # = 2nd-3rd ed., 4 = 4th ed., 5 = 5th ed.); moreover this option often encloses info about execution (soloist, director, etc.), so it is convenient to have it active.
In the option “artists” ore inserted text author, composer, and year, in this order.
Finally, the option “gender” classifies each file into but one among the following:
- National anthems: pieces that are, or have been for a while, national anthems;
- Folk: pop songs with no references with war, military, politics or patriotism (they have been enclosed as to reconstruct the aura of an historical period);
- Bugle calls;
- Military music: all other pieces .
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