Dear Readers,
A February potpourri of Italian connections for you: Amore (Love) is celebrated commercially on St. Valentine’s Day, February 14th. “Amore” has been aided and abetted for centuries by traveling minstrels, musicians and modern day crooners of love songs via records. Frank Sinatra discs were the apex of amore aiding for decades, but in the 1950s the Four Aces, a Pennsylvania-based quartet (Lou Silvestri, Sal Vaccaro, Al Alberts and Dave Mahoney) recorded the romantic hits “Love is a Many Splendored Thing”, “Three Coins in the Fountain” and “Melody of Love”, which also gave “amore” a boost.
The Four Aces still perform at Star studded venues in Branson Missouri and continue to tour, but the present day quartet (Joe Amato, Fred Diodati, Joe Giglio and Harry Heisler) each replaced an original “Ace” singer, as was needed, between 1958 and 1975.
I heard and saw them on my local PBS television station recently and they look and sound great!
***
Baptized Salvatore Guaragna, the late composer a.k.a. Harry Warren wrote an “abbondanza” of love songs. He won three Academy Awards, had more songs on the radio program “Your Hit Parade” than Irving Berlin, and from 1932 to 1957 wrote the scores for more musical films than almost any other composer. Yet in his younger days there had little opportunity for a Broadway composer with an Italian surname, so Salvatore did what he had to do and “Harry Warren” was it.
“Harry Warren” was the youngest of eleven kids, born of Calabrian parents, baptized Salvatore Guaragna shortly after his birth on Christmas Eve, 1893 and raised in New York. Like the better known Irving Berlin, both were self-taught pianists who began their music careers by plugging songs on Tin Pan Alley. Warren published his first song, “Rose of the Rio Grande,” in 1922.
He spent the rest of the decade working as a successful New York song plugger, building his reputation as his own songs gained in popularity. In Hollywood a new industry was being forged - talking pictures and musicals grew increasingly popular in Depression-scarred America. Many songsmiths, including “Harry Warren”, were recruited from Tin Pan Alley.
Warren’s call came from Darryl E. Zanuck, head of production at Warner Bros. Enticed by a lucrative $1,500 a week contract, Warren abandoned any thoughts of becoming a composer for the theater, and along with lyricist Al Dubin and director/choreographer Busby Berkeley who popularized the “backstage musical”, their hit film, “42nd Street,” saved Warner Bros. from financial ruin.
“Harry Warren” used to refer to himself as “Harry Who?” after years of hearing that response when people were told Warren wrote the music for standards such as “42nd Street,” “Lullaby of Broadway,” “I Only Have Eyes For You,” “The More I See You,” “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “Jeepers Creepers,” “An Affair to Remember,” “You’ll Never Know,” “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby,” “That’s Amore,” “You’re My Everything” and scores of other perennials for four Broadway shows and an astounding 81 motion pictures.
“Harry Warren” died in 1981 at the age of 87. Even after an eight-year run of David Merrick’s stage version of the 1932 landmark musical film “42nd Street” audiences quickly recognized Warren’s music, but not his name. In his last years, “Harry” preferred the company of his old Italian American buddies like Nick Perito, Perry Como’s longtime conductor and arranger, pianist Joe Marino, and composer Gene De Paul, and liked to reminisce about his childhood in Brooklyn Heights. He was proud of his Italian background, and said his family instilled in him his love for Italian opera, especially Puccini.
He also recalled his years of singing in the boy’s choir at a local church. One of his last songs was entitled “I Wanna Go Back to the Big Apple.” The songs of Salvatore Guaragna, a.k.a. “Harry Warren” still generate royalties, and have been recorded by contemporary artists as diverse as Barbara Streisand, Harry Connick Jr., Willie Nelson, George Benson and Art Garfunkel.
Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan’s climatic meeting on top of the Empire State Building in “Sleepless in Seattle” is played out against Warren’s melodic “An Affair to Remember.” His last major hit, “That’s Amore”, written for the Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis film “The Caddy”, was featured prominently in 1987’s “Moonstruck.”
***
Carnevale in Italy is held the last few days before Ash Wednesday (this year on February 6th) which marks the first day of Lent. The word Carnevale (carnival in English) derives from the Latin Carnem levare, which refers to the fasting of meat (carne) that characterized the abstinence of the faithful during the forty days of Lent. Paradoxically, the word carnevale has become synonymous with the overindulgence of food, drink and bodily pleasures.
In the Middle Ages, when class structure was strict and unyielding, Carnevale was a time when all classes came together in the streets, when there were no slaves and no rulers. It was a time snapped shut by the arrival of Lent, when the repentant population retreated from indulgence.
During the Renaissance, the nobles left their palazzi, and the street people entered them for this period, traversing the streets from house to house, all places being then accessible and free to enter. Circa 1646, the Rules of the Mask imposed by the Venetian state stipulated that disguises were to be worn only from St. Stephen’s Day (December 26) through Shrove Tuesday; transgressors could be sentenced to prison. By the 18th century, as Venice slipped into decay, all such rules were rescinded.
Carnevale lasted six months, in order to attract badly needed tourist dollars. For hundreds of years, the Carnevale tradition in Venezia grew and flourished, with increasingly elaborate costumes and lavish festivities. Artistically and musically, the Carnevale Veneziano came to its highest level during the Barocco and Rococo periods, the time of Veronese, Tiepolo and Vivaldi. Not only were costumes and masks used during the Carnevale season, they were also used at other times of the year in every day life.
The use of masks and costumes had a leveling effect on society so that the nobility could easily mix with the lower classes, and so that clandestine transactions of the heart or purse could take place without recrimination. Certain masks were legion. The larva, an eerie white mask worn by both sexes, was made of papier-mâché and was usually worn with a three-cornered hat and a short cloak that was used to cover the mouth.
This ensemble was called a bauta. The round, very demure black velvet moretta was worn only by women, while the feminine, feline-faced gnaza was a disguise very popular among homosexuals. The most popular costumes of all however are those derived from the Italian popular theater of the 16th and 18th centuries, the Commedia dell’Arte, along with many variations of Arlecchino, Pulcinella and Pierrot. Carnevale in Venezia crackles with excitement and gaiety. The atmosphere is different than the gaudy Mardi Gras of Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans. Venetian Carnevale breathes a sophistication borne of the long tradition.
***
I was surprised to learn that the pre-Lenten carnivals date back to 1094 when the great squares of the city were turned over to aristocracy pageantry, public sports competitions and performances by roving minstrels and actors. The great era of the carnival in Venice began to diminish when the council of Trent (held in the northern city of Trento) solidified the Catholic Church’s resistance to Martin Luther’s reformation, and in the ensuing years, saw much harsher disciplines meted out through the entire Roman Catholic world.
However, the carnival spirit was not stilled until 1797 when Napoleon Bonaparte and his French army conquered the Venetian Republic and, for obvious security reasons, banned all masked activities. As a result, the carnival tradition slumbered for nearly 200 years. An abortive attempt was made to revive the carnival in the 1950s when a rich foreigner came to Venice, bought a sumptuous palazzo and spent huge sums of money organizing a festival for the rich and famous.
The Gala Carnevale night was a memorable event, but the poor host came under a torrent of criticism from the Church, which frowned on the excesses of the celebration. The Communist Party called it an “insult” hurled at Venetian working class by the ostentatious display. It was not until 1980 that a successful revival of the ancient tradition finally took hold at the urging of tourist-related industrialists and now Carnevale draws visitors worldwide to Venice.
10631 Vinedale Street, Sun Valley, CA 91352 - Phone (818) 767-3413 - Fax: (818) 767-1410
