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Musicology:
This song of despairing, unrequited love, with a text in Neapolitan dialect by Libero Bovio, is cast in a sultry minor mode to a steady syncopated dance rhythm at an unrushed Andantino tempo.
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Tu, ca nun chiagne!Year: 1915
Genre: Solo Song / Lied / Chanson
Pr. Instrument: Voice
The singer describes a beautiful night seen from atop a mountainside. But because he is alone, the vision "seems so resigned and tired under cover of this white moon."
The chorus begins on a repeated high note that intones the song's title "You Who Never Cry." The poignant phrase continues, in an impassioned rubato, "but make me cry, where are you tonight?" (Tu ca nun chiagne e chíagnere me faie, tu stanotte addo staie?) From this point on, there is a steady crescendo to the end as the poet's infatuation turns into an intense obsession. The plea "I want you!" (Voglio e te!) is delivered twice in a trumpet-call rhythm, and the final declaration "These eyes want to see you!" (in the Italian dialect, a wonderfully expressive alliteration: "Chist'uocchie te vonno n'ata vota vedè!") ends in a series of strongly accented notes in the throes of extreme emotion.
Immediately, the dynamics drop from fortississimo to pianissimo as the "dolce armonioso" introduction leads into the poet's second observation. The mountain is now "calm...I've never seen it calmer, and everyone sleeps, everyone sleeps or dies, and only I stay awake because love is awake."
But this "calm" is only temporary and external. The recapitulated chorus again reveals the poet's barely restrained feelings as it builds "con anima" from mezzo forte to the intense fortississimo; the last chord is played sharply and cuts off the music at this peak state.
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