HN005 NEAPOLITAN SONG:
THE FRENCH CONNECTION

No, this is not about organised crime. 

Its about the establishment of a canon of Neapolitan song in the early years of the 19th Century. Scholars have debated the origins and sources of Neapolitan song for many decades, but one thing on which all agree, is that without the transcription and composition of Neapolitan song undertaken by a Frenchman, Guillaume Cottrau, and published by him from 1824 to 1829, we would not have Neapolitan songs as we know them.

Cottrau was born in Paris, but came to Naples as a child, and became to all intents and purposes, a Neapolitan by inclination and adoption without losing his French roots. When his family returned to Paris, Cottrau himself had put down firm roots in Naples and had married into a Neapolitan family as well.

Cottrau collected and transcribed the music that he found in the streets, highways, and countryside. He also published these songs, under the title of Passatempi musicale for the fast growing bourgeois salons where a piano was the instrument de rigeur, and in so doing added, transformed, re-wrote and even composed his own Neapolitan songs. How far he went in changing the words, music and character we may never know. What we do know though, is that without his work, many songs would have been lost forever, and so we must be grateful for what he saved. Through his French connection, his publishing house Girard, spread Neapolitan song throughout Europe and beyond, and today it is a recognisable music the world over.