ITEM
Cantata squadrista Item Info
Cantata squadrista - item
- Object ID:
- demo_0647
- Creator:
- Cetra
- Type of Sound:
- Music
- Lyrics Composer:
- Auro D’Alba (Umberto Bottone)
- Music Composer:
- Francesco Pellegrino
- Instruments:
- Wind instrument ensemble; Male Choir; Conductor
- Type of Music:
- Hymn March
- Record Language:
- Italian
- Date:
- 1941
- Identifier:
- IT 860
- Linked Recording:
- demo_0648
- Rights:
- metadata-only record, please check the publication for rights
- Description:
- Italy's entry into the Second World War in June 1940 was accompanied by a large production of light songs with military overtones. These songs, whose themes - like others before them - included heroism and sacrifice in battle, patriotic and Fascist faith, the love of parents, wives and children, the invasion of England and the alliance with Nazi Germany, were mostly sung by men. They are broadcast on the radio, in the press (Il Canzoniere della radio) or as sheet music, and are recorded by the major record companies. In addition to the phonographic repertoire of these light songs, there was also a repertoire of purely military songs and music, representing a particular army corps, as well as older songs, some of them taken from popular films. All these songs and musics are aimed as much at the audience of those who stayed behind as at the soldiers who went to the front, but they are not all successful and pose a stratigic problem for war propaganda. The records that carry them are often grouped together, within the catalogs of the companies that sell them, in sections dedicated to wartime phonography (see Pietro Cavallo & Pasquale Iaccio, Vincere! Fascismo e società italiana nelle canzoni e nelle riviste di varietà (1935-1943), Napoli, Liguori editore, 2003, pp. 109-136). This recording represents the Milizia volontatria per la sicurezza nazionale (MVSN), or Blackshirts/Squadrists, a militia founded a few months after Benito Mussolini came to power, from the Fascist militias that between 1919 and 1922 attacked opponents of the Fascist movement, led by socialists and communists, with extreme violence, using sticks and castor oil (a laxative and potentially lethal oil). Institutionalized by Benito Mussolini, the MVSN became a paramilitary corps which, in addition to controlling the violence of certain squadrists, carried out political policing and anti-dissent missions. It took part in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and the Spanish Civil War, eventually being integrated into the army (see Mauro Canali, "Milizia volontatria per la sicurezza nazionale", in Victoria De Grazia & Sergio Luzzatto (eds), Dizionario del fascismo. Vol. 2, L-Z, Milano, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 2019, pp. 129-132). The record to which this recording belongs is included in the "Hymns, marches and wartime songs" section of the Cetra label's 1942 catalog.
- Online Resources:
- -
- Performers:
- Edigio Storaci
- Lyrics by:
- Auro D’Alba (Umberto Bottone)
- Music by:
- Francesco Pellegrino
- Instruments:
- Wind instrument ensemble Male Choir Conductor
- Genre:
- Hymn March
- Sound Type:
- Music
- Recording Language:
- Italian
- Related Record:
- demo_0648
Source
- Preferred Citation:
- "Cantata squadrista", REDIRE Database, Bonn Center for Digital Humanities (BCDH)
- Reference Link:
- http://localhost:4000/items/demo_0647.html
Rights
- Rights:
- metadata-only record, please check the publication for rights
- Standardized Rights:
- Cetra, Catalogo dischi, 1942