ITEM
Viva il Duce Item Info
Viva il Duce - item
- Object ID:
- demo_0684
- Creator:
- Cetra
- Type of Sound:
- Music
- Music Composer:
- Giulio Andrea Marchesini
- Instruments:
- Conductor; Fanfare
- Type of Music:
- March
- Date:
- 1940
- Identifier:
- PE 91
- Linked Recording:
- demo_0683
- Rights:
- metadata-only record, please check the publication for rights
- Source:
- Radiocorriere, June 16, 1940. 1940
- 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). Referring to Benito Mussolini, this recording is part of a cult of the Fascist leader's personality and disseminates the myth surrounding him (Mussolinismo). The charismatic leader of Italian Fascism and the regime he embodied, Mussolini, nicknamed "Duce" (he who guides), was portrayed as a heroic man, father of the nation, superior in his capacity for work and far-sightedness. His imagination describes him as the "New Man", whose creation from the Italian people is the main objective of the work of regeneration that characterizes Fascist ideology. The manifestation of Italians' love for the Duce is a recurrent theme of propaganda, with the head of government virtually occupying the place of God in the political religion (mass rituals, Fascist faith) that is Fascism in power (see Alessandro Campi, "Mussolinismo", in Victoria De Grazia & Sergio Luzzatto (eds), Dizionario del fascismo. Vol. 2, L-Z, Milano, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 2019, p. 200-204). 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:
- Banda degli Agenti di Polizia di Stato Giulio Andrea Marchesini
- Music by:
- Giulio Andrea Marchesini
- Instruments:
- Conductor Fanfare
- Genre:
- March
- Sound Type:
- Music
- Related Record:
- demo_0683
Source
- Preferred Citation:
- "Viva il Duce", REDIRE Database, Bonn Center for Digital Humanities (BCDH)
- Reference Link:
- http://localhost:4000/items/demo_0684.html
Rights
- Rights:
- metadata-only record, please check the publication for rights
- Standardized Rights:
- Cetra, Catalogo dischi, 1942