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Tarantella montemaranese

The Montemaranese tarantella is the characteristic tarantella of Montemarano in the province of Avellino.

Originally performed with a ciaramella, a tambourine, the castagnette , in the dialect castagnole and a male voice, it can today be realized with the accompaniment of a clarinet, song and  counter- song;  accordion,  harmony / rhythm, singing and countermelody; tamburello, rhythm.

The combinations of the three components – melody, harmony, rhythm are not strict but neither are interchangeable. They are subject to improvised elaborations and they are, at any rate, functional to the dancers behavior. The application of the clarinet gave it the nickname of tarantella jazz, a music genre that resembles the general feature of the improvisation that is common to all the tarantelle, as well as in the pizzica and the tammuriata dances.

The carnival and the tarantella [ edit | edit wikitext ]

The montemaranese is a tarantella that is traditionally danced during the  carnival festivity by the whole community, following small rowdy clarinets orchestre, flutes, accordions and drums, that walk repeatedly the streets of Montemarano. The rhythm of this dance during the parade becomes more and more sustained until it reaches madness. In the carnival of Montemarano it is in fact possible to notice expressions of collective ecstasy, especially when the time for dancing comes to an end and the night marks the closing of the festivity.

On such occasion, different dance groups prepare to march in a sort of competition enshrined, on the Saturday prior carnival, by the throw of a gauntlet. Every group is coordinated by its captain, the most representative character of the event, a pulcinella  that with his folkloristic red and white costume, his high hat and the stick, sign of authority, issues orders to the other participants, he makes way through the crowd and distributes candies to the public. Some groups parade with an allegorical float at their head .

The pagan origin of the montemaranese carnival was recovered and divulged in the XVII century by the neapolitan poet and writer Giambattista Basile , who also was lord and governor of Montemarano. Many are the different theories concerning the appearance of music and dance at the ceremony.  The most corroborated is that a group of Bulgarians in the context of the succession of the many foreign dominations ( Goths , Visigoths , Lombards , etc.) brought the first notes then reworked by the Montemaranesi.

The carnival begins with the feast of Sant'Antonio Abate, on January 17 ( in Santantuono masks and sounds ) and ends on the Sunday following the Ashes , after a three-day celebration, with Carnival dead , when the funeral farewell took place. ironic from Carnival and the reading of his grotesque testament , we launch into a last wild dance until the break, late at night, of the Pignata , from which biscuits and sweets come out, which symbolically represent a good omen for the approaching spring .

The ethno-musical museum [ edit | edit wikitext ]

The “Hyrpinus Doctus” Cultural Association was founded in 2002 with the purpose of keeping alive a very ancient tradition: the carnival and tarantella of Montemarano. In addition to ethnography and ethnomusicology researches in Irpinia and Campania, in August 2002 this association founded the “Celestino Coscia and Antonio Bocchino Ethnomusicological Museum”, dedicated to the two artists from Montemarano, who reinvented the tarantella by means of personal interpretations.

The museum was inaugurated on 21 February 2004 , on the occasion of the carnival with a debate on the theme “La Tradizione Attraverso il Museo” (The Tradition Through the Museum), and with the participation of prestigious scholars and experts in this field.

Since May 2004, the museum has become municipal, formally established by a municipal council, in order to be able to access public funding. The management was assigned to the association which first founded it, as it is the real protagonist of this initiative, which aims at the conservation of musical memory. This project is not only important for the town of Montemarano, as this results in being the first museum of its kind in Irpinia .

The Montemaranese tarantella school [ edit | edit wikitext ]

Another center engaged in the safeguarding and dissemination of the musical memory linked to the Montemaranese tarantella is the tarantella school founded by Roberto D'Agnese in 2009, at the head of which there are the teachers of the town, Olimpia ' Ndonetta , Chilina , Menella , among which there are the daughters of Minico and Gianninino, one of the musical parents of the tarantella.

Thanks to the experience of these teachers, teachers and dancers who manage the courses have been trained, which include a theoretical and a practical part, including historical and dance notions. Also within the school there is a study group that daily deepens the studies on the Montemarano tarantella. The school participates in international dance festivals teaching this magnificent dance with all the styles found within the community. The school is accompanied by all the musical groups of the country that follow the school in rotation in all events.  

Notes [ edit | edit wikitext ]

1.     ^ Parade with caporabballo , images of the carnival.

2.     ^ For some information related to the origins of the festival and its current celebration. ^{[ link broken ]}

3.     ^ News related to the ethno-musical museum of Montemarano.

4.     ^ Montemaranese Tarantella School Association.

Bibliography [ edit | edit wikitext ]

·         M. Gabriella Della Sala, The instrumental staff of the Montemaranese Tarantella , in "Traditional itineraries", edited by the Terminio-Cervialto Mountain Community.

·         M.Gabriella Della Sala, Rite and Magic in the Montemaranese tarantella , in "Traditional itineraries", edited by the Terminio-Cervialto Mountain Community .

·         Giovanni Giuriati (1982), A kaleidoscopic compositional procedure: the tarantella of Montemarano , "Music cultures", I / 2, pp. 19–72.

Related items [ edit | edit wikitext ]

·         Montemarano

·         Tarantella

External links [ edit | edit wikitext ]

·         Fundamental musical notions on the Montemaranese tarantella

·         Carnovale danced danced

·         Text of a Montemaranese tarantella: “Oh oh oh / parà parà ah parà parà ah parà parà ah parà parà ah”

·         Video on the music of the Montemarano tarantella (version with clarinet)

·         Video on the dance of the Montemaranese