Description
The original version of Funiculì, funiculà was composed by Luigi Denza in 1880, to lyrics in Neapolitan dialect by Peppino Turco. The song is about a young man who compares his lover to a volcano and invites her to join him on a romantic walk up to the summit. To give this rather unusual premise some context, Funiculì, funiculà was written to mark the opening of the first funicular railway on Mount Vesuvius. It was destroyed when Vesuvius erupted in 1944.
The song was a massive hit and inside a year sheet music sales topped a million copies. Over the years this catchy song has been performed by countless singers including Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli and Mario Lanza.
So catchy is the song that a number of ‘serious’ composers have incorporated it into their own work. Richard Strauss heard it whilst on a tour of Italy and assumed the song to be a traditional folk song (and therefore copyright-free). He wove the song’s themes into the fourth movement of his 1886 tone poem, Aus Italien. When Denza got wind of it he sued Strauss, forcing him to pay a royalty fee. Rimsky-Korsakov made the same assumption and used it in his 1907 Neopolitan Song. It is Rimsky-Korsakov’s lively, inventive (and brilliantly orchestrated) version that forms the basis of this arrangement for wind quintet.
Also available for wind quartet.
