by Francesco Ciabattoni (Georgetown University).

With the holidays approaching, it was hard not to offer you some Christmas music. These songs, however, address the theme from particular points of view, the fairy-tale and almost magical one of Branduardi, to the creation of the tragic fable that De André draws from Brassens, to the delicate and intimate way of De Gregori; If Carosone makes it a nursery rhyme and also—rightly—a question of money, Brunori Sas deconstructs Christmas, trying a bit in a Dickensian way to recover the spirit of Christmases past. Elio, on the other hand, ridicules and therefore revives the most trite clichés of Christmas with the biting irony that distinguishes him and with the warm and scratchy voice of Graziano Romani who sings in an unlikely but decidedly sentimental English.

In short, this is more of a review than an analysis, also because there are so many Italian Christmas songs, which follow one another with an inevitable cadence in the most famous voices, from Mina (“La vigilia di Natale,” written by Andrea Lo Vecchio and Shel Shapiro “È Natale,” written by Massimiliano Pani and Valentino Alfano) to Modugno “Buon Natale a tutto il mondo”) to Venditti (“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14VyIRqoeng”) and Eros Ramazzotti (“Buon Natale”), just to name the deans of Italian song. It is a day to celebrate an unexpected return (Angelo Branduardi), to reminisce old Christmases (Francesco Brunori), to consecrate or desecrate for Elio e le Storie Tese, to suffer, as for Piero Ciampi (“Il Natale è il 24“), or to hope with Francesco De Gregori.

Here is our selection, which we share with you at Christmas.

Natale, Angelo Branduardi

Il Natale è il 24, Piero Ciampi

Leggenda di Natale, Fabrizio De André

Natale, Francesco De Gregori

Mo’ vene Natale, Renato Carosone

La vigilia di Natale, Brunori Sas

Christmas with the yours, Elio e le Storie Tese

(Washington DC, December 20th, 2022)