L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 2026 www.italoamericano.org 14 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE F o r c e n t u r i e s , w h i s t l i n g has b e e n p a r t o f everyday life and served very prac- tical purposes. Shepherds, farmers, fishermen, workers, and children used it long before it became a recogniz- able feature of popular music or film soundtracks. People would whistle to call some- one across a field, to recall a shepherd dog to attention, or simply to pass the time while working. Whistling is important in Italian music, too, and not because you can use it to "play" your favorite summer hits. Thanks to its natural connotations and recogniz- ability, it became central in many songs, either in their lyrics or as a real musical instrument. O n e o f t h e b e s t - k n o w n examples of the metaphorical a n d s y m b o l i c a l p o w e r o f whistling comes in the parti- san song Fischia il vento ("The Wind Whistles"), writ- ten during World War II by F e l i c e C a s c i o n e on the melody of the Russian song K a t y u s h a . H e r e , t h e whistling is largely symbolic, a s i t i s c o m p a r e d t o t h e sound of wind and the harsh mountain weather through which the partisans had to travel and fight in their strug- gle for freedom. Whistling continued to appear in Italian music over the following decades, with famous artists like Vasco R o s s i a n d A l e s s a n d r o Mannarino incorporating it into their recordings. And we shouldn't forget the many folk traditions throughout the country that preserved forms of melodic whistling as part of local culture. Howev- er, none of these examples had the global impact of what h a p p e n e d w h e n a b a r e l y k n o w n R o m a n m u s i c i a n b e g a n c o l l a b o r a t i n g w i t h Ennio Morricone. Today, millions of people can instantly recognize the whistled melodies that open m a n y c l a s s i c S p a g h e t t i Western soundtracks, but f a r f e w e r k n o w a b o u t A l e s s a n d r o A l e s s a n - droni, the man who whis- tled them. Born in Rome in 1925, he studied at the con- s e r v a t o r y , p l a y e d s e v e r a l instruments, worked as a composer and arranger, and founded the vocal ensemble I Cantori Moderni di Alessan- droni, a group that became closely associated with Italian film music during the 1960s and 1970s. Despite his many creative projects, it was his distinctive whistling style that secured his place in music history, along with his part- nership with legendary Ennio Morricone, which came about w h e n I t a l i a n c i n e m a w a s r e i n v e n t i n g t h e W e s t e r n g e n r e . D i r e c t o r S e r g i o L e o n e wanted films that looked and sounded different from traditional Hollywood productions, so Morricone responded by abandoning many of the conventions of orchestral film scoring, rely- ing instead exclusively on strings and brass, and on the i n t r o d u c t i o n o f u n u s u a l s o u n d s : c r a c k i n g w h i p s , church bells, electric guitars, vocal effects, gunshots, all u s e d a l m o s t a s m u s i c a l instruments. Among those sounds was Alessandroni's whistling. The collaboration helped create some of the most rec- ognizable film themes ever recorded, if you think that A l e s s a n d r o n i ' s w h i s t l i n g appears in A Fistful of Dol- lars (1964), For a Few Dol- lars More (1965), and most famously The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Together, Leone's visual style, Morricone's compositions, and Alessandroni's whistling created an entirely new (and immediately iconic) sound- scape for the Western genre. In all its simplicity, the e f f e c t w a s r e m a r k a b l e because it was innovative in the world of cinematic music: it was, unlike a trumpet solo or a large orchestra, intensely human and could connect with so many different emo- tions or states of mind, from loneliness, anticipation, and danger to irony and freedom. It was also perfect to evoke those vast, open spaces typi- cal of Western movies, where you could easily picture a cowboy whistling his solitude away while riding his horse. Morricone understood this quality and used it repeated- ly, also facilitated by Alessan- droni's exceptional control of pitch, tone, and expression. Their musical partnership, and the iconic sounds it pro- duced, ended up impacting Spaghetti Western music as a whole, with Alessandroni contributing to numerous film scores. Its influence can also be heard in They Call Me Trinity, the enormously suc- cessful 1970 comedy Western scored by Franco Micalizzi, where whistling is also musi- cally central. By that point, whistling had become almost a musical shorthand for a distinctly Italian vision of the American West. Alessandroni's story is p a r t i c u l a r l y i n t e r e s t i n g because many people know his work without even realiz- ing it: film fans recognize the "spaghetti Western" sound immediately, but often don't know his name, which, in truth, rarely appears along- side those of Leone and Mor- ricone. His legacy, however, hasn't disappeared, if it's true that contemporary Italian artists have occasionally paid tribute to him, and he even contributed whistling perfor- mances to modern record- ings, including music by the band Baustelle. In this way, the sound of whistling moved from folk culture to popular music, from popular music to cinema, and then back again into contemporary Italian songwriting. As it sometimes happens with culturally defining acts and creations, whistling in Italian music began in a sim- ple, unassuming way, with common people whistling for boredom while at work or to communicate; then came folk traditions and popular music, which led directly into the glitzy world of cinema and songwriting. Along the way, this simple and very human musical act also produced one of the most recognizable sounds in twentieth-century c i n e m a . N o t b a d f o r a n instrument that anyone can carry with them! The sound of whistling: from Italian folk traditions to the unforgettable cinema of Morricone and Leone LUCA SIGNORINI Advancing our Legacy: Italian Community Services CASA FUGAZI If you know of any senior of Italian descent in San Francisco needing assistance, please contact: ItalianCS.org | (415) 362-6423 | info@italiancs.com Italian Community Services continues to assist Bay Area Italian-American seniors and their families navigate and manage the resources needed to live healthy, independent and productive lives. Since Shelter-in-Place began in San Francisco, Italian Community Services has delivered over 240 meals, over 900 care packages and made over 2000 phone wellness checks for our seniors.

• Cover