L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2026 www.italoamericano.org 14 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE G iuseppe Donati was seventeen y e a r s o l d when, in 1853, h e m a d e a musical joke for his friends i n B u d r i o , a s m a l l t o w n northeast of Bologna. He a l r e a d y k n e w h i s w a y around music: he had stud- ied theory and piano, played clarinet in the local band and organ in church, and what he produced in clay was inspired by the little ter- racotta whistles sold at fairs, the sort shaped like birds and other animals that could manage a few simple notes. Donati's version could do rather more, and once his friends discovered that, with that "joke," you could actu- a l l y p l a y a t u n e , h e k e p t working on it. Donati called it "ocarina" b e c a u s e o f i t s s h a p e : i n Bolognese dialect, ucarina means "little goose," and D o n a t i ' s e l o n g a t e d o v a l instrument, with its mouth- piece sticking out from one side, looked just like a small goose without a head. Tech- nically, it is a globular flute: unlike a recorder, where the sound travels through a long tube, the player's breath res- onates inside a hollow clay chamber, and opening and c l o s i n g t h e f i n g e r h o l e s c h a n g e s t h e p i t c h . S i z e changes the voice as well, so a small ocarina is bright a n d p e n e t r a t i n g w h i l e a large one produces a deeper sound. Before long, a group of Budrio musicians, Donati among them, was playing ocarine of all sizes as an ensemble. At first they did what musicians playing in taverns and private houses might reasonably be expect- e d t o d o a n d p e r f o r m e d dance music; then ambition took over, and the repertory expanded to opera, includ- i n g t h e M i s e r e r e f r o m I l Trovatore and the prelude to La Traviata. Within a lit- t l e m o r e t h a n a d e c a d e , Budrio had a proper ocarina e n s e m b l e , a n d t h e m u s i - c i a n s e v e n t u a l l y t o u r e d major European theaters under the wonderfully grand name I Celebri Monta- nari degli Appennini , t h e C e l e b r a t e d M o u n - taineers of the Apennines. I Montanari worked almost like the section of a choir, w i t h t h e s m a l l e r o c a r i n e performing the upper lines while progressively larger ones supplied the middle and bass voices. Donati him- s e l f b e g a n p r o d u c i n g t h e instruments commercially, f i r s t i n B u d r i o , l a t e r i n Bologna and Milan, selling them at fairs and finding c u s t o m e r s a s f a r a w a y a s Germany and Austria. It was, however, Ercole a n d A l b e r t o M e z z e t t i , a l w a y s f r o m B u d r i o , w h o made the ocarina truly inter- n a t i o n a l : b o t h c o n n e c t e d with the local tradition, they b e g a n m a k i n g o c a r i n e i n Paris around 1870; Alberto later established himself in London, where his instru- ments could become sur - prisingly elaborate, decorat- ed in the fashionable style of the period and sometimes fitted with mechanical addi- t i o n s . B a c k i n B u d r i o , C e s a r e V i c i n e l l i b e g a n p r o d u c t i o n i n 1 8 7 8 a n d became so admired for the t u n i n g a n d q u a l i t y o f h i s i n s t r u m e n t s t h a t h e acquired the inevitable nick- name of the "Stradivari of the ocarina." He also intro- duced molds that made larg- er-scale production possible. T h e c h a i n c o n t i n u e d through later makers includ- ing Guido Chiesa, Emilio Cesari and Arrigo Mignani, and it very nearly could have ended there; instead, Fabio Menaglio took up the craft in 1989, studying the propor- tions and sound of Vicinelli's instruments and returning to the older Budrio concert tradition. His ocarine found an especially enthusiastic m a r k e t i n J a p a n , w h i c h became his principal foreign customer, and the instru- ment developed a following a c r o s s E a s t A s i a t h a t Donati could hardly have imagined. I n J a p a n , t h e o c a r i n a developed a musical life of its own, with players from Asia regularly traveling to E m i l i a - R o m a g n a a n d Budrio's musicians having t o u r e d J a p a n a n d S o u t h Korea several times. At the 2025 International Ocarina F e s t i v a l i n B u d r i o , m o r e than 180 artists came from countries including Japan, K o r e a , C h i n a , t h e U n i t e d States, Argentina and sever- al parts of Europe; across four days, nearly 3,000 visi- t o r s a t t e n d e d m o r e t h a n fifty events. The town keeps the whole story of the ocarina in its M u s e o d e l l ' O c a r i n a e degli Strumenti Musi- cali in Terracotta, where early instruments made by Donati without molds sit a l o n g s i d e t h e w o r k o f Vicinelli, the Mezzettis and later craftsmen, together with photographs, scores, recordings and documents f r o m t h e g r o u p s t h a t brought the ocarina abroad. The museum describes itself a s u n i q u e i n t h e w o r l d , w h i c h s e e m s p l a u s i b l e e n o u g h : t h e r e c a n n o t b e many places requiring sev- eral rooms to explain what happened after a teenager m a d e h i s f r i e n d s a c l a y whistle! Today, Budrio still makes ocarine because Donati's original joke turned out to be … more than a joke! That young teenager of another era understood his new little instrument had potential, so he made more in different s i z e s a n d – v o i l à – a n o r c h e s t r a o f o c a r i n e w a s born. That little goose, as it turned out, had rather more m u s i c i n i t t h a n a n y o n e expected. The Ocarina of Budrio: a musical joke that traveled the world LUCA SIGNORINI From a teenager's experiment in 1853, the ocarina grew into a true concert instrument, eventually finding players and audiences far beyond Budrio (Original image created for L'Italo- Americano with the assistance of AI)

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