L'Italo-Americano

THURS DAY,   AUGUS T  29,   2013 Dear Readers, An August assortment of Italian connections for you: Aristide Faccioli, a design engineer, helped design and build Fiat's first model, a 3.5 HP 400 rpm auto. The auto was built 1899, the year in "Fabbrica Italiana Automobile T orino" was founded and its patents recognized worldwide. Only eight automobiles were produced that year and it soon became a luxury only wealthy could afford. The car frame was made of wood and did not have a reverse gear but within a few years, Fiat auto racers went on to many victories. *** Auto Drivers, vincenzo Lancia and Claudio Fogolin, two famous "Fiat drivers" later opened their own car company, Lancia & C., in Turin in 1906. They sold 108 cars which they named Lancia Alpha, from a suggestion by Vincenzo's brother to use the Greek alphabet in naming his cars. This car had a 28hp 25544cc engine and instead of a chain drive they incorporated a In racing, Lancia shaft drive.
 was very competitive and on April 5, 1908 won first place in the straight section race at Padova-Bovolenta. On October 10, 1908, he raced his car in the United States and placed third at the Meadowbrook Sweepstakes in Long Island. Lancia manufactured distinctive automobiles and were the first to incorporate independent suspension where other vehicles had axles both in the front and the rear. Their strive for quality and excellence and their many innovations led them to produce the first v6 engine in the 1950's. Unfortunately production cost was on the increase and demand had slowed. *** Alfredo Imparato is a "posteggiatore" and because he was at the Museo Italo Americano in San Francisco and the I.A.H.F. Italian Family Festa in San Jose, California just last week and I was there, too, I am going to share some info on L'Italo-Americano Signor Imparato with you.
 Alfredo Imparato is considered one of the last minstrels, or Posteggiatori, of Naples, Italy, a Neapolitan tradition going back to medieval times. In his hometown, Alfredo delights the passing Neapolitans in the streets and piazze of Napoli's historic center with his compelling renditions of traditional Neapolitan songs. Mr. Imparato just completed his first performance tour in the United States, with appearances at the Museo Italo Americano at Fort Mason and at the Italian Family Festa on August 24 & 25. "Grazie" to Kathy Sherak, In Naples, Italy, Alfredo Imparato is keeping alive an ancient Neapolitan tradition of outdoor singing as he regularly performs his interpretations of Neapolitan songs in the squares and streets of his city. He is in America for the first time to introduce this important cultural tradition to the American public. PAGE  23 Director of the E.S.L. Program at S.F. State University and musician who has played with Italian Mandolin groups while studying the traditions and influence of music of the minstrels in Italy for alerting me to Alfredo Imparato's appearances in the Bay Area.
 Neapolitan Song, or "La Canzone Napoletana", is an immense repertoire of rich, composed songs of passion, lost love, and the beauty of Naples, all written in Neapolitan dialect. Their origins can be traced back to at least in the 13th century and the flowering of Italian poetry. Popular examples of canzoni napoletane include the ubiquitous "O Sole Mio" and "Torna a Surriento", but these are merely two examples of a musical form so sumptuous and vast that it has come to represent the music of Italy to the outside world.
 Virtually every canzone napoletana is a co-creation of a poet and a composer. One fine example is "Marechiare", a sublime melding of the aristocratic poetry of Salvatore di Giacomo with the dramatic score of Paolo The golden age of Tosti.
 Neapolitan song began in 1835 with the inauguration of the Festa di Piedigrotta, an annual musical contest for which Neapolitan poets and composers submitted one song for a panel of judges. The competition sparked the ferocious creation of new canzoni every year and spurred the opening of numerous musical publishing houses throughout the Neapolitan city center in the 19th and early 20th century.
 Le canzoni napoletane began to receive a great deal of their international fame and legitimacy thanks to Enrico Caruso, who adored songs of his native Naples so much that he regularly performed them as encores for his operatic performances. La Posteggia Napoletana, in 19th and 20th century Naples, were the primary disseminators of Neapolitan songs. Many minstrels performed for the locals in the streets, piazze, restaurants and cafés of the city. This Neapolitan musical phenomenon, typically a singer or two accompanied by guitar and mandolin, is referred to as La Posteggia and the minstrel is referred to as a Posteggiatore. La Posteggia Napoletana actually traces its roots back to the medieval period and the wandering poets and singers whom Giovanni boccaccio referred to enthusiastically in his letters from Naples in the 14th century. The Posteggia reportoire included many canzoni napoletane and also other rustic folk songs and popular musical theater skits that played well in the open air. The Posteggiatori were the first to learn all the new songs and bring them to the ears of the Neapolitans, often distributing flyers with the lyrics to the improvised audiences for singalongs. One of the first posteggiatori was Enrico Caruso himself, who began his epic musical career on the streets of his meager Neapolitan neighborhood, performing as all Posteggiatori did, for tips thrown into a plate.
 On most week- ends, you can find Alfredo in Piazza San Gaetano or on Via Port'Alba in the Centro Storico with a crowd of locals surrounding him, many mouthing words to songs from their distant past kept alive by this Neapolitan musical treasure. On your next visit, look for Alfredo in Naples but don't try to listen for the honey voice of a Mario Lanza or Giuseppe di Stefano; Alfredo's is a true voice of the street, booming with the passionate and often improvised vocal drama of the grand tradition of La Posteggia Napoletana. *** Automobiles have been around in great numbers for less than a hundred years, but traffic congestion has been a problem since the days of ancient Rome. According to T. Vanderbilt, author of "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do" (and what it says about us), Caesar, was once so concerned about street congestion in ancient Rome, that he declared a daytime ban on carts and chariots "except to transport construction materials for the temples of the gods or for other great public works or to take away demolition materials". *** Amateur radio operator, and longtime L'Italo-Americano reader, Walter Schivo, dropped me a note to let me know how much he enjoyed my column on Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of "ship to shore" radio which helped save many lives when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank (1912). More lives could have been saved if the ship closest to the Titanic had been equipped with "ship to shore" radio, but Marconi had great opposition from the cable companies, which then charged 25 cents per word to send telegrams and tried to discredit Marconi at every turn. Signor Schivo, license KB6BKN, wrote that "Amateur radio is a rewarding and enjoyable hobby that enables ordinary people around the world to communicate. With today's electronic technology, nothing is impossible! You can take your pick-operate through amateur satellites or even by bouncing signals off the moon; send lengthy letters to a friend by computer over pocket radio'; work special event radio stations, enjoy a leisurely voice or Morse code chat with an amateur across town or across the ocean.
 I enjoy leisurely voice chatting in the evening, a few times a week on the lowest radio band available to radio amateurs, which is 160 meter band, a frequency of 1800 to 2000 Kilocycles on the dial. The antenna is an inverted dipole shape at 240 feet long, off a palm tree in front of my house, and the early refurbished AM transmitter and receiver.
 I also have a large routable 4 element beam on a tower and am able to make contact with many stations around the world on the High Frequency bands with my modern transceiver to: Italy, Scotland, Ireland, Canary Islands, England to name a few. 
 This is all thanks to Guglielmo Marconi. ***

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