Nuova Compagnia Di Canto Popolare
Li Sarracini Adorano Lu Sole

LA RECENSIONE

The magical adventure (and artistic mission) of the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare continues, which between 1972 and 1974, thanks to their participation in the Festival di Spoleto, gained national fame and set out to conquer the world with guitars, mandolins, and drums.
In 1974, they released their fifth studio album: "Li Sarracini Adorano lu Sole".
Listening to the record, one is magically transported to Bourbon Naples, full of contradictions and mystery. A city both cheerful and melancholic at the same time. This sensation is experienced every time one listens to the popular songs masterfully reinterpreted by the NCCP. Always created by the usual six: Barra, Areni, Trampetti, Bennato, Mauriello, and Vetere, with the usual instrumentation: guitars, mandolins, guitar-length mandolin, various flutes and wind instruments, violin, and the percussive sounds of putipù and tammorra.
The first track is a tammorriata, namely "Tammorriata alli uno...alli uno", which starts with a numerical nursery rhyme and then continues with an episode featuring a young man and an eager young woman. The tammorriata is an ancient dance, with a magnetic rhythm, hypnotic music. Fausta Vetere sings the next sweet "Ricciulina", played solely with flute and guitar.
The drums introduce us to "In galera li panettieri", a song about the famine of 1794. In this rhythmically relentless track, the vision of the people crying out for the bakers' condemnation, who had enriched themselves at the population's expense, is described. The elegant sound of the mandolin, on the other hand, opens "Vurria ca fosse ciaola", where the protagonist wishes to be a little bird to fly freely but instead is locked in a cage.
The album, as always, is rich in a thousand facets. The musicians eclipse themselves, becoming the eyes of the people of Naples and describing everything happening in the Partenopean city. An example is "Tammorriata nera", with its famous opening lines:

 "...è nato nu creaturo, è nato niro
e 'a mamma 'o chiamma Ciro..."

It's the story of a mother who (pathetically) tries to hide the dark color of her child by giving him a Neapolitan name: Ciro. However, Neapolitan memory also praises popular heroes. "'O cunto e Masaniello" tells the epic of the fishmonger-revolutionary who leads the people's rebellion against the oppressive taxes imposed by the Viceroy. In the end, Masaniello is mysteriously killed.

"La Morte di Mariteto" is the story of a young man vainly waiting for the death of his beloved's husband, while "Li Sarracini adorano lu sole", introduced by the sound of the flute, consists of only three verses, and at the end of each verse, there is a crescendo of goosebump-inducing voices and guitars. The calm and hypnotic "'E spingule francese" precedes the album's final song: "Lo Guarracino".
Previously featured in the eponymous 1972 album, it is reinterpreted by the group, with the harpsichord playing the main motif in tarantella rhythm. The song tells the story of the "Guarracino" (wrasse) who falls in love with the "Sardella" (sardine), but the fiancé "Allitterato" (tuna) learns of the affair and a brawl among fish ensues. The text is a clear allegory to life "on the surface".

The excellent conclusion to yet another success for this formation, which continues to superbly revisit the classics of Neapolitan songs.