Authors of the Neapolitan songs

Giovanni Battista De Curtis (Giambattista is a short form of the name), Italian poet, painter, sculptor and illustrator, was born in Naples on 20th July 1860 in the family of the decorative painter Giuseppe De Curtis and Elisabetta Minnon, who was a granddaughter of the Italian composer Saverio Mercadante. Giambattista was the first of six children, after him Oreste, Emilia, Ernesto (a famous composer), Eugenio and Federico (a painter) were born.

He spent his childhood and adolescence in his father's art studio. Giambattista became a painter himself, much loved by the Neapolitan bourgeoisie not only for his qualities as a portraitist, but above all for his versatility in painting the ceilings of halls and living rooms with allegorical drawings, very popular at that time.

Giambattista De Curtis became interested in the Neapolitan song by chance when he was almost thirty years old. He lived on Cesare Rosaroll Street opposite the house of the composer Vincenzo Valente where exponents of Neapolitan music met every evening. Frequently attending those meetings, Giambattista De Curtis became so inspired that one day he wrote and showed to the already famous Vincenzo Valente his first poetry entitled "Che buò fà?" ('A pacchianella) (What do you want to do? (The commoner)). The composer did not criticize it too much; on the contrary, in order to encourage the young man, he decided to set it to music. Year after year the painter Giambattista De Curtis continued to write songs, dedicating them to one or another girl. Sometimes he made music himself for his songs although he played the piano only by ear. For Giambattista the Neapolitan song was nothing more than a pastime. With Vincenzo Valente he wrote other wonderful songs, including "Ninuccia" (Nina) and "Tiempe felice" (Happy days), with Eduardo Di Capua he wrote "'E giesummine 'e Spagna" (The jasmine of Spain), but Giambattista's most productive collaboration was with his younger brother, composer Ernesto De Curtis, which did not stop even when Ernesto went to America in 1922, accompanying the tenor Beniamino Gigli. Ernesto continued to write music for the songs that Giambattista sent him by post.

In 1891 Giambattista De Curtis was invited to Sorrento by the then mayor of the town, Guglielmo Tramontano, to paint the hotel he owned. Their acquaintance grew into a strong friendship and Giambattista became a close friend of the Tramontano family and spent six months a year in Sorrento, decorating the corridors, walls and ceilings of the hotel and courting the beautiful foreign women who stayed at the Tramontano hotel. Giambattista was a womanizer, unlike his brother Ernesto, who was a monogamous man.

The following year, 1892, Giambattista, who was already thirty-two years old, met a girl named Carmela, the one who inspired him to write his first famous song. While wandering around the park of the hotel Tramontano, he saw a girl of about sixteen walking into the hotel with a basket of grapes. Convinced that he was an irresistible conqueror, the poet went straight to meet the girl. "What is your name?" he asked her. "Carmela Maione", the girl answered dryly. "What are you doing here?" De Curtis continued to ask. "I'm taking the grapes to the hotel". "What do you usually do?" "Me? I sleep!" she replied with naturalness. Amazed by the beauty of that girl, by her looseness, by the involuntary comicality of her gestures, Giambattista De Curtis went to his room and wrote the song "Carmela", making music for the first time, in spite of the fact that he could play the piano with only two fingers.

In 1897 Giambattista De Curtis encouraged his brother Ernesto to write music for his poetry "'A primma vota" (The first time); this song marked the beginning of a long and successful collaboration between the two brothers. Among other songs by the De Curtis brothers were "'A surrentina" (The Sorrentine girl), "Amalia" (dedicated to Amalia Russo, Ernesto's future wife), "Sò 'nnammurato 'e te!" (I'm in love with you!), "Pane e cepolle" (Bread and onion), "I' mm'arricordo 'e te" (Lucia, Lucì)) (I recall you (Lucy, Lucy)), "Te vene a mmente?" (Do you remember?), "Sto penzanno a Maria" (I'm thinking of Maria), but their greatest success was the song "Torna a Surriento!" (Come back to Sorrento!) which had an interesting story behind its creation:

Giuseppe Zanardelli, then Prime Minister of Italy, decided to make a working trip to Basilicata (a region in southern Italy) in September 1902. He decided to make a short stop in Sorrento before heading into the mountains and valleys of Basilicata. He already knew that he would have to listen to many complaints from the mayors of those Basilicata towns that he would visit, but he never expected that he would receive the first complaint already in Sorrento. Arriving in Sorrento, Zanardelli stayed at the "Imperial Tramontano Hotel", owned by Guglielmo Tramontano, the mayor of the town. And Tramontano, having learned that he had the Prime Minister as his guest, did not miss the opportunity to tell him about the various problems of Sorrento, the most serious of which, according to him, was the lack of a post office in the town. "I assure you that I will not forget about the problems of Sorrento, but stop complaining now" Giuseppe Zanardelli shouted, angry at such insistence, and Tramontano went out upset. He wandered through the corridors of his hotel, repeating: "It takes a strong idea to convince Zanardelli". "What do you say about a song?" Giambattista De Curtis, who was painting the walls of the hotel, declared suddenly, "I will dedicate a beautiful song to this Zanardelli and he will remember the problems of Sorrento". Giambattista did not think long: he took a song written with his brother Ernesto in 1894 and added some verses with an obvious laudatory content. The result was a real sycophancy that had nothing in common with the lyrics that everyone knows:

You are the hope of this town,
And we love you more and more
Because you promised us,
You gave us your word!

But don't leave us,
The boat is being driven by the wind,
Come back to Sorrento,
Make us happy!

On the day of Prime Minister Zanardelli's departure, an improvised orchestra performed in his honor a version of the song "Torna a Surriento!", prepared especially for him. Zanardelli was pleased, and soon a post office appeared in Sorrento. That was the power of this song.

Two years later, in 1904, the publisher Ferdinando Bideri, after listening to the melody, decided to publish this song, but with different lyrics. Giambattista complied with the publisher's request and wrote a new, more lyrical text, which became the main text of the song "Torna a Surriento!". With the new lyrics, the song was an exceptional success.

In 1910, when fifty-year-old Giambattista De Curtis began to feel rejected by beautiful foreign tourists in Sorrento, he married Carolina Scognamiglio after twenty years of engagement. In 1916, he and his wife settled down in the Vomero district. He wrote songs less often and devoted himself to painting. His house on Luca Giordano Street became a meeting place for painters.

The last years of Giambattista De Curtis' life were sad: progressive paralysis robbed him of the joy of creating. He also lost the company of his brother Ernesto, who went on a world tour. Along with his physical decline, the poet also felt a sad state of loneliness, since he had no children in his marriage with Carolina Scognamiglio. In his lonely hours Giambattista wrote touching letters to his brother Ernesto in New York, in Rio de Janeiro, in Buenos Aires, where Ernesto De Curtis gave concerts with Beniamino Gigli.

Giambattista De Curtis died on 15th January 1926 at the age of 65. Some time after his death, a letter from Ernesto De Curtis arrived from Argentina: "Dear Giambattista, I enclose the score for the song that you sent me last month. I hope you like it", but Giambattista could not read it already.