Traditional music and dance
As early as the 10th century, nursery rhymes, lullabies and liturgical songs can be found in Friulian. But it wasn't until around the 15th century that the region's most singular tradition began to spread: the villotta. This polyphonic song for three or four voices is based on a short poetic text, often using improvisation to make the song last as long as possible
The themes are classics of popular music: things of love, nature and war, not forgetting the land of one's birth.
The 1970s marked a turning point for Friulian folk music, with the figure of the Italian solo singer gradually replacing the small folk groups. It was a change of form rather than substance, as folk music changed but did not disappear, simply adopting the codes of genres from here and abroad such as American folk, blues, pop or hip hop to sing Friulian poetry in a more modern way. This wave, a veritable folk revival known as Nuova Musica Friulana "new Friulian music", later gave rise to local prides such as Lino Straulino, who exploded in the 1990s by experimenting extensively with the Friulian language.
As for dance, the local treasure is the aptly named "forlane". This fast, two-beat dance is performed in couples, with jig-like jumps. It was one of the national dances until the 18thcentury , and even became a court dance in France. Some music lovers may already have noticed it in compositions by François Couperin(QuatrièmeConcert Royal in 1722), Jean-Philippe Rameau(Les Indes galantes, 1737) or even Mozart in Bastien et Bastienne (1768). In France, the forlane became a furlane at the beginning of the twentiethcentury , but its lack of success prevented it from surviving the First World War.
Classical music
Friuli has not produced any major composers, but it has benefited from the influence of the neighbouring Veneto region, where musical history is particularly copious. For, as in painting, there was also a Venetian school of music. By the early 16thcentury , Venice had become a major centre of European musical life, following in the footsteps of Rome, whose attractiveness to artists declined after its sack in 1527. A prosperous city with a stable government, Venice quickly became a major publisher of musical scores. Composers flocked from all over Europe to take advantage of this innovation, particularly from Flanders. This explains why the first representatives of this Venetian school were Flemish, Jacques Buus and above all Adrian Willaert, who imported the polyphonic style of the Franco-Flemish school to Venice.
But it was really three decades later that the city would reach the height of its prestige with the birth of a violin prodigy and world-renowned composer of the Baroque period: Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1742). The other great Venetian composer of the Italian Baroque, Tomaso Albinoni, was a contemporary of Vivaldi but remained in his shadow. Among contemporaries, the Serenissima also gave birth to a great name: Luigi Nono (1924-1990). At the cutting edge of new music, Nono traversed serialism, aleatoric music, musique concrète and electronic music, without ever becoming a prisoner of one style or another.
Somewhere between contemporary classical and research music, we find an absolutely interesting native of Udine: Giancarlo Toniutti. A composer of free electroacoustic improvisations and a lover of the analog sound of the synthesizer, his talent has enabled him to collaborate with great names such as Conrad Schnitzler.
