The tarantella is a traditional dance form, and accompanying music, with a distinctive rhythm, from the south of Italy. Tarantellas appear in many pieces of classical music, in literature, and in popular culture.

Classical music

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Film

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Television

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  • The Backyardigans episode "The Legend of the Volcano Sisters" features Tarantella as the music style du jour.

Stage

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  • It has appeared in the musical version of Peter Pan (1954 on stage) with Mary Martin, and is danced by Captain Hook and his band of pirates, illustrating the above-mentioned occasional association with sword fights vis à vis the metaphor of pirates. In this performance, which is available on film, television, and DVD, the context is silly fun.
  • In the song "How I Saved Roosevelt" from Assassins, a tarantella is used to musically represent Giuseppe Zangara.

Video games

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Literature

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  • Hilaire Belloc's poem "Tarantella" (1929) mimics in words the progress of the dance, culminating in the stillness of death. Online versions of the poem vary: a reliable printed version can be found in The Oxford Book of Modern Verse.[13]
  • In Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House, a performance of the tarantella is central to the plot.[14]
  • Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Gold-Bug" (1843) features the introductory lines, "What ho! What ho! This fellow is dancing mad. He has been bitten by the tarantella", which Poe ascribes to a 1761 play by Arthur Murphy, although the lines do not appear in the play.[15]
  • Tim Powers' novel Medusa's Web (2015) uses the 18/8 version of the tarantella and its effect on (supernatural) spiders as a plot device.[16]
  • In Susan Sontag's novel The Volcano Lover: A Romance (1992), Lady Emma Hamilton shocks her company by dancing a tarantella.[17]
  • In Carolina De Robertis' novel The Gods of Tango (2015), the crowd at the port of Naples sings a tarantella to send off the new emigrants to Buenos Aires.[18]

Comics

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  • In Axis Powers Hetalia, Southern Italy/Romano cures his disease by dancing the tarantella with Spain; one of the songs sung by him, "The Delicious Tomato Song", is a tarantella.

References

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  1. ^ "The Years of Refuge (1841–1846) - 1841". Internet Chopin Information Centre.
  2. ^ Video of the composer playing his Tarantella live 2014 on YouTube
  3. ^ a b c d Zinn, Joshua (14 August 2014). "HPM Top Ten List: Dance Forms That Inspired Music". Houston Public Media.
  4. ^ "Preludio - Santiago de Murcia".
  5. ^ Free scores by List of tarantellas at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
  6. ^ Video on YouTube, and Score
  7. ^ John Serry Sr. (Composer) (18 March 1946). Tarantella for solo stradella accordion (1942). Library of Congress – Copyright Office.
  8. ^ John Serry Sr. (23 March 1976). Tarantella for solo stradella accordion (Revised 1955). New York: Viccas Music Co. ID # EP7269 & # RS48482.
  9. ^ Published score
  10. ^ "Nocturne and Tarantella, Op.28 (Szymanowski, Karol)". IMSLP. Retrieved 14 October 2019.
  11. ^ Pontolillo, Nicholas (5 July 2017). "BWW Review: THE GODFATHER IN CONCERT at Tilles Center At LIU Post: A production "you can't refuse"". Broadway World. While they walk into the house to talk, the Corleone family begins singing "C'è la luna mezzo mare", which is a comical Italian tarantella.
  12. ^ Broxton, Jonathan (21 August 2009). "INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS – Ennio Morricone/Various Artists". Movie Music UK.
  13. ^ Foster, Oli (7 July 2017). "On the Tarantella trail Oli Foster follows in the footsteps of Hilaire Belloc, line by line through a famous poem – and the Pyrenees". The Times Literary Supplement.
  14. ^ Colella, Sandra (2007). "TARANTISM AND TARANTELLA IN A DOLL'S HOUSE" (PDF). Universitetet i Oslo (Master's Thesis).
  15. ^ "The Gold=Bug". eapoe.org.
  16. ^ Powers, Tim (2016). Medusa's Web (Kindle ed.). Atlantic Books. p. 96. ISBN 978-1-78239-183-8.
  17. ^ Gates, David (23 August 1992). "There Is No Crater Love". Newsweek.
  18. ^ de Robertis, Carolina (2015). The Gods of Tango. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 34. ISBN 9781101874493.