Tunes and chants of Italian workers who emigrated in Austria

The present research is focussing its attention on repertoires of traditional tunes and chants sung by Italian workers who emigrated from Italy to Austria. Emigration from Italy to Austria has concerned, in the course of history, various classes of workers: female textile workers, male labourers, workers and craftsmen employed in the construction of roads, railways and tunnels, masons, forest operators, factory workers, peddlers. Taking into consideration the ethno-musicological research in Italy, it will be interesting to find out if there are corpora of songs belonging to specific working class categories (i.e. the repertoires of the female loom-workers or of the labourers and mine-workers who contributed to building railroads, tunnels, etc). The objective of the research therefore consists in the identification and collection of a repertoire that can be attributed to the various classes of workers. In addition to the inquiry on the existence of these repertoires, there will also be a collection of the songs considered as being Italian by the subjects interviewed (songs belonging to other repertoires, such as the Italienerlieder). Another aspect investigated by the research regards the extent to which the emigrants have assimilated the German-language repertoire in their new homeland. The research will examine those geographical areas and communities in which groups of people emigrated from Italy are still present and it will record what remained of their original musical heritage. This study will take great care in recording the particular circumstances, the performing details and the connotation (meaning) that this kind of singing activity has acquired for the people who are still practising it. The first phase of the work programme will consist in contacting the individuals or groups of individuals to be interviewed and met. The next phase will be the identification and field recording of their music (vocal and instrumental). Song recording will be followed by the transcription and systematic ordering of the material collected. Finally, bibliographical traces of the songs collected in Austria by Italian emigrants in the light of the ethno-musicological research conducted in Italy, so as to assess their dissemination. The institution to which reference is made by this research is the "Institut für Volksmusikforschung und Ethnomusikologie" at the "Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst" of Vienna. In this institution there exists, since 1990, the "minority music" research "key points". The project regarding the music and songs of Italian emigrants to Austria wishes to be a contribution to this key point, with the intention of bringing new knowledge to this field from the standpoint of Italian ethno-musicology.