Description

On Good Friday before dawn, in Sorrento, the Archconfraternity of Santa Monica performs a unique ritual: the ‘White Procession’ that winds through the silent town, visiting the Altars of Repose of the Churches located along the processional route. The event is accompanied by the singing of Psalm 50, marches played by the band and the sound of trumpets and rattles.

The volume is the result of research on the Miserere, performed by singers according to a practice related to oral tradition. The research is supported by the reconstruction of the work of Francesco Saverio Fiorentino, to whom the people of Sorrento attribute the composition of the Miserere. Inside, there is a contribution by anthropologist Giovanni Gugg on the paralinguistics of the ritual, which is renewed and continues over time. In addition, the volume is enriched by substantial ethnographic documentation of photos, images and sounds taken during field research.

Giuseppina Colicci, ethnomusicologist, Ph.D. at UCLA University of California, Los Angeles. She was a Visiting Scholar at CCRMA at Stanford University. She has taught in the Semester at Sea programme, at the University of Pittsburgh and at the University of Palermo. She presented her research on tonnara songs at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa. She taught in the Master Music EduAction programme at the Fiesole School of Music. She took part in the organisation of the AELM (Ethnic Linguistic Music Archive). She currently collaborates with the Master’s programme in Music Analysis and Theory at GATM (Music Analysis and Theory Group).

Olga Laudonia teaches music history at the Conservatory of Cosenza. Executive editor for PVH (Switzerland), she is a member of the scientific committee of the Quaderni del Conservatorio di Cagliari and the Rivista del Conservatorio di Cosenza. She has published for Di Mauro, Momenti, GDE, Ledizioni, Armelin, Turchini, Serassi, AOC and SIdM. Recipient of two scholarships for the Master’s Degree in Music Analysis and Theory at the University of Calabria, she holds a PhD in Musicology from the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music (Vatican) and five diplomas from the conservatories of Naples and Perugia.

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