Sergio Bruni

In 1984 Sergio Bruni released "Napoli – La sua canzone", an ambitious album packaged as a box set of four LPs. In 1991 he revisited the project with "Napoli – La sua canzone (Seconda parte)", another four LPs.

Both projects had limited pressings and soon went out of print. In 2006 the label Lucky Planets – based in Milan, but always attentive to Neapolitan music – merged them into "Antologia napoletana 1200-1990", a 3-CD set. It's not an entirely successful operation: the original works contained 40 songs each, 80 in total, while this collection includes only 59 - a fourth disc would have been enough to include every track.

In any case, since it's currently the only available reissue of that material, there's no alternative, especially since this anthology itself hasn't been reprinted since its release and today only warehouse leftovers can be found. Things aren't any better on the digital market: in 2013 it was added to streaming services, but was later removed and has never returned since – and then people wonder why Italian music is completely forgetting its own roots!

These are by no means minor works — in fact, the names involved are giants of Italian culture: the tracks are almost all arranged by Roberto De Simone (musician and musicologist, a pivotal figure in Naples' cultural life in the second half of the twentieth century, already celebrated on OndaRock with the article dedicated to "La gatta Cenerentola"), while the mandolin is played by Antonio Coletti and the lead guitars by Antonio Siano and Umberto Leonardo, top names on the local scene. Sergio Bruni plays rhythm guitar, with remarkable skill besides, and of course sings.

The voice takes center stage: there are no choruses or overdubs, everything rests on a single vocal line recorded live in one take. The value of Bruni's voice is well explained by De Simone's words:

Sergio Bruni is not from Naples, he is from Villaricca, a small town a few kilometres from Naples. Sergio's mother came from peasant stock. In Bruni what stands out first of all is a distinctive vocal style rooted in the great popular ethnic tradition of the whole Campania region, but alongside this natural gift he also pursued careful study. He studied clarinet, he studied music, working towards control of particular vocal emissions that have nothing to do with the bel canto style — guttural sounds, vocal slides, glissandi, throaty attacks that are extremely difficult to control within the particular context of urban song. Because of this dual nature — a singer rooted in Campania grafted onto the culture of Neapolitan bel canto — Bruni is a unique singer. This uniqueness seems to reconnect with the tradition described by seventeenth- and sixteenth-century writers such as Giambattista Basile, Felippo Sgruttendio and Giulio Cesare Cortese, who told tales of Neapolitan singers who enchanted Europe with the melodies of the villanelle of the 1500s and 1600s.

(From the broadcast “Sergio Bruni: Napoli – La sua canzone”, RaiDue, November 1991)

The ambition to compile an anthology of the history of Neapolitan music from its origins to the present day was not exclusive to Bruni: twenty years before him, Roberto Murolo had the same idea, publishing between 1963 and 1965 the twelve albums of the series “Napoletana – Antologia cronologica della canzone partenopea”.

The stripped-back approach was also Murolo's idea: he sang and played those records entirely on his own, giving an impressive display of skill and arranging ability. By the time of those Murolo records, Bruni was already an established singer, but he approached the repertoire with far more commercial arrangements, often marked by intrusive orchestrations that were anything but faithful to tradition.

However, while Murolo was undoubtedly the pioneer of this drive to strip Neapolitan music of the veneer of modernity and market logic, that does not mean the results Bruni achieved later were any less outstanding: the arrangements De Simone crafted for him are richer, often built around two guitars and a mandolin. The restraint is preserved, but at the same time there is more going on: given that both singers' projects run to dozens upon dozens of songs, having more than one element to keep the listener's attention alive can certainly help.

Moreover, the vocal styles are completely different: Murolo's is unmatched for cleanliness and composure, while Bruni's is clearly more dynamic. These are opposite approaches, and it's impossible to say which is better, but perhaps the latter offers more variety to anyone new to this field.

It's also worth noting that devotees of this field tend to side with Murolo, perhaps partly because of the man's modesty, whereas Bruni's exuberance did not win everyone's affection.

Anyone who has spent time among enthusiasts of this field, however small that circle may now be, will have noticed that Bruni is often seen as excessive compared to Murolo, though there is nothing scientifically provable about it. If anything, when it comes to the part of the repertoire rooted in peasant and working-class origins, it seems plausible that it was sung with a raw, full-blooded approach closer to Bruni's style than to Murolo's — which is essentially what De Simone himself said in the words quoted above, even while avoiding direct comparisons between the two singers: Bruni also draws on music from the countryside around Naples and on vocal styles that predate the birth of bel canto.

“Antologia napoletana 1200-1990” opens with “Canto delle lavandaie del Vomero”, dating precisely from the 1200s and considered the oldest surviving fragment of Neapolitan music. At the time, the Vomero district was disconnected from Naples and consisted of a small fortification with a few scattered houses around it; it also had no significant watercourses, so the washerwomen from that area travelled elsewhere for their work (Capodimonte, Porta Capuana).

The lyrics consist of just a few lines, which can be translated as follows:

You promised me four handkerchiefs,

I've come here, will you give them to me?

And if it's not four, then give me two,

what you wear around your neck isn't yours anyway

Some interpret these words as a protest song: the handkerchiefs would represent plots of land promised by the local lord to the peasants and then denied to them. Some also believe the accused party was Alfonso V of Aragon, but the theory doesn't hold up, since the monarch ruled Naples only from 1442 onward. That said, De Simone believes it was simply a song used to keep rhythm during work, with no hidden meaning behind it.

The second track on the album is "Villanella ch'all'acqua vaie", dating back to around 1500: there's a three-century gap in between, due to the scarcity of documentation on popular music of that era. From there on, the dates gradually become denser, and by the tenth track we reach 1732 with "Chi disse ca la femmena", set to music by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi: we thus move from popular choruses born in the Middle Ages around public fountains to commissions from Enlightenment-era courts in the modern age.

As we draw closer to the present day, the material grows exponentially: the 19th century contributes 24 tracks to Bruni's repertoire, and the 20th century another 25. Towards the end of the third CD, tracks penned by the singer himself also appear, the author of several great classics: "Palcoscenico" (1956), "Na bruna" (1966), "Carmela" (1976), "Amaro è 'o bene" (1980), "Napule è mille ferite" (1981), "Parole nove" (1982) and "Bella si tu venisse int' a sti braccia" (1990). The dates in brackets refer to the year Bruni composed the songs: for the first four, these aren't his original recordings but versions reworked to fit the project's stripped-back style, while the last two were recorded specifically for the occasion, for the first and second volumes of "Napoli – La sua canzone" respectively.

In the hope that the 21 missing tracks will find their way into some future reissue, "Antologia napoletana 1200-1990" remains an essential treasure trove for all lovers of Neapolitan music and, more broadly, for anyone who cares about the preservation of Italian culture.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

01/03/2026