Alan Lomax Archive | Orazio Strano: Ciuri di pipi Messinesi (Messina Pepper Flowers) (1954) @AlanLomaxArchive | Uploaded July 2020 | Updated October 2024, 1 day ago.
Performed by Orazio Strano (vocal and guitar). Recorded in Riposto (Catania), Sicily, July 10, 1954.

From Lomax's notebook: "Visit with the poet of the town — paralyzed in the war. He travels through Sicily and Calabria in a little truck with his guitars, and painted banners depicting the story of his latest ballad and folios of his songs. His neck is bent to one side with paralysis, but he has a beautiful, wide handsome head, fine keen tender brown eyes, and the air of an artist. He thinks his material is as good as any … and has fan letters — proud to show. Lives in one room, painted pink with gold flower designs. Married with five children — no pension — can’t go out of his house in winter because the cold gives him a bad time."

Orazio Strano was a key figure in the post–World War II revival of the art of the Sicilian pueti-cantastorie, “poet-story singer” (together with Ignazio Buttitta, Ciccio Busacca, and Turiddu Bella). Born in 1904 in Riposto on the Catanian shore, Strano became immobilized after contracting arthritis during military service; but with the help of his son, Leonardo (who also became a cantastorie), he traveled throughout Sicily, singing his story-poems in piazzas and at village fairs. In 1929, he met the poet Turiddu Bella from Mascali (Catania), an encounter that led to his original composition “Chi cosa è la donna?” (“What is woman?”). Its success cemented the working friendship between the two poets that lasted until Strano’s death in Riposto in 1981. Assisted by Bella, as well as by the artistic efforts of poster painter Vincenzo Astuto from Messina, Strano’s fame as a cantastorie spread far beyond the public squares of Sicily to the mainland and even across the ocean to the Italo-American community. Among his many published narrative songs are: “La vita di John Fitzgerald Kennedy” (“The Life of John Fitzgerald Kennedy”); “Peppi Musulinu, re di l’Asprumunti” (“Giuseppe Musolino, King of Aspromonte”); “Pani e rispettu a li travagghiaturi” (“Bread and Respect for Workers”). His songs were heard in the soundtracks of such well-known Italian neorealist films as La terra trema (Luchino Visconti, 1948) and Il cammino della speranza (Pietro Germi, 1950). In 1980, Strano’s Turi Giulianu, re di li briganti (Salvatore Giuliano, King of the Bandits) was featured in the soundtrack of Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull.

Strano here plays a song in the style of the ciuri di pipi. These are stornelli, in Sicilian called ciuri, from the musical tradition of the city of Messina, where he often performed. Ciuri di pipi for the most part satiric in tone and as spicy and pungent as pipi, peppers. Until the 1950s they were performed during Carnival in Messina by masked violinists who would roam the streets of the city improvising good luck-verses (a complimento), often in front of stores, in hope of a gratuity of food or money. If they didn’t receive the hoped-for payment, the ciuri could become quite salacious and downright offensive. Orazio Strano here uses the ciuri di pipi form, usually monostrophic (that is, having one verse, as is usual in stornellos), to compose an augurio matrimoniale (matrimonial good-luck song) in several stanzas. He substitutes a vocalized nonsense refrain for the instrumental interlude usually performed by the violin.

Quantu si bbedda fìgghia, ora si granni,
mi vìninu nto cori milli spinni,
mi ricuordu facevi li cumanni.
Nanna ninna ninna nanna ninna naninanà
nanna ninna ninna nanna ninna naninanà

Ora bbidduzza ti facisti zita,
difatti bbedda mia si cchiù abbasata,
dimmi quann’eni la to maritata.

Nanna ninna ninna…

Ti fazzu l’auguri infiniti,
figghiuzza bbedda certu cchiù abbasati.
Dopu spusati unni vi nni iti?

Nanna ninna ninna…

La luna, bbedda mia, è tutta meli
e na spusata d’oggi assai vali,
si ’m palummedda acchiani nta li celi.

Nanna ninna ninna…

Poi quannu si ddintra lu to iardinu,
senti lu cantu di lu rusignolu
però bbidduzza sùsiti i matinu.

Nanna ninna ninna…

[Translation:] How lovely you are, daughter, now that you’re grown, / A thousand desires rise up in my heart. / I remember how you used to command everyone. / Nanna ninna ninna nanna ninna naninanà, / nanna ninna ninna nanna ninna naninanà. // Now, pretty one, you are engaged. / In fact, my beauty, you are sweeter than ever, / Tell me when your wedding will take place. // I give my infinite best wishes, / Certainly, lovely girl, more fitting. / Where will you go once you two are married? // The moon, my pretty one, is all honey, / A bride today is worth so much / That you are like a little dove flying into the heavens. // Then, when you go into your garden, / You will hear the song of the nightingale. / But, my beauty, [remember to] get up in the morning.

Notes and translation by Goffredo Plastino, 2000.