The first peaceful years after World War II in Italy. On the site of the former ruins, new houses, enterprises, entire cities appear. However, the need for the spiritual revival of the people is acutely felt. The country now has a lot of things brought from abroad - jazz, twist, rumba, samba, tango. But you need something of your own, traditionally Italian. And one of the stages of this return of traditions was Festival in Sanremo.

Sanremo is a small town on the Ligurian coast. It was widely known throughout the world under the name "City of Flowers", and not in vain. The florists and flowers of this city brought him the well-deserved fame. Before the war, it was also very famous as one of the best resorts on the coast of Italy. Representatives of the aristocracy and upper strata of society from all over the world rested on it.

It is believed that the predecessor of the festival in San Remo was the National Song Festival, held in 1948 and 1949 in Versilia. This competition was no longer held due to financial problems, but it aroused the interest of the administrator of the casino in San Remo, Pierre Bussetti. In turn, Bussetti managed to attract maestro Giulio Razzi, director of the RAI broadcasting network, to the implementation of his new project. This idea, which makes it possible to popularize their own, national song, came in handy.

The rules of the festival were created. Various recording studios then existing in Italy were invited to submit compositions for participation in the competition. In total, more than 200 songs were received.

And so, on January 29, 1951, in a local casino, Festival in Sanremo started his story. As planned, the contest was broadcast by the second program of the Italian radio. The situation was not at all like it is now. Spectators sat at tables served by waiters, while artists performed from the stage of a small entertainment venue. The three-day competition was then attended by three performers with twenty songs. The first winner of the festival, which became legendary in the future, was Nilla Pizzi with the song "Thank you for the flowers."

Obviously, this modest situation explains the fact that the debut of the festival did not cause any international response, and even the first discs appeared only two weeks after it was held. Their circulation was very small - only about eighty thousand copies were sold. But time passed, and since 1954 the festival has been broadcast on television, and in 1977 it moved to the Ariston Theater, where it is still held.

The late fifties and sixties were golden years for San Remo. It gets huge popularity all over the world. In 1960, thirty million viewers watched the live broadcast! Since 1964, not only Italians, but also celebrities from other countries have been participating in the competition.

In 1967, a rule appeared that is still valid today - each performer can participate in the competition with a single song. In general, although the rules of the festival have changed many times, two of them have always existed: the singers perform original songs that have never been heard before in public, and the authors of these songs must be Italians. And although there were songs in both French and English at the festival, they were invariably written by Italian authors.

In the 1970s, the San Remo festival experienced a big decline. Among other things, this was due to the crisis in the Italian economy. The most famous performers stopped coming to the competition. In 1975, out of thirty participants, twenty-six were debutants, and only forty-five thousand records were sold.

The renaissance of San Remo began in the 1980s. Then the festival began to look more like a TV show than a competition. However, this does not in any way diminish the public's interest in the festival. It brings together members from a variety of musical genres. Famous artists and emerging talents compete on the same terms.

Many winners of the San Remo Festival have become real superstars. Among them Al Bano and Romina Power, 1984 winners, and 1986 runner-up Eros Ramazzotti.

The extraordinary popularity of the festival captured even the USSR. Individual episodes of it appeared on television, and in the mid-eighties, many famous Italian stars, including Al Bano and Romina Power, Tony Esposito, Toto Cutugno, Pupo, Ricky E Believe are invited on tour to Moscow and Leningrad.

Now the San Remo Song Festival is one of the oldest in Europe. It became the prototype of the Eurofestival, which later became known as the Eurovision Song Contest.

The famous 69th Italian Pop Song Festival opened on the stage of the Ariston Theater.

The famous music festival began last night, February 5, on the coast of the Ligurian Sea on the stage of the Ariston Theatre. The competition has been held annually since 1951. This year, as in the past, bard Claudilo Baglioni has become the artistic director and host of the show.

Comedians Virginia Raffaele and Claudio Bizin will help him on stage and introduce the contestants, Versiya.info reports.

And the world famous tenor

Sanremo 2019: the Italian song music festival is already open

Another song dedicated to the tragic death of the talented Italian singer Luigi Tenko is "Festival" by Francesco de Gregori, written in 1976.

Tenko famously shot himself during the 1967 Sanremo festival after his song "Ciao amore ciao" was rejected by the jury.
He wrote this song especially for the festival, where he and Dalida were supposed to perform it in turn. Before the performance, Tenko was very nervous and is said to have taken a sedative along with whiskey. As a result, he practically failed his performance and, although Dalida was, according to eyewitnesses, at the height of her skills, she did not manage to save the situation - the song was rejected on the very first evening. For Tenko it was a blow - he bet too much on success in this festival. Late at night, when everyone, including Dalida, went to a restaurant, he rushed off in his car to the hotel .. and no one else saw him alive. Later that night, Dalida, who came to talk to him and reassure him, found him on the floor of the room in a pool of blood and shot through the head.

A note was found next to the body, in which Tenko wrote that he was "doing this .. in protest against the public who chooses "Me, you and roses" and in the hope that this step will help people at least understand something." Hopes were in vain, the public did not understand anything.

Dalida, who apparently really loved Luigi, was never able to recover from this blow until the end of her life: a month later she tried to commit suicide, but she was pumped out. And until the end of her life, she could not listen without tears to that ill-fated song that caused the death of her dear Luigi - although she performed it quite often. I sang, but I couldn't listen...

The case of Tenko's death was carried out in a terrible hurry - the city authorities had to quickly get rid of the body that interfered with them. The main thing was to continue the festival by all means - show must go on! And so it continued, after a couple of routine phrases about an unpleasant event that shocked the assembled audience.

Tenko was buried in his homeland - in the small town of Rikaldon. Not a single representative of the Italian pop world came to a modest funeral, except for Fabrizio de Andre - they were all either at the festival or at the wedding of the American singer Gene Pitney.

Perhaps the most striking thing about this story is that all records related to this ill-fated festival have disappeared from the RAI archives. Just - emptiness, there is nothing .. as if it never existed. There is no performance of Tenko himself - only amateur footage of Dalida's rehearsal, of very poor quality. Only photographs remained, and those, in fact, are few. As if someone wanted to erase from the history of the Italian stage this not very pleasant page for her.

And now, after the introductory word, you can watch my video with this song: there is a translation under it - just click and the text will open.

The 17th Festival took place from January 26 to 28, 1967. The hosts were Mike Bongiorno and Renata Mauro. The orchestra was led in shifts by 25 conductors. Song won first place Non pensare a me("Don't Think of Me") performed by Claudio Villas And Willows Zanicchi.

Famous foreign performers performed at the festival - Anna German, Connie Francis, Marian Faithfull, British group The Hollies popular duet Sonny and Cher(the singer also performed solo). None of them made it to the final.

TRAGEDY IN SAN REMO ON THE NIGHT OF JANUARY 28
January 26 at the Festival extremely reluctantly with his song Ciao amore ciao performed by a popular composer, poet and singer Luigi Tenko. The same song was performed by Delilah. It was she who managed to convince Tenko to put Ciao amore ciao for the competition. The composer himself did not consider it worthy to participate in the Festival. And he turned out to be right. The song did not make it to the final, taking only 12th place as a result of voting. Wherein La rivoluzione Gianni Pettenati, which Tenko considered much worse than his own, managed to get into the final, taking the last 14th place in it. This led the composer into depression. He left the Casino and locked himself in his room at the Savoy Hotel.

There he was discovered by Dalida. A bullet hole gaped in Luigi Tenco's head. And in his hand was a suicide note. Later, the examination established that Tenko himself was its author. The composer expressed his disappointment with the musical tastes of Italian society, to which he devoted five years of his life. He asked to consider his suicide as a protest against this decision of the jury...

SONGS - FINALISTS
Non pensare a me (Alberto Testa e Eros Sciorilli) Claudio Villa – Iva Zanicchi
Quando dico che ti amo (Alberto Testa e Tony Renis) Annarita Spinaci – Les Surfs
Proposta (Albula e Giordano Bruno Martelli) Giganti – The Bachelors
La musica e finita (Nisa-Franco Califano-Umberto Bindi) Ornella Vanoni – Mario Guarnera
Io tu e le rose (Daniele Pace-Mario Panzeri-Mario Giacomo Gili-Luigi Barazzetti) Orietta Berti – Les Compagnons de la Chanson
Bisogna saper perdere (Giuseppe Cassia-Ruggero Cini) Lucio Dalla – The Rokes
Dove credi di andare (Sergio Endrigo) Sergio Endrigo – Memo Remigi
Pietre (Pieretti-Ricky Gianco) Gian Pieretti – Antoine
L "immensità (Aldo Caponi-Mogol-Detto Mariano) Johnny Dorelli - Don Backy
Cuore matto (Armando Ambrosino-Totò Savio) Little Tony – Mario Zelinotti
Io per amore (Donaggio-Vito Pallavicini) Pino Donaggio – Carmen Villani
Per vedere quant "è grande il mondo (Mogol-Carlo Donida) Wilma Goich - The Bachelors
E allora dai (Giorgio Gaber) Giorgio Gaber – Remo Germani
La rivoluzione (Mogol-Roberto Soffici) Gianni Pettenati – Gene Pitney

DID NOT GO TO THE FINAL
Canta ragazzina (Prog-Iller Pattacini-Carlo Donida) Bobby Solo – Connie Francis
C "è chi spera (Mario Panzeri-Daniele Pace-Giancarlo Colonnello) Riki Maiocchi - Marianne Faithfull
Ciao amore ciao (Luigi Tenco) Luigi Tenco – Dalida
Dedicato all "amore (Testa-Daniele Pace-Dunnio) Peppino Di Capri – Dionne Warwick
Devi aver fiducia in me (Francesco Specchia-Renato Martini) Roberta Amadei – Carmelo Pagano
È più forte di me (Del Monaco-Enrico Polito) Tony Del Monaco – Betty Curtis
Gi (Pallavicini-Antonio Amurri-Bongusto) Fred Bongusto – Anna German
Guardati alle spalle (Luciano Beretta-Pace) Nicola Di Bari – Gene Pitney
Il cammino di ogni speranza (Umberto Napolitano) Caterina Caselli – Sonny e Cher
Ma piano (per non svegliarmi) (Gianni Meccia) Nico Fidenco – Cher
Nasce una vita (Sergio Bardotti-Fontana) Jimmy Fontana – Edoardo Vianello
Non prego per me (Mogol-Battisti) Mino Reitano – The Hollies
Quando vedrò (Terzi- Carlo Alberto Rossi) Los Marcellos Ferial – The Happenings
Sopra i tetti azzurri del mio pazzo amore (Pallavicini-Modugno) Domenico Modugno – Gidiuli
Una ragazza (Pallavicini-Bruno Pallesi-Malgoni) Donatella Moretti – Bobby Goldsboro
Uno come noi (Umberto Martucci-Giorgio Bertero-Marino Marini) Milva – Los Bravos

Italian "sharks of the pen" say: the career of any performer of a popular song in the country begins with San Remo. Throughout its history, the San Remo Festival has opened the doors to the world of music and fame for more than a dozen musicians. Andrea Bocelli, Adriano Celentano, Eros Ramazzotti and Toto Cutugno became famous thanks to one well-performed song in a town called San Remo.

History pages

The Second World War brought grief not only to the countries that suffered from aggression by the Nazis. Italy, which supported Hitler, who lost this war, paid no less price. The devastation, the collapse of the economy and the rejection of the victorious countries plunged the country into shock. But the years passed, the horrors of the war years receded into the background, life took its toll, and the Italian soul wanted to sing again ... The idea to hold a song festival arose almost immediately after the war. The harbinger of the Sanremo Italian Song Festival we know today was the National Song Festival held by the organization La Campannina in 1948 at its own entertainment complex Capannini di Franceschi in Versilia. True, financial problems led to the fact that already in 1950 the competition did not take place. However, the director of a small casino in San Remo, Pier Busetti, liked the idea and, together with Giulio Razzi, revived the song festival.

And the new history of the world-famous event begins on January 29, 1951 in the casino headed by Busetti. The building of Kazno-Municipale was built by Eugene Ferre back in 1905 and was called Kursaal. Theatrical performances, concerts and festivals were held within the walls of the legendary casino. Although in those days the building was not yet a gambling house. It was not until January 21, 1928 that the Kursaal began to gamble. This happened before the war. Pierre Busetti breathed new life into the Casino Municipale, saving it from ruin: the San Remo Song Festival was held there until 1977 and only then “moved” to the Ariston Theater.

The very first Italian Song Festival was held in San Remo from 20 to 31 January 1951 in the Salone della Feste of the Busetti Casino. Of course, this event was not at all like that pompous and colorful Festival in San Remo, familiar to contemporaries. The contestants from the stage sang songs, and the audience sat at the tables, around which the waiters scurried around, carrying drinks. The festival was broadcast only on the second radio channel, and only three contestants took part in it: Achille Tagliani, duet Fasano and Nila Pizzi. In the first two evenings, each contestant performed ten songs, and the audience chose the best ones. On January 31, 10 songs were performed in the final, the best of which was recognized as "Thank you for the flowers" by Nilla Pizzi .

It should be noted that the first song festival in San Remo did not receive recognition abroad, and the record companies of the country reacted rather sluggishly. A few days after the end of the competition, about 80,000 printed copies of the concerto appeared. Success came, "from where they did not expect." In the same 1951, a musical film was released on television called "Sensation in San Remo" with the participation of Marika Rökk. Although the film had nothing to do with the song festival, it generated a wave of interest in it.

In 1952, Nila Pizzi again celebrated the victory, she also took the two remaining prizes. 1953 brought the first scandal at the Sanremo Song Festival: the author of the song "Regimental Drummer" Deany was accused of plagiarism. Only this year at the competition for the first time there was a real struggle for victory, during which Pizzi still lost to Carla Boni.

The next year was a landmark for the festival held in Sanremo: the song contest was shown on television for the first time (albeit on record). But already in 1955, millions of Italians were watching the song festival live. Out of more than four hundred songs, only 16 made it to the final. It must be said that the end of the 50s - 60s became a golden period in the history of the festival. Already in 1960, the number of viewers reached 30 million, and in 1961 the scandalous debut of Adriano Celentano took place, speaking with his back to the audience. Since 1964, world stars have taken part in the competition program of the San Remo festival.

But already 1967 became a tragic page in history: after his song was withdrawn from the competition, Luigi Tenko committed suicide. The festival of that year was in jeopardy, and the subsequent 70s became a crisis. The general decline in the world economy also affected culture, the best performers refused to participate in the festival, and television broadcast only the final of the competition. Nevertheless, 1970 was a triumphant year for the song "Who does not work, he does not make love", performed by the spouses Adriano Celentano and Claudia Mori. Perhaps the most difficult year for the Sanremo Italian Song Festival was the year 1975: 26 out of 30 contestants were newcomers, only 45,000 records found buyers, and the jury members were chosen completely at random using the phone book.

The "Renaissance" for the song festival began in the eighties, when the format of the event began to resemble a TV show. So, in 1980, the then-novice singer Toto Cutugno won with the song “Only Us”. True, in that year the songs were performed “under the plus” (music in the recording) or even “under the plywood”. In 1983, Cutugno entered the stage already as a favorite, but his hit "Italian" took only fifth place.

1984 was the first time that the performers were divided into two groups: famous singers and "new voices". It was at this time that the Italian song festival broke into the expanses of the USSR. At first, the TV program “Melodies and Rhythms of Foreign Variety Art” devoted a separate section to the festival in San Remo, and in 1984 an hour-long episode appeared on Soviet screens. Its success exceeded all expectations: people wrote thousands of letters to television with requests to show the songs of Italian artists. It was a real boom!

1986 brought victory to Eros Ramazzotti. But even here there was a scandal: one of the contestants, along with the dancers, attached their stomachs and simulated pregnancy. Live performance was restored in 1990. In addition, the 90s again brought foreign stars to the Italian stage. So, in 1998, Ricky Martin and the Backstreet Boys sang in San Remo, ”and in 2000 - Sting, Tina Turner and Robbie Williams.

In 2005, the number of nominations at the Italian Song Festival was expanded to four: women, men, groups and classical. But already in 2007, the organizers returned to the previous scheme: newcomers and accomplished performers. And in 2011 in San Remo they again began to elect a performer who will represent Italy at Eurovision.

Modernity

In recent decades, the Italian Song Festival has been held annually in late February - early March in the town of Sanremo. The competition itself is not a competition of performers, but of original songs written by Italian composers. The main condition is that the song must not be performed publicly before the start of the festival. Since 2005, the winner has been determined by a mixed vote of a professional jury and viewers. At one time (in 1955) the Sanremo Song Festival became the benchmark for the Eurovision Song Contest. Now the Italian contest is broadcast on the Eurovision channels, being one of the most significant events in Italy, causing a huge amount of controversy and controversy.

Forgetting the facts and statistics, the San Remo Song Festival can safely be called the soul of Italy. Together with the state, it flourished and withered, newfangled trends and scandals did not bypass the competition, the hosts joked ambiguously, and guests and contestants turned their performances into rallies, even orchestras rebelled here ... Nevertheless, the festival in San Remo continues to exist, moving into in the same direction as Italy, and, like several decades ago, young people not only in body but also in soul go here just to sing.