Nun me scetà

Ernesto Tagliaferri set Nun me scetà to words by Ernesto Murolo, one of the partnerships that carried the Neapolitan song past the First World War, when the older Piedigrotta machinery was breaking down. Tagliaferri worked as a publisher as well as a composer, and later formed a long collaboration with Nicola Valente. The title — do not wake me — places the whole song inside a dream the singer refuses to leave, and the melody is built to be taken slowly, with the long held notes that tenors have used it for ever since.