Salvatore Cardillo (20 February 1874 – 5 February 1947) was an

Italian-American Italian Americans ( it, italoamericani or ''italo-americani'', ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, ...

composer. Born in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adm ...

, he studied piano and composition in Italy before emigrating in 1903 to the United States as a university graduate. His career encompassed songwriting and movie music. He died in New York. Cardillo's richly scored and still popular 1911 romance ''

Core 'ngrato "Core 'ngrato" (; "Ungrateful Heart"), also known by the first words "Catarì, Catarì" (short and dialectal form for ''Caterina'', a female first name), is a 1911 Neapolitan song by emigrant American composer Salvatore Cardillo with lyrics by ...

'' (''Ungrateful Heart'') — also known by its lyric ''Catarì, Catarì, pecchè me dici sti parole amare'' — was written in America to a text in Neapolitan dialect by Alessandro Sisca (Riccardo Cordiferro); it is in fact the only famous Neapolitan song by an

immigrant. The song's first exponent was the operatic tenor

Enrico Caruso Enrico Caruso (, , ; 25 February 1873 – 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic first lyrical tenor then dramatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles (74) ...

, but it is not clear whether he commissioned it.

Franco Corelli Franco Corelli (8 April 1921 – 29 October 2003) was an Italian tenor who had a major international opera career between 1951 and 1976. Associated in particular with the spinto and dramatic tenor roles of the Italian repertory, he was cel ...

Luciano Pavarotti Luciano Pavarotti (, , ; 12 October 19356 September 2007) was an Italian operatic tenor who during the late part of his career crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most acclaimed tenors of all time. He made numero ...

Plácido Domingo José Plácido Domingo Embil (born 21 January 1941) is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French ...

José Carreras Josep Maria Carreras Coll (; born 5 December 1946), better known as José Carreras (, ), is a Spanish operatic tenor who is particularly known for his performances in the operas of Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini. Born in Barcelona, he made his de ...

and, more recently,

Roberto Alagna Roberto Alagna (; born 7 June 1963) is a French operatic tenor. He obtained French citizenship in 1981, while also retaining his previous Italian citizenship. Early years Alagna was born in Clichy-sous-Bois, outside the city of Paris, in 1963 t ...

and

Jonas Kaufmann Jonas Kaufmann (born 10 July 1969) is a German operatic tenor. He is best known for the versatility of his repertoire, performing a variety of opera roles in multiple languages in recitalTommasini, Anthony (21 February 2014)"A Tenor Finds Energy ...

are among the tenors to have included ''Core 'ngrato'' in their repertories. The composer also wrote the songs ''Barcarola'', to a text by Edoardo San Giovanni, and ''Oi luna'' (''O Silvery Moon''), to a text by Riccardo Cordiferro. These were published in 1921 as "Two Neapolitan Songs" by G. Schirmer Inc. in New York.

Bibliography

*Sciorra, Joseph. “Diasporic Musings on Veracity and Uncertainties of ‘Core ‘ngrato’,” "Neapolitan Postcards: The Canzone Napoletana as Transnational Subject," Ed. Goffredo Plastino and Joseph Sciorra. (Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2016), 115–150. *Frasca, Simona. “Italian Birds of Passage: The Diaspora of Neapolitan Musicians in New York,” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). *Laird, Ross, et al., eds (2001). ''Brunswick Records: A Discography of Recordings, 1916-1931''. Westport: Greenwood Press. *Lavery, David (2002). ''Investigating the Sopranos''. New York: Columbia University Press.. 1874 births 1947 deaths Italian male songwriters Italian songwriters Male songwriters Italian emigrants to the United States {{songwriter-stub