Caro Mio
Ben
—for Cara mia Laura
This is from the Digital
collection of the
New York Public Library. It is presumed
to be of Giuseppe Giordani, who was
presumed to be the composer of the...
Just read the story.
I hope this bit of irrelevancy
serves to distract you from the atonal worries
of the world for a few moments. It did me. The
Italian air, Caro Mio Ben, is very
well-known and has been recorded by more opera
singers than you can shake a baton at. Just
YouTube the title. You'll see. Interesting,
though —not a lot is known about it, except
that the beginning sounds exactly like the
“Deep in my heart/I do believe” part of We
Shall Overcome. And we do know that the
title does not translate as "Benny, I Really
Like You."
We don't even know who wrote it. I asked
around among local friends whom I knew to be
opera freaks fans. They all
knew it, but no one remembered the composer.
It would be fine if the tune were just
generally conceded to be anonymous —that
happens sometimes—
but Caro Mio Ben has traditionally
been attributed to one Giuseppe Giordani
(1751-1798), nicknamed “Giordanello”. That's
what it says on almost all sheet music and
what it will say if you look at film or video
credits from even a few years ago. Giuseppe
Giordani was born in Naples, studied with the
great Domenico
Cimarosa and became during his lifetime
a widely respected composer throughout Italy.
Besides Caro Mio Ben, he is remembered
for his sacred drama La distruzione di
Gerusalemme, which was a great success
at the San Carlo theater in 1787. (Goethe was
at opening night and said something
incomprehensibl intellectual about it.)
Giordani became maestro di cappella/musical
director at the Cathedral of Fermo in 1791.
(Fermo is in central Italy on the Adriatic. It
is now in the Marche region of Italy, but in
Giordani's time it was part of the Papal States.)
The attribution seemed solid enough for a
couple of centuries. Recent scholarship,
however, has claimed that the real composer is
Giordani's older brother, Tommaso Giordani
(c.1730-c.1805). He, too, was trained in
Naples, but unlike brother Giuseppe, he spent
most of his professional life abroad,
eventually winding up in Ireland, where he had
a long and active career. His works range from
opera, comic opera and incidental music for
theater to sonatas, concertos, and chamber
music.
So, you have two choices? No, it gets worse.
The “G.B. Pergolesi” music conservatory in the
town of Fermo has, naturally, a biography of
Giuseppe Giordani on its website. The
biography has this: “There was another
Giuseppe Giordani in the first half of the
1700s and he—not our “Giordanello”—was the
composer of Caro Mio Ben.” The
conservatory claims to be able to document
that claim and invites visitors to come and
see for themselves. At least as strange is the
portrait of Giuseppe Giordani that they use in
their biography [and I use at the top of this
page]—yes, it is Giuseppe Giordani, but it may
be the wrong one...no, wait...he would be the
right one if he is, in fact, the real
composer of "Benny, I Really like you" but
then apparently not the Giordani who wrote
that thing about Jerusalem getting destroyed.
You can finesse the whole thing by doing what
some sneaky attributions do —just write
“anonymous” or even better, “by Giordani, pick
one.” Does anyone ever get confused and call
him (or them) “Giordano.” All the time.
Oh, the parents were really helpful in all
this. Giuseppe's second name was Tommaso, the
same as his older brother's first name. I have
not made any of this up.