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Piano sheet music for kids · Folk song · Level 5: A wider range
Funiculì, Funiculà
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 6/8, 16 bars. Press Play to hear it on a real piano, slow it down, or hear one hand at a time; click any note to start from there; print it for the music stand.
About this arrangement
The famous chorus of a Neapolitan song from 1880, in a quick 6/8 with the original Neapolitan words: “jam-me, jam-me, ’ncop-pa” means “let’s go, let’s go, up to the top”. The first eight bars are short shouts around the B and A above middle C, each a dotted crotchet (dotted quarter note) and a quaver followed by rests. Then the tune drops to E for “fu-ni-cu-lì, fu-ni-cu-là”, a long row on one note, and jumps up to a held “là!” under a pause sign. The left hand plays G7, F and C, with E7, which has a G sharp, and A minor in the middle.
Practice tip: Keep the rests in the first eight bars crisp, like a shout and a breath. In bars 9 to 11 the right hand stays on E, so watch the left hand move from E7 to A minor and back.
The words
Jamme, jamme, 'ncoppa, jamme jà, jamme, jamme, 'ncoppa, jamme jà, funiculì, funiculà, funiculì, funiculà! 'Ncoppa, jamme jà, funiculì, funiculà!
A short history
Funiculì, Funiculà was written in 1880 by the composer Luigi Denza (1846–1922), with words in the Neapolitan language by the journalist Peppino Turco, to celebrate the opening that year of the first funicular railway up Mount Vesuvius, the volcano above Naples. A funicular is a cable railway that hauls its cars up a steep slope, and the title is a playful twist on the word.
Denza and Turco presented the song at the Piedigrotta festival in Naples, and the sheet music, published by Ricordi, is said to have sold a million copies within a year. It was so popular that Richard Strauss took it for a folk song and put it in his symphonic fantasy Aus Italien; Denza took him to court and won.
The funicular itself was destroyed when Vesuvius erupted in 1944, but the song is still sung all over the world.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Luigi Denza, 1880
- Words
- Peppino Turco
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 6/8
- Length
- 16 bars
- Tempo
- Merrily, dotted crotchet = 72
- Difficulty
- Level 5: A wider range (piece 161 of 201)
- Type
- Folk song
- Hands
- Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left
- Copyright
- Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use
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