Notable among these local traditions was the Canzone Napoletana—the Neapolitan Song. Although there are anonymous, documented songs from Naples from many centuries ago, the time period, canzone Napoletana now generally refers to a large physique of comparatively current, composed well-liked music—such songs as “‘O Sole Mio”, “Torna a Surriento”, and “Funiculi Funicula”. In the 18th century, many composers, including Alessandro Scarlatti, Leonardo Vinci, and Giovanni Paisiello, contributed to the Neapolitan tradition by utilizing the local language for the texts of a few of their comic operas. Later, others—most famously Gaetano Donizetti—composed Neapolitan songs that garnered great renown in Italy and overseas. The Neapolitan track custom grew to become formalized within the 1830s through an annual songwriting competitors for the yearly Piedigrotta festival, dedicated to the Madonna of Piedigrotta, a nicely known church within the Mergellina area of Naples.

The Baroque period (1580–1750) saw the relative standardization of common-practice tonality, in …