Italy has long been a center for European classical music, and by the beginning of the twentieth century, Italian classical music had solid a definite nationwide sound that was decidedly Romantic and melodic. Italian music also had little in common with the French response to that German music—the impressionism of Claude Debussy, for instance, in which melodic improvement is basically abandoned for the creation of temper and atmosphere by way of the sounds of individual chords. During this period, some leaders tried to use music to forge a unifying cultural id. One instance is the refrain “Va, pensiero” from Giuseppe …
