The Legend of the Italian Tarantella

Pizzica is a fast, trance-inducing folk music and dance tradition from Salento in Apulia (southern Italy), considered a regional branch of the broader tarantella family. It is closely tied to the historical ritual of tarantism, in which insistent rhythms and circular dances were believed to heal victims of the tarantula bite (or psychosomatic afflictions) through cathartic movement. Its sound is driven by the tamburello (large frame drum), organetto (diatonic button accordion), guitar (often chitarra battente or strummed classical guitar), violin, and call-and-response vocals in the Salentino and Griko (Greek-Salentinian) dialects. Today, pizzica thrives both as a social dance music at festivals and as a contemporary concert style, blending tradition with modern arrangements while preserving its communal, ecstatic energy.

Tarantella is a family of fast, swirling southern Italian folk dances and song-forms associated with regions such as Calabria, Campania (tammurriata), Sicily, and Apulia/Salento (pizzica). In music, it is typically in compound duple meter (6/8 or 12/8), driven by the sharp rattle and rolls of the tamburello (frame tambourine), with lutes and guitars (chitarra battente), mandolin, organetto (diatonic accordion), zampogna (bagpipes), and reedy shawms (ciaramella) providing melody and drones. Stylistically, tarantella pieces often alternate between major and minor colorations and intensify through gradual accelerando, encouraging a whirling, call-and-response dance. Historically linked to the folkloric cure for “tarantism,” the modern tarantella has become one of the most recognizable symbols of southern Italian musical identity and a staple of stage performance and festival culture across Italy, Greece, and Malta.