Francesco Portelli

This is one of the stranger mystery tenors. His few recordings (six sides) are not exactly rare, at least four of them, so he is rather well-known to collectors. All six sides feature Italian songs (four of them Neapolitan), all were made in Berlin in 1928, and all are labelled "Franzesco Portelli". Now Franzesco was a name form that did exist in medieval Italian, but nobody in the 20th century was certainly called Franzesco (in modern Italian, it's Francesco of course). A mistake by the German record company, Franz being the German equivalent of Francesco? Or a pseudonym? In any case, other than those six sides, he didn't leave any trace of his existence.

Francesco (?) Portelli was Italian, his pronunciation leaves no doubt about that; but, as they would put it in Italy, non parlava un'acca del napoletano (he didn't speak a jot of Neapolitan, but the Italian expression is much prettier: he didn't speak an H of Neapolitan – the H inevitably never sounds in Italian, of course). The voice is not bad, though very short (a weak low register, and no top); the style of the songs is expertly mastered. My guess is, with all due precaution, that he may have been some music hall or café-concert singer who was engaged somewhere in Berlin in fall 1928.

I wish to thank Daniele Godor for the recording and label.