Kia ora, こんにちは, hello and welcome to Many Voices: A world music podcast. Some call music “the universal language” - but how many songs do you know in one of the world’s 6,000+ languages besides English? Every week, I ask a guest who speaks one of those languages to share six songs from their own culture, and their thoughts on the science behind the world’s musical diversity. I’m your host, Dr Patrick Savage, author of the 2026 book, Comparative musicology.
For today’s episode, I talked with Professor Andrea Ravignani of the Sapienza University of Rome, one of the world’s leading scientists of the biology and evolution of music and language. Andrea shared Italian songs from his homeland like the anti-fascist anthem “Bella Ciao”. But interestingly, Andrea didn’t see being “Italian” as his primary identity. So he also shared non-Italian European instrumental music like John Powell’s music from “How to Train Your Dragon”. Andrea also shared his thoughts on topics like how and why musicality might have evolved, and the importance of interdisciplinary dialogue between the humanities and sciences. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Andrea as much as I did!
For more information on Andrea’s research, see the description for the link to his Google Scholar profile (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WKijbGUAAAAJ). For rights reasons, we only share short excerpts, but for playlists with full recordings of music from these and other Many Voices episodes, visit http://many-voices.com, where you can also find links to video or audio-only versions of all episodes wherever you get your podcasts. And please like and subscribe to help us keep the whole world singing!
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
03:35 #1 (traditional): Trio Sonata op. 1 no. 12 RV 63 "La Follia" - Composed by Antonio Vivaldi, Performed by Cilea Saxophone Quartet (https://youtu.be/g7sOlOnM9JA)
06:08 #2 (contemporary): “I Cento Passi” - Modena City Ramblers (https://youtu.be/KUpcxdg2Iqs)
08:01 #3 (happy): “Test Drive” (from the “How To Train Your Dragon" - John Powell (performed by London Music Works) (https://youtu.be/zTSXiF_cxG8)
12:12 #4 (sad): “Goldberg Variations”, BWV 988 - J. S. Bach (performed by Andreas Staier) (https://youtu.be/Jq-ahSRT1lA)
14:24 #5 (dance): “Libertango” - Astor Piazzolla (performed by the Russian Philharmonic) (https://youtu.be/kdhTodxH7Gw)
16:53 #6 (bonding/meaningful): “Bella Ciao” - versions by Modena City Ramblers (https://youtu.be/_92gzyoaQLk) and by Andrea Ravignani for Ozaki et al., 2024, Science Advances (https://osf.io/uxmtp)
20:25 Broader thoughts on music and science
Credits:
Recorded on April 19 2026 in Leiden, the Netherlands
Guest: Prof Andrea Ravignani
Presenter/producer/editor: Dr Patrick Savage
Intro/outro music: "Hearing music evolve" (Patrick Savage, Hideo Daikoku, Kenta Ueda, Yoichi Kitayama, Marin Naruse, The HU, Timbaland, Gakuto Chiba, Sona Jobarteh, et al., https://youtu.be/Qe1R-R1-Q7A)
Many Voices logo design: Dr Florence Nweke
