Starting with the evocative 1934 composition Divertimento in quattro esercizio by Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975)-whose 120th birthday we celebrate-we will move into the next century to explore the output of two Italian, Roman composers who maintained in their music a link, at times evident, at others cleverly concealed, with the interest that Italian (and other) composers of the first half of the last century took in the repertoire of popular music, translating it, as many before them had done, into the poetics of courtly music.