Sanremo Music Festival 1956

The Sanremo Music Festival 1956 (Festival di Sanremo 1956), officially the 6th Italian Song Festival (6º Festival della canzone italiana), was the sixth annual Sanremo Music Festival, held at the Sanremo Casino in Sanremo between 8 and 10 March 1956. The show was presented by actor Fausto Tommei, assisted by television announcer Maria Teresa Ruta.

The winner of the festival was "Aprite le finestre", performed by Franca Raimondi, and the runner-up was "Amami se vuoi", performed by Tonina Torrielli.

The festival also inspired the international Eurovision Song Contest, which held its inaugural edition this year. The two first placed songs of this edition went on to represent.

Contest overview
According to the rules of this edition, every song was performed by a newcomer artist in the music scene. The six artists were selected through the competition "Concorso nazionale per voci nuove", or short "Voci nuovi", among 6,446 participants. After several selection rounds, twelve finalists participated in radio finals held on 12, 13 and 14 January 1956. Radio listeners decided the final six artists for Sanremo by postcard voting.

405 songs were submitted to RAI, 20 of them were selected by a professional jury to compete at the festival, with Orio Vergani acting as jury president. The jury included poets, writers and musicians like Angelo Barile, Guglielmo Petroni, Attilio Bertolucci, Raffaele Gervasio, Armando Renzi, Angelo Francesco Lavagnino, Fulvio Palmieri and Mario Consiglio.

This Sanremo Music Festival edition included twenty songs performed by six singers, spread over three consecutive evenings, in a format of two semi-finals and a final. The first two semi-final nights were held on 8 and 9 March, and the final on 10 March 1956. The festival was closed by an evening starring artists and songs from previous editions of the Sanremo Festival, held on 11 March 1956.

All shows were broadcast on Italian Television and Secondo Programma, beginning at 22:00 CET (21:00 UTC), with a deferred broadcast on television starting on 22:45 CET for semi-final 1, and 22:15 CET for the final. The final was also broadcast on the television channels of France, Belgium (NIR and INR), the Netherlands, West Germany and on Swiss-German Television.

The shows were presented by Fausto Tommei and Maria Teresa Ruta (announcer). Giulio Razzi served as artistic director. The artists were accompanied by an orchestra under the musical direction of Gian Stellari. Each song was presented twice, once sung by one of the artists, and a second time in an instrumental version, this time played by the orchestra of George Melachrino. Before the voting started, a short recap of all songs was played on the piano by Alberto Semprini.

Ten songs competed in each semi-final. Five songs from each night advanced to compose again ten songs for the third and final night. The winning song was decided by 14 regional juries consisting each of 15 radio listeners, plus a jury of 70 jurors, chosen by draw from all 900 spectators in the audience in Sanremo. The ranking and the points of the final are known while only a part of those of the semi-finals are known.

Semi-final 1
During the first semi-final, a man was arrested for throwing pamphlets, in which he criticised the selection process.

Final
According to press reports, the ticket prices for the final were criticised by spectators, composers and singers alike, reaching 16,200 lire. In order to prevent the auditorium from being half-empty, reduced tickets were sold shortly before the final started.

For the voting of the final, 35 spectators from the auditorium were chosen who each distributed two points among their favourite songs, whereas the members of the 14 regional radio juries distributed four points.

Prizes were handed out to the first three places, and the top three songs were performed again at the end of the program.

At Eurovision
The two first places of this Sanremo Music Festival edition, "Aprite le finestre" sung by Franca Raimondi, and "Amami se vuoi" sung by Tonina Torrielli, went on to perform at the international Eurovision Song Contest 1956 on 24 May 1956.

There were seven participating countries, and each performed two songs in the same order via two rounds, with Italy performing last in each round, following Luxembourg. "Aprite le finestre" was performed seventh, and "Amami se vuoi" fourteenth as the last song of the evening. An international jury composed of two jurors from each participating country decided the winner: The two Italian jurors were the conductors Tito Petralia and Cinico Angelini.

Only the winner – one of Switzerland's songs – was announced, after the private counting of the votes by the juries, and so the scores and placings of the two Italian songs are unknown. The two songs were succeeded as Italian representative at the 1957 contest by Nunzio Gallo with "Corde della mia chitarra".

The Eurovision Song Contest was broadcast on Italian Television, starting at 21:15 CET, and radio station Secondo Programma. On the same evening, Italy's first radio station Programma Nazionale broadcast excerpts from the Sanremo Music Festival at 21:45 CET.