Maria Teresa Dellaborra, Il sacro sconosciuto: inediti sammartiniani a Vimercate, pp. 7-19. Abstract.
Carmela Bongiovanni, Le fonti della musica vocale da camera di Ferdinando Paer, pp. 21-104. Abstract.
Claudio Toscani, Una nuova acquisizione belliniana: fonti sconosciute per Adelson e Salvini, pp. 105-117. Abstract.
Antonia Ianne, Le risorse Internet per la musicologia: strategie di ricerca e criteri di valutazione, pp. 119-143. Abstract.
Valentina Mirella Marangi, Verso un thesaurus in materia di legislazione sui beni e le attività musicali: proposte di integrazione al TEsauro SEnato per l'Organizzazione dei documenti parlamentari, pp. 145-159. Abstract.
Rassegna bibliografica 1999-2000, a cura di Carmela Bongiovanni, pp. 161-243.
Three unknown pieces by Giovanni Battista Sammartini, discovered among the music preserved in the parish archives, provide the occasion for an analysis of musical life at Vimercate in the eighteenth century. Obvious, or implicit, connections between the two realities emerge from a comparison of this milieu with contemporary culture in Milan and are sufficient at any rate to confirm not only the tangible presence in Vimercate of celebrated Milanese musicians – Gaetano and Felice Piazza (pupils of Sammartini), Giovan Battista Fiamenghino, Marco Eugenio Villani, Giuseppe Antonio Borone, all members of the ducal orchestra – but also that of an undoubtedly precious repertoire of composers in vogue (Johann Christian Bach, Giovanni Andrea Fioroni, Giovanni Battista Lampugnani, Melchiorre Chiesa, Giuseppe Paladino, Carlo Monza) strictly in the “concertato con stromenti” style and at times expressly conceived for the “Schola della Beata Vergine del Rosario”. The figure of Giovanni Battista Sammartini illuminates this situation – with the function of trait d'union – whose three unpublished scores examined in the course of this paper (Dixit dominus in F, for four voices and orchestra; Laudate pueri in D for soprano, contralto and orchestra; Duci cruento in F, for four voices and organ, a hymn specifically dedicated to St. Stephen, the patron saint of Vimercate), as well as a fourth (Litanie lauretane, already cited by Jenkins and Churgin), enrich this already considerable catalogue and at the same time confirm the intentional and characteristic stylistic stances of the composer.
The musical works of Ferdinando Paër (1771-1839) – a musician who was as fortunate during his lifetime as he is strangely little known today – presents numerous obscure aspects. A complete list of his theatrical works does not exist even in the field of opera: it is not surprising therefore that one of the minor “genres” par excellence with the Italian musicians straddling the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – that is, vocal chamber music – is represented by a very substantial group of extremely varied compositions, conceived and composed by Ferdinando Paër in compliance with different conditions and audiences in Europe.
This is proved by the various languages Paër uses for his texts (mainly Italian and French, but also German and even Polish), the different arrangement of the musical intricacies confronted in his compositions (from the simple expressive strophic melody in perfect symbiosis with the characteristics of the French romance of the early nineteenth century to the lively highly ornamented air of Italian origin, with a thousand astonishing shadings between the two extremes), the multiplicity of musical forms employed, and the exceptionally wide dissemination of the great number of scores, a certain sign of success. A fundamentally immense and heterogeneous repertoire, in no way marginal in Paër's production, in which can be seen a notable range of creations (in addition to an undoubted diversity in quality), poised between customary music and works of art: an historical examination is necessary in order to arrive at a more accurate comprehension of the milieu and the users for which it was created. The article includes, in addition to an in-depth historical-critical introduction, a list of sources, accompanied by an index of names and textual incipit.
The Fondo Mascarello, recently acquired by the Milan Conservatory Library, contains important sources –hitherto unknown – for Adelson e Salvini, the opera with which Bellini in 1825 said goodbye to the Naples Conservatory at the termination of his studies. The Fondo includes a complete group of separate instrumental parts (some autograph) taken from the score of the first version of the opera. Since the original score, preserved at Catania, is incomplete, the new sources make it possible to ascertain the extent of the lacunae in the autograph manuscript, to establish the exact sequence of the numbers, to reconstruct the missing sections. The Fondo Mascarello also contains seven excerpts from the autograph score of the second version of Adelson e Salvini, prepared by Bellini in 1826 (or in 1827) for a production at the Teatro del Fondo in Naples, which however was never staged. Only a few fragments of this score were known to date: the new sources in fact permit the almost total completion of the original score and the accurate definition of the entity and nature of Bellini's reworking of the first version of the opera.
The problem of identifying and selecting sources is one of the main obstacles to the use of Internet for study and research. In fact the extreme heterogeneity of the nature of web resources, associated with the absence of dependable resource locator tools, creates increasing difficulties for the musicologist in finding sources that are capable of meeting his specific information requirements.
The article analyses the problems connected with searching on Internet, examines the principal typologies of tools for finding information and assesses their applicability to musicology. Finally, the possibility is investigated of adapting traditional methodologies to the use of telematic tools. This last-mentioned point will be developed with particular attention to assessment criteria.
Currently, the most widespread access tools to web resources are the lists of links. The information, however, is frequently selected and structured according to unsystematic criteria and categories. Links are extremely useful tools for accessing qualified resources, even if they cannot be considered authentic indexes of electronic resources. Subject gateways are another access system; these are a more sophisticated type of search tool, the equivalent of the OPAC for on-line publications. They are organized on the basis of data and the description of the resource is usually accompanied by a review or a comment. Since subject gateways do not at present exist for musicology, the musicologist must turn to those dedicated to humanistic disciplines or to the performing arts. Another typology of tools is the lase (Limited Area Search Engine); these are search engines which scan only a certain number of sites dedicated to a discipline or to a disciplinary sector. The basic concept of the lase is that of cooperation between certain specialist sites. Tools of this kind do not yet exist for musicology. This would be the solution for more rapid realization, but it is necessary to establish collaborative relations and to define standard selection criteria.
Another problem connected with use of the web is that of information quality. The major part of the resources in fact are published without reliable control and selection procedures. The prospect of a systematic use of Internet for research activities has given rise to the need for developing criteria for the selection of resources already present on the web and for drawing up rules for creating web pages. Closely linked to the theme of value assessment is the problem relative to the scientific worth of web publications. The most significant contributions to value assessment to date have come from librarians and satisfy, for the most part, the practical purpose of assisting the user during a search. Debates on the subject have only recently been initiated in specific disciplinary sections. The prevailing trend has been that of estimating the applicability of the checklists already adopted for hard copy sources to the selection of on-line publications, in particular to reference sources. Analysis of the checklists has resulted in the discovery that the subjects of major interest in value assessment in telematics concern principally the formal aspects of the resource: that is, structure, utilization, stability, updating possibilities. Minor problems, instead, would seem to be connected with the analysis of content, which remains linked to verification of the requirements demanded by any work of scientific research: originality and innovativeness, methodological strictness, congruence with the discipline, thoroughness.
The article focuses on the lexical and terminological study of juridical texts dealing with music as an opportunity for developing the relationship between musicology and juridical sciences; it is in fact considered that the consolidation of a common ground of investigation between the two disciplines, can contribute to a more extensive and detailed knowledge on the part of the legislator of our musical heritage and therefore influence significantly the decisions taken at institutional level.
The lack of autonomy and the notable disjointedness of legislation affecting music reflect, in a sense, the situation of the entire juridical system in Italy whose overloaded dimensions considerably limit comprehension of the rules and regulations as well as endangering the principle of the certainty of the Law. Given this complex situation, the juridical sciences have viewed favourably information technology for the advantages it offers both for comprehension of the laws and for improvement of the legislation. The most important acquisitions regarding the recovery, transference and processing of juridical information by means of digital tools are examined here, starting from the first institutional data banks programmed at the end of the Sixties and arriving at the actual – and always increasing – availability of information resources made possible by the advent of the information society and telematic networks.
Since it is held that the study of the legislative language relative to musical assets and activities can contribute to a better knowledge of the laws and to an improvement of the legislation, some possible realizations are proposed, useful not only at the stage of drafting the law but also at that of processing the juridical text and at that of recovering juridical information.
As a relevant example, the results of a textual analysis are given which was carried out on legislative texts concerning musical assets and activities and enacted between 1998 and 2001; in fact the hypothesis is formulated according to which the state of completeness of regulations relative to musical assets and activities can be determined starting from the quantity and variety of musical items and events identified and recognized by the juridical lexicon. The musical terms present in legislative texts have also been compared with their descriptors in the musical section of TESEO (Tesauro Senato per l'Organizzazione dei documenti parlamentari) in order to determine the comprehensiveness of the descriptors of TESEO in relation to the musical entities recognized by legislation as well as, in a wider perspective, to the musical reality. The considerations relative to the different degree of detail of the areas covered by TESEO and the recognition of the meagre analyticity of those inherent to music have led to consider advantageous the proposal of integrating the thesaurus of the Senate with new terms in the field of music.
Angelo Rusconi, Teoria musicale e teorici italiani nel Medioevo. Studi, ricerche, edizioni 1988-2000, pp. 7-42. Abstract.
Maria Teresa Di Lorenzo, Le pergamente liturgico-musicali dell'Archivio di Stato e i codici della Biblioteca Arcivescovile di Matera, pp. 43-76. Abstract.
Rodolfo Baroncini, Voci e strumenti nella 'processione in piazza San Marco': considerazioni metodologiche in margine a un celebre dipinto di Gentile Bellini, pp. 77-88. Abstract.
Piero Gargiulo, Prime intonazioni di un testo guariniano: il caso di "Occhi miei che vedeste" (1574-1587), pp. 89-96. Abstract.
Rosa Cafiero, Le edizioni musicali Clausetti: 1847-1864, pp. 97-248. Abstract.
Silvia Arena, L'archivio della casa editrice Giudici & Strada presso il Conservatorio 'Nicolini' di Piacenza. Abstract.
Rassegna bibliografica 1998-99, a cura di Carmela Bongiovanni.
Italian Musical Theory and Theorists in the Middle Ages.
This general survey starts from 1988, the year of publication on "Acta Musicologica" of the bibliographic review edited by Michel Huglo, Bibliographie des éditions et études relatives à la théorie musicale du Moyen Age (1972-1987), and concludes with the year 2000 which saw the revival of studies on medieval theory, stimulated by the conventional millenary celebrations of Guido d’Arezzo. Late-antique authors have been included in the bibliography, while the figure of Franchino Gaffurio has seemed a suitable conventional reference point for concluding the medieval period. The survey reviews critically the articles and papers published during the period in question and is divided into the following sixteen sections: 1. Bibliographies and electronic aids; 2. Facsimile editions; 3. Individual authors; 4. Individual codices; 5. Tonaria; 6. Solmization - didactic and theoretical chants; 7. Notations; 8. Instruments and mensura monochordi; 9. Performance practice; 10. Musical iconography in theoretical treatises; 11. Sundry subjects; 12. Catalogues of manuscripts; 13. Encyclopedias and dictionaries; 14. Lexicons; 15. Conferences; 16. Various general histories of the theory. A section of Addenda is also included, followed by the indexes of: the manuscripts cited; the antique authors, personages and texts quoted; localities; scholars.
The majority of the fifty-two parchment fragments with musical notations in the State Archives of Matera refer to Graduals and Antiphoners datable between the XV and XVI century. They are stored in the Parchment Department in folders entitled "Fogli Kiriali". After specifying the criteria and procedures for drafting the descriptions as well as the problems associated with the identification of the chants and their liturgical attribution, the section of this article dealing with the fragments then gives a description of their contents and a reconstruction of the original pages and also provides information on the codices to which they presumably belong.
The seven liturgical-musical parchment codices preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library are Graduals and Antiphoners datable between the XV and XVI century. As in the case of the fragments, the article gives a bibliographic description of the manuscripts, specifying their liturgical-musical content and in addition providing some data relative to the dating and provenance of the codices, together with information on the copyists and on the liturgical and historical characteristics. Particular attention has been paid to drawing up a list of the chants which are present in the Matera sources and which are not available in standard reference catalogues.
The Procession in Piazza San Marco painted by Gentile Bellini in 1496, as part of a more extensive cycle commissioned by the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista, has been the object of some speculation on the part of music historians. In particular, the musical scene portrayed on the extreme left of the large canvas (3 "players of harp, viola and lute" and 6 "singers of lauds") has been regarded as confirmation of the hypothesis (formulated on the basis of extensive documentary material concerning the Scuole Grandi) that a vocal-instrumental practice was adopted in the liturgical and paraliturgical celebrations of the Scuole: a practice in which the instruments would have supported or accompanied the voices. Although Bellini’s painting is characterized by a tendency to veduta and verismo, there are good reasons for believing that an excessive trust has been placed in it. A first contradiction is revealed by the presence of a macroscopic detail: while the singers chant "from the book", the three instrumentalists are "improvising"; this is an evident sign of two different approaches and executive traditions, sufficient in itself to exclude any hypothesis of combined orchestration. A fact, moreover, that is completely coherent with the customary dislocation of the two groups within the cortège of the procession, as evidenced by contemporary documentation: while the instrumentalists were placed at the head of the procession (in front of the Cross), the singers were in the central part of the cortège, behind the processional litter and in front of the officers of the confraternity. It is admissible to ask, at this point, why Bellini painted the players and singers next to each other. The most likely hypothesis is that, in order to make room for who (at least in theory) was to be the principal subject of the painting (the kneeling figure of the miraculously saved Jacopo Salis, portrayed at the centre of the cortège), Bellini had - for aesthetic reasons - upset the customary order of the cortège. On the other hand, this is not the only incongruous element in the imposing view of piazza San Marco. Despite a tendency to a realistic approach, and a conspicuous concern for reproducing every detail, the artistic conception of Bellini appears to be cloaked in a veil of idealism, almost unreal and phantasmagoric, which involves the concealment of some objects for the purpose of revealing others. A process which in fact does not save even the real architectural configuration of the piazza, since the bell tower is shifted so as to make it possible to see part of the Doge’s Palace.
First intonations of a Guarini text: the case of "Occhi miei che vedeste"
The madrigal Occhi miei che vedeste,which did not appear in the Rime (1598) of Ciotti, is attributed to Guarini in the edition of his Opere (1737) edited by Tumermani who classifies it among the verses "scattered in various publications or gathered by diverse poets". Verifying its inclusion in the only 15 published texts, after a single presence in a sixteenth-century publication (the Raccolto d’alcune piacevoli rime of 1582), and also noting the undoubted interest of the 21 authors who set it to music (including Vinci, Galilei, Macque, Baccusi, Cifra, Scaletta, Nenna), a more thorough examination has led to a redetermination of the chronological order of the first intonations and to establishing specific correlations with the transmission and circulation of the poetic repertory of Guarini. Apart from the discovery of two monodic intonations of the text (not known until 1991) included in a manuscript collection (the Libro di canzoni et arie of Cosimo Bottegari, 1574) and antecedent both to the whole monodic repertory flourishing around the production of the poet and to the specific sequence of the subsequent 20 compositions realized on Occhi miei, the research has in fact made it possible to certify: first, the almost total analogy of one of the intonations in the manuscript of Bottegari (in both cases for voice and lute) with the Canto of Occhi miei published in Cristofano Malvezzi’s Madrigali a 5 voci (1583); secondly, the correspondence with a poetic source (a seventeenth-century Florentine codex) which, although presenting the text of Occhi miei as adespota, reveals its complete consistency with the lection edited by Tumermani, proposing itself as the one and only witness of manuscript transmission of the text.
To the pre-eminence of the Tuscan area can therefore be ascribed the merit of inaugurating the fortune of a text which plucks the fruits essential to the launching of its diffusion in music without availing itself of effective literary backing and which finds an almost exclusive means of flowering in the work of two composers and in the different motivations that led them to confront Occhi miei: Bottegari, in addition to increasing the success of a certain coeval secular repertory, appears to be particularly attracted by the composition, even proposing a second original intonation; Malvezzi confirms a certain propensity to appear as the first of the Medicean musicians to take possession of Guarini texts, subsequently the object of widespread attention in areas other than Tuscany. Destined in the space of fifty years to compete with other more celebrated verses, the good fortune of Occhi miei nevertheless secured Guarini an important recognition during that period of ten years (1571-1582, when official gratification was still lacking) which was decisive for the organization and revision of a literary repertory by then always more concerned with the specific exigencies of "canto soave".
The music publishing house of the brothers Pietro and Lorenzo Clausetti was founded at Naples in 1847. In 1861 the Milanese publisher Tito Ricordi entered into partnership with the Clausetti and in August 1864 took over the Naples firm definitively, transforming it into a branch of Ricordi that was managed by Pietro Clausetti up to 1892, the year of Clausetti’s death. The Clausetti published more than 5000 items including operas transcribed for voice and piano or for piano only (among the authors: Chiaromonte, Petrella, De Giosa, Verdi, Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti, Pacini, Mercadante, Meyerbeer, Auber), arrangements, paraphrases, potpourris for piano on operatic themes and favourite motifs, compositions for piano (including Chopin, Liszt, Mendelssohn), dances, theoretical exercises and methods, Neapolitan songs, ballads. In this paper the catalogue of the Clausetti publishing house has been reconstructed on the basis of the two catalogues of 1852 and 1860, collated with a direct examination of a consistent part of the editions published. The catalogue presented here has been arranged - unlike the previous ones - according to the plate number; in addition to the author, title and vocal and/or instrumental complement, the series is indicated in which the edition is included, together with (where necessary) the address and name of the firm. For the purpose of providing an exact chronological placement of individual editions, the existence of notices in the Naples press is given as well as the date on which the edition was registered at the archives of the Royal College of Music of Naples.
The music publishing house Giudici & Strada, founded at Turin in 1859 by G. B. Giudici and A. Strada with the acquisition of the editions published by Antonio Racca, was active in Turin up to 1893. In 1894 the firm was taken over by Antonio Demarchi, who moved the business to Milan, and in 1899 - after Demarchi’s death - by Paolo Mariani under the name of "Riuniti Stabilimenti Musicali Giudici e Strada, A. Demarchi, A. Tedeschi di P. Mariani fu Carlo". In 1909 a joint stock company was incorporated at Milan (chairman Angelo Ferrari) which took over all the copyrights and works of music already the property of the firms Giudici & Strada, Demarchi, Tedeschi, Trebbi and Mariani. On that date, the catalogue of the company amounted to approximately 22,000 items. After the war, however, the company went bankrupt: the archive material was taken over by the Banca Cattolica di Sant’Antonino of Piacenza, which in previous years had made a conspicuous loan to Ferrari. In 1928 the Banca Cattolica donated this material to the library of the Conservatory of Piacenza, material that was discovered and inventoried in 1998.
The archive material - of which this paper gives a detailed inventory - consists of autograph scores, manuscript copies, printed and manuscript arrangements, separate parts relative to operas property of the publishing house. The authors mainly represented include E. Petrella, A. Ponchielli, Lauro Rossi, A. Cagnoni, F. von Flotow, A. Smareglia. The study of the various typologies of the musical material in this archive, supported by research on contemporary periodicals (in particular, the "Paganini") and on the papers and correspondence of the publishing house, has furthermore made it possible to document the various aspects of the work of the publishers and of their relations with the musicians. In this connection, some registers preserved in the archive have proved of particular interest, providing information on the acquisitions of the copyright of various operas.