Books by Nicholas Baragwanath
In this groundbreaking survey of the fundamentals, methods, and formulas that were taught at Ital... more In this groundbreaking survey of the fundamentals, methods, and formulas that were taught at Italian music conservatories during the 19th century, Nicholas Baragwanath explores the compositional significance of tradition in Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Boito, and, most importantly, Puccini. Taking account of some 400 primary sources, Baragwanath explains the varying theories and practices of the period in light of current theoretical and analytical conceptions of this music. The Italian Traditions and Puccini offers a guide to an informed interpretation and appreciation of Italian opera by underscoring the proximity of archaic traditions to the music of Puccini.
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Papers by Nicholas Baragwanath
The Solfeggio Tradition, 2020
The chapter employs the true story of a little boy who undertook a standard apprenticeship in mus... more The chapter employs the true story of a little boy who undertook a standard apprenticeship in music, Joseph Haydn, as a case study to explore the social background of participants in the Catholic educational system and the importance of the church in musical life. It details the long years of training undergone by church music apprentices who usually had little chance of musical success thereafter. The predominance of the Italian training system over the German—and the relative ease of obtaining the best positions for graduates of the former—are examined. The chapter shows how the prominence of this system explains the continued reliance on an archaic solmization system.
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Music and Letters, 2014
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The Solfeggio Tradition
The chapter begins the lessons in the eighteenth-century art of melody, involving practical engag... more The chapter begins the lessons in the eighteenth-century art of melody, involving practical engagement with real historical solfeggi. It provides instruction in the first year of study: how to name notes in the eighteenth-century manner by a process known as “reading,” or “spoken solfeggio.” The lessons cover the simple scale, hard and soft melody, the compound scale, minor keys, accidentals, and key signatures and modulation. In keeping with the original method, the instruction covers not only note-naming but also basic aspects of theory. The method applies to melodies from the era of Arcangelo Corelli to that of Vincenzo Bellini, or roughly 1680–1830. In an appendix, seven supplementary guidelines are put forward to deal with ambiguities and complexities in the primary sources.
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The Solfeggio Tradition
The chapter recounts the history of unaccompanied solfeggio from the eleventh century to the eigh... more The chapter recounts the history of unaccompanied solfeggio from the eleventh century to the eighteenth. This includes plainchant and Renaissance-style contrapuntal ricercars of the sort that continued to inform liturgical music in many churches. Archaic Type 1 solfeggi were used for canto fermo lessons throughout the eighteenth century, whereas more up-to-date examples were used for the study of theory, for scales and leaps, and for exercises in melodic composition. The earliest known collection of Type 2 solfeggiamenti (1642) derived from vocal ricercars and sung counterpoints. This tradition persisted in Bologna but in Naples the solfeggiamento adopted the latest fashionable styles, as seen in examples by Pergolesi and Durante. The chapter ends with a discussion of the solfeggio fugue with examples by Zingarelli and Haydn.
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The Solfeggio Tradition
The chapter discusses how, once the solfeggio syllables were ingrained through spoken solfeggio, ... more The chapter discusses how, once the solfeggio syllables were ingrained through spoken solfeggio, apprentices would be taught hundreds of different ways to sing them. The real business of learning to sing and make music thus begins in this chapter with the sung realization of fundamental syllable-notes. It takes the oft-told story of how Porpora confined all his singing exercises to one piece of paper to represent a poetically condensed but fundamentally accurate description of the eighteenth-century Neapolitan method of solfeggio training. Fundamental to this were “traits of vocalization,” short lines added above the melody in manuscripts to indicate changes of syllable. They were realized in one of two ways: either the first syllable was prolonged through the vocalized diminutions (according to the Amen rule) or the last syllable was anticipated by the diminutions (according to the Appoggiatura rule).
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The Solfeggio Tradition, 2020
The chapter offers an interpretation of the primary sources concerning eighteenth-century solfegg... more The chapter offers an interpretation of the primary sources concerning eighteenth-century solfeggio, classifying solfeggi into four main types and outlining their historical origins, characteristic features, and pedagogical purposes. Both syllables and didactic function must be considered essential to any workable definition of solfeggio. Ambiguities arise, however, because the term was (and still is) applied to other types of pedagogical melody by extension, convention, or analogy. Cutting across the four types are the two broad traditions of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century solfeggi: one essentially contrapuntal, with roots in the ricercar, and the other essentially cantabile, stemming from opera and cantata. Various types of keyboard accompaniment and their purposes are outlined.
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Music and Letters, 2014
ABSTRACT
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Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 2001
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Music Theory and Analysis (MTA), 2014
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Music and Letters, 2012
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The Solfeggio Tradition, 2020
The chapter provides a brief survey of alternative solmization systems, which arose largely as a ... more The chapter provides a brief survey of alternative solmization systems, which arose largely as a result of Protestant attempts to break free from Roman oversight, followed by an account of the rise of French seven-note solfège and its role in the demise of the great tradition. Owing to its simplicity, this “natural way” to solfège turned out to be ideally suited to the needs of a rapidly expanding amateur market, which demanded readily performable sheet music and the ability to read it rather than onerous craft training. It also provided simplified teaching methods and classroom materials for the new public music schools that emerged from the upheavals of the Napoleonic era. The chapter ends with suggestions as to how the solfeggio tradition might once again find a place within a living culture of music making.
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The Solfeggio Tradition
The chapter provides a survey of the history of accompanied solfeggio from its origins in late si... more The chapter provides a survey of the history of accompanied solfeggio from its origins in late sixteenth-century monody and basso continuo to flamboyant rococo arias and nineteenth-century exercises in composition. Three case studies provide an overview of the main didactic functions of the Type 3 solfeggio: (1) an expert critique of Italian bel canto in the form of a parody by Mozart, (2) a typical object of its mockery in the form of a bravura study by the castrato Farinelli, and (3) a lesson in composition by Zingarelli. The chapter then investigates the closeness of the relation between the contrasting solfeggi that made up multi-movement lessons by comparing slow-fast pairs by Leo and Cafaro. Did they record alternative renditions of the same underlying cantus firmus?
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The chapter introduces the surprisingly uncharted world of eighteenth-century plainchant, which r... more The chapter introduces the surprisingly uncharted world of eighteenth-century plainchant, which remained a cornerstone of the Divine Service. Plainchant was performed in updated versions so as to appear modern and conventional, as opposed to ancient and exotic, as it usually sounds today. The chapter surveys its many modes of performance, from solo cantillation to accompanied polyphony, and speculates on the significance of Gregorian cantus firmus melodies for multivoiced compositions. It also investigates the different types of chant then in use and scrutinizes a typical example from a 1761 service book, published in Turin, to try to decipher its notation. The updating of performance practice helps explain the persistence of hexchordal solmization as the basis of music education.
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The chapter details how singing solfeggio allowed students to experience melody as a kind of lang... more The chapter details how singing solfeggio allowed students to experience melody as a kind of language and to acquire fluency in it from experience rather than conscious learning. To try to reimagine this pedagogical process, as well as to demonstrate how to decipher complex solfeggio manuscripts, the chapter surveys some of the ways in which a common stock pattern of syllables was realized in song. Examples from manuscripts show how singers transformed the syllables la-sol-fa-mi into countless versions of Gjerdingen’s Prinner schema, prefacing them with a sol/do or fa/do lead-in, continuing them with a la-sol half cadence or a mi/mi or la/mi modulation, dividing them into coherent grammatical units with internal punctuation, and combining their two locations to generate complex counterpoint. The chapter also touches on the treatment of the sol-fa-mi and its role within the Monte, Fonte, and Meyer schemas.
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The chapter completes the overview of lessons by outlining the main ways to modulate in solfeggio... more The chapter completes the overview of lessons by outlining the main ways to modulate in solfeggio by singing fa as mi and vice versa. Its discussion of two important sources, Luigi Sabbatini in Italy and Francisco Solano in Portugual, provides supporting evidence for the reconstruction of solmization put forward in earlier chapters. It also documents how maestros would set didactic traps toward the end of solfeggi to test the singer’s ability to recognize the altered fourth and seventh. These ruses probably provided a welcome moment of light relief toward the close of a lesson, as well as hammering home the essential rules of key and modulation. They went on to form the punchline of many a musical joke in compositions for the chamber or theater.
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The chapter details the daily routine of an apprentice, which involved singing and playing for an... more The chapter details the daily routine of an apprentice, which involved singing and playing for an interminable round of church services as part of the enormous liturgical music industry in Italy. Such services included the hours of the Divine Office, daily Masses, saints’ days and feast days, religious processions, and other events in the liturgical calendar. Some performances by choristers took place outside churches, as well. Attempts by religious and secular leaders to rein in overly ornate or ambitious Italian church music making are described. Drawing on the accounts of travelers to the region, the chapter also highlights the role of church music as a lucrative tourist industry.
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The chapter surveys the rudiments in their original medieval notation. These were the first (and ... more The chapter surveys the rudiments in their original medieval notation. These were the first (and often only) music lessons taught to choristers in Catholic Europe. Scholars of early music will find few surprises here, although they may be taken aback to discover that these lessons were written centuries after the Guidonian system is commonly presumed to have disappeared from history. Giacomo Tritto’s Rules (1759) are taken to represent elementary music lessons in general, covering the gamut, the Guidonian hand, mutation, basic liturgical conventions, and the application of ficta accidentals. Sharps and flats were essential for correcting dissonant intervals, desirable for enhancing cadences, and useful for rendering tunes more fitting for contemporary taste. Canto fermo was later adapted to produce a more versatile type of notation known as canto figurato. This enabled apprentices to read any staff effortlessly, regardless of its clef or key signature.
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The chapter outlines the way solmization has been described as a “vocal” system at odds with the ... more The chapter outlines the way solmization has been described as a “vocal” system at odds with the “keyboard” system of figured bass (partimento). It investigates the relation between melody and bass in solfeggio, especially in terms of imitative counterpoint, and proposes a synthesis between them. It surveys the historical evidence for solmizing figured and unfigured accompaniments and asks what this might tell us about the functions of the bass. Two solfeggi by the celebrated partimento master Fedele Fenaroli are examined in an attempt to shed light on this obscure feature of eighteenth-century practice.
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How did castrati manage to amaze their eighteenth-century audiences by singing the same aria seve... more How did castrati manage to amaze their eighteenth-century audiences by singing the same aria several times in completely different ways? And how could composers of the time write operas in a matter of days? The secret lies in the solfeggio tradition, a music education method that was fundamental to the training of European musicians between 1680 and 1830--a time during which professional musicians belonged to the working class. As disadvantaged children in orphanages learned the musical craft through solfeggio lessons, many were lifted from poverty, and the most successful were propelled to extraordinary heights of fame and fortune. In this first book of the solfeggio tradition, author Nicholas Baragwanath draws on over a thousand manuscript sources to reconstruct how professionals became skilled performers and composers who could invent and modify melodies at will. By introducing some of the simplest exercises in scales, leaps, and cadences that apprentices would have encountered, ...
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Books by Nicholas Baragwanath
Papers by Nicholas Baragwanath
MUSICAL TOURISM: HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, DIDACTICS
20-21-22 novembre 2019
Sede della Camera di Commercio, Industria, Artigianato e Agricoltura
Piazza Stradivari - Cremona
Comitato Scientifico:
Nicholas BARAGWANATH, University of Nottingham
Lars BERGLUND, Uppsala Universitet
Rosa CAFIERO, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Milano
Elena DELL’AGNESE, Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca, Vicepresidente International Geographical Union
Guido LUCARNO, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Milano
Gigliola ONORATO, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Milano
Raffaela Gabriella RIZZO, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Milano
Angela ROMAGNOLI, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Dipartimento di Musicologiae e Beni Culturali di Cremona e European Mozart Ways