RICERCA ITALIANA     

Critical editions of Italian composers from the 17th to the 20th century

Università degli Studi di Pavia

Abstract

The project aims at supporting the essential research for the starting or the continuation of the critical editions of the works of Italian composers from the middle 17th up to the early 20th century, mainly operas, but also sacred, chamber vocal, and instrumental music. Such editions began comparatively late compared with the ones of the composers of the classical-romantic tradition of the Austro-German area. The systematic study of the sources of Italian composers started only in the 1960s; it was only after the middle of the 1970s that the first volumes of the complete editions of the works of Rossini and Verdi appeared. The editions of the works of Donizetti and Bellini started at the end of the 1990s. In recent times, projects concerning the works of Francesco Cavalli, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and Giacomo Puccini have been endorsed. Other projects, aimed to enhance lesser but historically significant composers such as Johann Simon Mayr (a Bavarian by birth, but active mostly in Italy), Amilcare Ponchielli, and Arrigo Boito, are under consideration.
At first, the philological research on Italian opera composers was carried out mostly by German and Anglo-Saxon scholars, among whom there were most editors of Rossini and Verdi’s operas until the end of 20th century. In the meantime, the interest in the music textual criticism increased in the Italian university teaching; it resulted in a generation of scholars, who proved able to bring forth first-rate scholarly editions. Many of these scholars participate in the present project, which aims to involve also younger scholars in order to prepare a workforce able to continue a teamwork that will extend over many decades before it comes to an end.
Among the many enterprises going on, the ones that have started recently or that are at an initial stage have been favoured. They need resources for the basic research, that sponsors and publishers can only partly supply. These needs include:
- detection and reproduction of manuscript and printed sources, of musical, literary and theatrical nature. Many of them still need to be identified in less known collections in Europe (Iberian Peninsula, East Europe) and other continents;
- direct investigation of not catalogued collections and codicological description of the detected sources;
- documentary research on the history of the operas;
- creation and/or implementation of digital archives that will allow the exchange of information among the scholars engaged in this project and in other similar ones;
- preparation and publishing of the critical editions of the works under consideration.
The engaged university team and young scholars, properly trained, financed by grants and contracts provided for in the expense plan, will accomplish these tasks.
The distribution of the tasks among the Units will imply crossed competences: four out of five Units will attend to different, even chronologically distant, composers; different Units will study the works of the same composer. This situation depends on the territorial distribution of the working forces. Far from being a cause of dispersion, indeed, it will result in an advantageous optimisation of the research tasks: a single researcher will explore librarian or archive collections that could contain sources or information on different periods and composers.
The main unifying element of the research consists in the sharing of the methodological problems concerning the editions of the examined composers, who are brought together by the fact that their output is mostly theatrical. The critical edition of an opera requires many capacities, not only musical but also literary and theatrical ones; it doesn’t confine itself to the presentation of a musical score. Such common problems will be debated in a conference, open to external Italian and foreign scholars. <<<

Principal Investigator

Fabrizio Emanuele Della Seta Università degli Studi di PAVIA

Research Objectives

The project aims to the consolidation and the widening of the available critical editions of Italian composers from the middle 17th to the early 20th century. The specific goals are:
1) laying the foundations of the new complete editions of the works of Francesco Cavalli, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and Giacomo Puccini, particularly by establishing the editorial criteria;
2) continuation of the already existing editions of the works of Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini;
3) starting the textual study and widening the knowledge of the works of Giovanni Simone Mayr, Amilcare Ponchielli, and Arrigo Boito;
4) organization of an international conference on the methods of the operatic textual criticism;
5) detection, reproduction and study of as many musical, literary and theatrical sources as possible, concerning the composers under consideration;
6) creation and implementation of digital archives, in order to share the collected information;
7) preparation for publishing of an adequate number of volumes, offering critical editions of music, libretti, letters and documents, within the collections of complete works as well as single publications.
In particular, the following activities concerning each composer (in chronological order) are expected:
a) Francesco Cavalli (Bologna)
- Edition of the literary text of eight operas.
- Complete literary edition of the libretti written for Cavalli by G. Faustini and N. Minato.
b) Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (Milano)
Preparation of the critical edition of two serious operas, one oratorio and two pieces of sacred music.
c) Giovanni Simone Mayr (Bologna)
- Preparation of the critical edition of three operas.
d) Gaetano Donizetti (Ferrara)
- Preparation of the critical edition of two operas and of a volume of sacred music.
e) Vincenzo Bellini (Ferrara, Pavia, Roma)
- Preparation of the critical edition of five operas, a fragment, a volume of sacred music, a set of genetic materials (sketches).
f) Amilcare Ponchielli (Roma)
- Researches on the textual history and the compositional process of “La Gioconda”, preliminary to a future edition.
- Edition of instrumental works.
g) Arrigo Boito (Roma)
- Researches on the textual history and the compositional process of “Mefistofele”, preliminary to a future edition.
h) Giacomo Puccini (Pavia)
- Edition of a volume of correspondence.
- Edition of a symphonic piece and of a volume of vocal chamber music.
- Edition of the “livret de mise en scène” for “Madama Butterfly”. <<<

First Results

The musical legacy of Cavalli in the 17th, of Pergolesi in the 18th, of Donizetti and Bellini in the early 19th, and of Puccini between the 19th and 20th centuries, belongs to the most significant expressions of the Italian art in their respective ages. The same can be said of the output of composers of lesser artistic value, but of relevant historical significance, such as Mayr, Ponchielli and Boito. The scientific relevance of textually reliable and historically informative editions of their works hardly needs to be emphasized: it represents a duty for the Italian culture, as the editions of literary classics, and, in the musical field, of classics such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert are. The editions of the works of Vivaldi, Rossini and Verdi, started long ago, demonstrate that such enterprises are possible; they constitute the best justification for the starting and the widening of other such enterprises. Public institutions have acknowledged this fact, inasmuch as the Italian State has accorded the status of National Editions to the collected works of Donizetti and Puccini; let’s hope that the same privilege will be accorded to the Pergolesi edition.
Beyond their scholarly interest, these editions have also an applicative one, with some relevant economic implications. Indeed, they are produced by important publishers, and contribute to foster both the theatrical and the concert circuits as well as the record industry. The production of critical editions has determined the success of some specialized German publishers; in recent times, Italian publishers too have understood the market opportunities of such enterprises.
The acceptance of the editions by artistic directors, conductors and singers, and the possibility to continue them, depends on their reliability and usability. In turn, the production of critical editions constitutes one of the few chances of a remunerative job for musicologists, particularly for the younger, provided that they are well trained and guided. Indeed, the European and Italian regulation ( in Italy by Law no.154 of 1997) has granted the copyright to the critical editions of literary and musical works, included the recording rights. The possibility of continuing to produce high-level editions by means of adequate funding can therefore induce a virtuous circle between the scholarly research and the world of work. <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

By now music textual criticism is entrenched a well rooted subject in the field of musicological research and in the university teaching. Its field of interests covers the whole tradition of the western art music, from late Middle Ages up to today. For general reference one can see:
- G. FEDER, Musikphilologie. Eine Einführung in die musikalische Textkritik, Hermeneutik und Editionstechnik, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1987; trad. it. Filologia musicale. Introduzione alla critica del testo, all’ermeneutica e alle tecniche di edizione, Bologna, il Mulino 1992;
- M. CARACI VELA, La critica del testo musicale. Metodi e problemi della filologia musicale, Lucca, Libreria musicale italiana, 1995; L’edizione critica tra testo musicale e testo letterario. Atti del convegno internazionale (Cremona 4-8 ottobre 1992), a cura di Renato Borghi e Pietro Zappalà, Lucca, Libreria musicale italiana 1995;
- J. GRIER, The Critical Editing of Music: History, Method, and Practice, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996;
- M. CARACI VELA, La filologia musicale. Istituzioni, storia, strumenti critici, I, Fondamenti storici e metodologici della filologia musicale, Lucca, Libreria musicale italiana, 2005.

On the contrary, the criticism of operatic texts is a comparatively recent achievement, aside from the theatrical output of some classics such as Handel, Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. In particular, the study of the textual problems of Italian composers—mainly opera composers— suffered from the cultural bias of considering opera as a lesser, merely entertaining, artistic genre. This view has been widely overcome by the scholarly research since the 1960s, whichhas cast new light on the world of Italian opera (and, as a consequence, on the sacred, vocal chamber and instrumental music connected to it), also as far as the transmission of the texts is concerned. The most important outcome was the starting, at various times, of a number of editions of the complete works of the greater composers, mainly of the 19th century. Such editions follow strict philological criteria, which are functional to the peculiarity of their object. The most important among them are:
- Edizione critica delle opere di Gioachino Rossini, Pesaro, Fondazione Rossini 1979-;
- The Works of / Le opere di Giuseppe Verdi, ed. by Philip Gossett, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, Milano, Ricordi, 1983-;
- Nuova Edizione critica delle opere di Antonio Vivaldi, Venezia, Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi, Milano, Ricordi, 1984-
- Edizione nazionale delle opere di Gaetano Donizetti, a cura di Gabriele Dotto e Roger Parker, Bergamo, Fondazione Donizetti, Milano, Ricordi 1991-;
- Edizione critica delle opere di Vincenzo Bellini a cura di Fabrizio Della Seta, Alessandro Roccatagliati e Luca Zoppelli, Milano, Ricordi, 2003-;
- Works of Gioachino Rossini, ed. by Philip Gossett, Kassel, Bärenreiter, 2007-.
On the whole, these enterprises, still far from their ending, have already given rise to volumes by the dozen. The published works have often been performed, some of them more than once, in some cases with great success.

Other analogous enterprises are:
- the project of a complete edition of the works of Giacomo Puccini, that will embrace not only the musical scores, but also the correspondence and the documents concerning the staging of the operas. The Lucca Centre for Puccini studies promotes it, and the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage accorded to it the status of National edition;
- the project of a complete edition of the works of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. It takes up and continues a previous Italo-American unaccomplished enterprise. The Pergolesi Spontini Foundation of Jesi promotes it; the acknowledgment as National edition was also required;
- in recent times the publisher Bärenreiter of Kassel has launched a project of edition of the works of the most important Venetian 17th century opera composer, Francesco Cavalli. This project, internationally conceived and directed (USA and Spain), engages Italian working forces as well.

Besides these wide-ranging enterprises, textual studies and editions of single works of greater and lesser composers are more and more frequent. They are often the subject of PhD and MA theses.

Just about all the adherents to the present research project are involved in one or more of the above-said enterprises. The Principal Investigator, Fabrizio Della Seta, produced editions of Rossini and Verdi; at present he is, jointly with Alessandro Roccatagliati, the co-editor in chief of the Bellini edition. Paolo Fabbri has prepared and is preparing editions of Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini; he is the scientific director of the Bergamo Donizetti Foundation. Franco Piperno, who produced editions of music of the 16th and 17th centuries, is now engaged in a Bellini edition. Claudio Toscani produced editions of Rossini and other composers; he participates in the planning of the Pergolesi edition. Michele Girardi, Gabriella Biagi Ravenni and Virgilio Bernardoni are respectively the president and members of the committee for the National edition of Puccini’s works. Marco Beghelli edited works of Rossini and of lesser composers. Paolo Russo studied an important opera of Mayr’s. Giorgio Pagannone is the editor of a main opera of Donizetti’s.

Philip Gossett is editor in chief of the Verdi and of the two Rossini editions. More than any other scholar, he worked out, both theoretically and in practice, the methods suitable for the textual study of the operatic music. Such study entails idiosyncratic problems that derive from the very nature of its object. The “text” of an opera does not restrain itself to the musical score; it embraces a variety of literary, visual and, in a broad sense, dramatic components. Moreover, this kind of art is more than any other conditioned by social, economic and cultural elements. On the whole, these factors resulted in the abandoning of a concept of text as unilinear and stable; instead, the concept of a manifold and shifting text, beyond the very author’s will, was favoured. These problems have been recently synthesized in contributions of two adherents to the research project:
- P. GOSSETT, Edizioni critiche di musica dell’Ottocento, in Enciclopedia della musica, diretta da Jean-Jacques Nattiez, con la collaborazione di Margaret Bent, Rossana Dalmonte e Mario Baroni, II, Il sapere musicale, Torino, Einaudi 2002, pp. 967-996;
- F. DELLA SETA, Il testo del melodramma, in “Belfagor”, 56, 2006, pp. 617-631.

More specific discussions are to be found in:
- Vincenzo Bellini: verso l'edizione critica. Atti del Convegno internazionale, Siena, 1-3 giugno 2000, a cura di F. Della Seta e S. Ricciardi, Firenze, Olschki 2004;
- Opernedition. Bericht über das Symposion zum 60. Geburtstag von Sieghart Döhring, hrsg. von Helga Lühning und Reinhard Wiesend unter Mitarbeit von Peter Niedermüller und Katja Schmidt-Wistoff, Mainz, ARE Edition, 2005.
The first of these volumes presents (pp. 382-424) the Editorial criteria for the edition of the complete Bellini’s works. Analogous statements of editorial principles are to be found in the prefaces to the volumes of the above listed editions.

Among the most fascinating and thorny problems of this kind of editions, there are the ones deriving from the fact that they have to be used by musicians, as a basis for their performances. Indeed, they have a twofold function, scholarly and practical, and one cannot define the boundaries between the two of them neatly. These problems have been recently faced in a huge book by the editor in chief of the Verdi and Rossini editions:
- P. GOSSETT, Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2006.

The problems concerning the edition of the literary texts of the operas, which are at the same time autonomous and functional to the musical setting, have been discussed in a wide interdisciplinary debate. The most important titles of this debate are:
- M.G. ACCORSI, Problemi testuali dei libretti d’opera fra Sei e Settecento, in “Giornale storico della letteratura italiana”, 166, fasc. 534, 1989, pp. 212-225;
- A. ROCCATAGLIATI, Libretti d’opera: testi autonomi o testi d’uso?, in “Quaderni del Dipartimento di linguistica e letterature comparate”, 6, Bergamo, Università degli Studi, 1990, pp. 7-20;-
- P. TROVATO, Note sulla fissazione dei testi poetici nelle edizioni critiche dei melodrammi, in “Rivista italiana di musicologia”, 25, 1990, pp. 333-352;
- S. CASTELVECCHI, Sullo statuto del testo verbale nell’opera, in Gioachino Rossini 1792-1992. Il testo e la scena, ed. by P. Fabbri, Pesaro, Fondazione Rossini, 1994, pp. 309-314;
- G. LA FACE BIANCONI, Filologia dei testi poetici nella musica vocale italiana, in “Acta Musicologica” in, LXVI, 1994, pp. 1-21 e 139;
- L. BIANCONI, Hors-d’œuvre alla filologia dei libretti, in “Il Saggiatore musicale», 2, 1995, pp. 143-154;
- La filologia dei libretti, round table coordinated by L. Bianconi, in L’edizione critica tra testo musicale e testo letterario, ed. by R. Borghi e P. Zappalà, Lucca, LIM, 1995, pp. 421-482;
- A. GIER, Das Libretto. Theorie und Geschichte einer musikoliterarischen Gattung, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1998;
- D. DAOLMI, review of Giulio Rospigliosi, Melodrammi profani e Melodrammi sacri, a cura di D. Romei, in “Il Saggiatore musicale”, 9, 2002, pp. 230-249;
- M. BEGHELLI, Il libretto d’opera, in Il libro di musica, ed. by C. Fiore, Palermo, L’Epos, 2004, pp. 277-313;
- P. RUSSO, “Medea in Corinto” di Felice Romani. Storia, fonti e tradizioni, Florence, Olschki, 2004;-
- G. PAGANNONE, La “Pia de’ Tolomei” di Salvadore Cammarano. Edizione genetico-evolutiva, Firenze, Olschki, 2005. <<<