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 >>>

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 >>>

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 >>>

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 >>>