Description
Book SynopsisThe theory and practice of Italian musical composition
Trade ReviewDense and challenging in its detail and analysis, this work is an important addition to the growing corpus of Puccini studies. . . . Highly recommended.
* Choice *
Baragwanath's is a very full treatment of Italian teaching methods and curricula, now based not ony on traditional harmony but on other relevant strategies for learning to create what every Italian composer wanted to create: opera. The pedagogical traditions and the Puccini family's part in them are tracedbroadly The positivistic research is thorough and results in a reference-source useful to all further historians of 19th-century Italian opera. The topic is a big one, with many ramifications, and the book does provide a definitive service in explaining the prevailing Italian view that 'music should be pleasing, fulfilling or entertaining in a variety of contexts.'
* Musical Times *
[B]y offering another component to the analyst's tool kit, Baragwanath has comprehensively achieved
what he set out to do: create a framework for further study.
* Music and Letters *
Nicholas Baragwanath has made a major contribution – one of the most major to date, in any language – not only to Puccini studies but also to the study of nineteenth-century Italian opera in general.
* Nineteenth-Century Music Review *
[Offers] us no less than a thorough reappraisal of how composition was learned by those who would actually become composers.
* Journal of Music Theory *
Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgements
A Note on Translation and Terminology
1: Musical Traditions in Nineteenth-Century Italy
I. The Italian Schools
II. An Introduction to the Primary Sources
III. Puccini and the End of the Great Tradition
2. Studies in Lucca and Milan
I. Composition as Craft
II. The Istituto musicale in Lucca
III. Scarpia and the Partimento Cadence
IV. The Conservatorio di Milano
3. Lessons in Dramatic Composition I: Rhythm
I. Rhythm without Measure, Accent without Beat
II. Rules of Versification, Lippmann's Rhythmic-Musical Types, and Two Case-Studies
III. Historical Survey of Writings on Ritmo
IV. Short Case-Studies from Bellini and Puccini
4. Lessons in Dramatic Composition II: Harmony and Counterpoint
I. The Partimento Tradition
II. Michele Puccini's Corso pratico di contrappunto (1846)
III. The Bolognese Attachment, or "Little Keys for Winding Clocks"
IV. Regular Motions and Melodic Composition
5. Lessons in Dramatic Composition III: Affect, Imitation, and Conduct
I. Dominant Affects and their Movements
II. Physical and Sentimental Imitation
III. Form and Conduct
IV. Case-Studies from Verdi, Boito, and Puccini
6. Vocalizzi, Solfeggi, and Real (or Ideal) Composition
I. Lessons in Singing and Counterpoint
II. Lessons in Singing and Solfeggio
III. From Solfeggio to Ideal Composition in Puccini (and Bellini)
Notes
Bibliography
Index of Concepts
Index of Names and Works
