The Italian Traditions and Puccini: Compositional Theory and Practice in Nineteenth-Century Opera by Nicholas Baragwanath (review)

Studies in music history have tended to discuss operatic lineages rather broadly, in terms of one composer’s influence on another, almost as a series of musical stepping-stones. In the case of nineteenth-century Italian opera, Rossini is traditionally presented as the foundation stone of the bel canto tradition, followed by a series of hops through Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, and finally to Puccini, after whom Italian opera plunges into a dry chasm. However, as can be the case in any study that focuses on several generations of composers, it is the gaps and details between the steps that often prove to be most enlightening.

Baragwanath’s highly detailed study concentrates on a largely under-researched area—Italian composition teachers in the nineteenth century, their lessons, techniques, and formulas, and how the early training of Bellini, Verdi, and (crucially) Puccini influenced their operatic output. The challenges of studying this area are considerable: as Baragwanath outlines in the early part of the book, despite the development of some lineages, composition teaching in Italy consisted of a variety of often eccentric methods, which evolved over a period of decades and were passed down from generation to generation, rather than a unified or systematic curriculum. Comprehensive records of these lessons are not available, either because the content of the lessons was not always written down or because notes or exercises were not always retained. However, Baragwanath calls upon a vast range of sources, including biographies, histories, monographs, diary entries, and trattati published by various teachers, to piece together the likely content of the lessons. Out of these eclectic sources, he identifies a series of composition methods and exercises that formed the foundation of the operatic ‘tricks of the trade’. However, Baragwanath’s study has greater ambition than simply filling in gaps in our knowledge of the nineteenth-century Italian opera tradition: he asserts that an understanding of composition training, and the ideals and values attached to the composition masters’ methods, can offer opera analysts an alternative approach to inherited Austro-German techniques, which are not always appropriate for examining Italian opera.

The two first chapters are largely introductory. The first is concerned mainly with introducing the teaching traditions of the Italian schools, the teachers, and the key sources referred to throughout subsequent chapters, including textbooks, manuals, and treatises written or used by the composition masters during the nineteenth century. It also introduces other sources and influences such as histories, biographies, monographs, and dissertations. The second chapter focuses on Puccini’s early composition training, the influence of the Puccini musical dynasty (particularly the teachings of his father Michele), his initial training in Lucca, and later studies in Milan.

Chapters 3–5 present detailed examinations of the three main aspects of compositional techniques that formed the backbone of nineteenth-century Italian composition training. The third chapter is concerned with the role of rhythm in mapping verse onto musical phrases and acting as the foundation of melody. Chapter 4 focuses on harmony and counterpoint within the partimento tradition, examining practical vs. theoretical approaches as composition teaching moved from an improvisatory tradition inherited from eighteenth-century composition studies to written-out exercises. The fifth chapter is concerned with affect, imitation, and conduct, namely the ability to capture in music the meaning and emotion of the text. It examines the formulas proposed by composition masters for each of the small-scale periods of music that together make up large-scale or overriding forms. Each chapter contains a series of examples or extended case studies from works by Bellini, Verdi, Boito, and Puccini, with which Baragwanath seeks to demonstrate how the techniques and formulae the composers inherited from their lessons are demonstrated in their scores. The final chapter is concerned with the rarely recognized overlap between performance and composition in music training: vocal improvisation was a vital skill in the creation of melodies.

All chapters are broken down...