The Italian Traditions and Puccini: Compositional Theory and Practice in Nineteenth-Century Opera

1 Musical Traditions in Nineteenth-Century Italy

1 I. The Italian Schools The Italian musical tradition was not a unified whole but an aggregate of diverse regional traditions. There were a number of recognized musical centers and institutions, within which individual maestros passed on their own compilations and interpretations of earlier teachings to successive generations. Although the distinctions between them became increasingly blurred during the period of the Risorgimento, it is nevertheless possible to identify specific lineages in pedagogy, theory, and practice throughout the nineteenth century. These traditions were proud to trace their origins back to the Renaissance, post-Josquin, as Padre Giovanni Battista Martini (1706–84)—pedagogue, antiquarian, maestro di cappella at the church of San Francesco, and prominent member of the Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna—noted in his overview of the main Italian “schools.”1 There was the Scuola Romana deriving from Giovanni Pier-Luigi da Palestrina (1525–94), Giovanni-Maria Nanini [sic] (ca. 1543–1607), his younger brother Giovanni-Bernardino (ca. 1560–1618), Orazio Benevoli (1605–72), and Francesco Foggia (1604–88). Developing in parallel was a Scuola Napolitana involving Rocco Rodio (ca. 1535–1615), Alessandro Scarlatti (1660–1725), Leonardo Leo (1694–1744), and Francesco Durante (1684–1755). The Scuola Veneta (called Scuola Veneziana by later authors), which encompassed Padua and Verona as well as Venice, could boast a similarly exalted heritage in Adriano Willaert (ca. 1490–1562), Giuseppe [sic] Zarlino da Chiozza [sic] (1517–90), and Antonio Lotti (1666–1740). The Scuola Lombarda included musicians not only from Milan and the surrounding towns of Lodi, Brescia, one Musical Traditions in Nineteenth-Century Italy 2 The Ita lia n Tr a ditions a nd Puccini Cremona, and Vigevano, but also, according to Martini, from the cities of Modena and Parma in neighboring Emilia-Romagna. It traced its foundations to Costanzo Porta (1528–1601), Pietro Ponzio [sic] (1532–96), Orazio Vecchi (1550–1605), and Claudio Monteverde [sic] (1567–1643). Martini sought the origins of his own Scuola Bolognese in Andrea Rota (1553–97), Girolamo Giacobbi (1567–1628), Giovanni Paolo Colonna (1637–95), and his former maestro, Giacomo Antonio Perti (1661–1756). These historical lineages were taken up and elaborated in Lichtenthal’s influential music dictionary of 1826, which divided their memberships into separate lists of composers and singers and added a Scuola Fiorentina that ended with Boccherini.2 Building upon the foundations of both Martini and Lichtenthal, Francesco Florimo provided more detailed descriptions of the six Italian schools as they were conceived at the end of the nineteenth century and put forward specific dates: the first and most ancient school, la Napolitana, was formed in 1480; the second, la Bolognese , began in 1482 and lasted until Mattei (1750–1825) and Cherubini (1760–1842); the third, la Veneziana, stretched from 1527 to the Russianbased maestro and singing teacher Catterino Cavos (1775–1840); the fourth, la Lombarda, was founded in 1485; the fifth, la Romana, which included Boccherini and Clementi, traced its origins to 1540; and the sixth, la Fiorentina, lasted only from ca. 1580 to the career of Giovambattista Doni (1593–1647). The schools were distinguished, he claimed, not so much by their approaches to counterpoint as by their sentiments, expression, and effects.3 Bythebeginningofthenineteenthcentury,theRomanandVenetian schools had all but faded away as significant centers of compositional pedagogy, surviving only through the activities of a few isolated maestros such as Bonaventura Furlanetto (1738–1817)4 or Pietro Raimondi (1786–1853). The remaining schools continued to be defined as much by their characteristic pedagogical approaches as by their music. The Neapolitan tradition was represented primarily through the teachings of Fedele Fenaroli(1730–1818) andhiscolleagues, as listed laterinthischapter. The Bolognese tradition, associated with Padre Martini and the church of San Francesco, which encompassed maestros from Parma, Piacenza, and Correggio, continued to flourish through the teachings of Martini’s students Giuseppe Sarti (1729–1802), Luigi Sabbatini (1732–1809), and especially Padre Stanislao Mattei (1750–1825), who took over as Martini’s Musica l Tr a ditions in Nineteenth-Century Ita ly 3 successor in 1776. As professor of counterpoint at the Liceo comunale di musica in Bologna from its foundation in 1804 until his death, Mattei was personally associated with a “chief school” (capo-scuola) of Italian music, having taught over 150 students by 1812.5 What Martini described as the “Lombardy school” was effectively supplanted by the foundation of the Milan Conservatory in 1807, which established its own pedagogical traditions based on the teachings of its...