Music Education in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

16 The Good Maestro: Pietro Cerone on the Pedagogical Relationship

To scholars of the historical development of musical pedagogy, it is not necessary to apologize for the arcane fascination exerted by the music theory of a bygone age, nor for the forbidding dryness of its texts, nor for the obscurity of its authors. It is a difficult task to extract concrete information about pedagogy from this thicket of dense texts. Yet even within the erudite circle of these authors, there is at least one whose innovative consideration of the psychology of pedagogy has hitherto gone unremarked. It is time to ask why so little attention has been paid to the forward-looking pedagogical concerns that are sprinkled throughout book one of Pietro Cerone’s El melopeo y maestro (The composer and teacher). These chapters discuss general psychological and relational issues of pedagogy, rather than concrete methods for musical instruction. As such, though they may comprise one of Cerone’s most original contributions in the work, the relevant chapters have escaped notice by scholars delving for musical issues in this very large treatise. Several aspects of Cerone and El melopeo might explain scholars’ previous dismissal of this source. First, Cerone’s massive tome overwhelms even historians of music theory such that no complete translation has been published.1 It is, moreover, heavily derivative—as has been repeatedly noted.2 Second, Cerone’s travels may have contributed to his relative ignominy. He was born in Bergamo in 1566 (Gallo suggests 1561), something of a back16 TheGoodMaestro:PietroCerone onthePedagogicalRelationship• Gary Towne • The Good Maestro · 325 water in his time, although he has not yet been found in the records of any musical institution there.3 He later served in the Abruzzi chapel, beginning in 1584, and then at the cathedral of Oristano, Sardinia in 1588. Following a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in 1592, he became a chaplain at the Spanish court. In 1604, he became chapel-master at La Santissima Annunziata in Naples, and from 1610 until his death in 1625, he served in the viceregal chapel there.4 This odyssey over the length and breadth of Italy, on to Sardinia and Spain, and ultimately to Naples leaves Cerone appearing rootless and lacking in either Spanish or Italian advocates. Third, little was written about Cerone in his own time, and he was increasingly censured by later authors, despite the popularity of his text for musical instruction in Spain well into the eighteenth century. His book was also widely used in Spanish colonies in the Americas and probably elsewhere. The widespread adoption of Cerone’s text and its perpetuation of an increasingly antique musical style may explain the mounting vilification of it in later years, beginning with the libels of Antonio Eximeno y Pujades in 1701 and continuing over the generations, to culminate with the criticism of Felipe Pedrell in 1920. But Cerone’s reputation has been rehabilitated by twentiethcentury critics who have actually read his book, revealing an author who was exhaustive in his search for comprehensiveness, and who had a clear eye for the utility of his musical teachings.5 It is this utilitarian approach that contributed to the book’s longevity— and perhaps to its denigration—because Cerone was not content just to explain the principles of musical notation, construction, and style. His is not merely a text for the maker of music (el melopeo), but also for the teacher of music (el maestro). He says: What first inspired me to use such a title was that the towns and villages of Spain lack teachers of music, and the realization that, for the greater part, the few that do exist do not know what is necessary . . . The method used is that as if a teacher were teaching in person, namely, with ample reasons, simple words, examples from legends and histories, pleasing sayings, serious statements, [appropriate analogies], generous digressions, familiar concepts, and finally, with so many varieties that [it] all looks like a new Italian salad. This method of writing is suitable in that the novice scholar understands and learns more proficiently what is being stated.6 ToEnriqueArias,thisquotationillustrates“thereasonsforthestylisticpeculiarities ofEl melopeo. Its literary approach, even by the standards of the time, is cumbersome.”7 Cerone’s approach to his subject is an extreme example of the 326 · Gary Towne commonplace-book technique of taking notes on every work that is read for digestion and regurgitation. In his aspiration for comprehensiveness, Cerone sorts, reorders, reproduces, reiterates, and amplifies material...