The Birth of Cello Virtuosity
(2025)
author(s): Antonio Pellegrino
published in: KC Research Portal
At the turn of the nineteenth century, cellists were trained to provide chordal continuo realisation for recitativi in various parts of Europe. In other words, when they accompanied an upper voice, players would create a harmonically rich texture to better support the line above them, filling in chords rather than playing single bass notes. My research aims to trace the origins of this practice, examining pedagogical materials from the Neapolitan conservatories at the end of the 1600s. First, we investigate sections of the Montecassino Manuscript MS 2-D-13 (1699), analysing cases when Neapolitan-trained cellists needed to conjure up music beyond the written bass line. Selected works by prominent cello virtuosi and pedagogues of the time (Rocco Greco, Gaetano Francone, and Francesco Supriani) help us grasp how the violoncello gained the possibility of playing sophisticated improvised lines upon a bass and even (dare we say) partimenti. The second part of my research takes us forward in time to the second half of the eighteenth century. We discover how Salvatore Lanzetti and Antonio Guida continued the pedagogical traditions established by the preceding generations of Maestri, crafting methods that trained cellists to employ the rule of the octave in order to get comfortable with chordal improvisation. Ultimately, these explorations aim to suggest how the ground may have been fertilized for the growth of the aforementioned recitativo practices in the late 1700s, treating chordal continuo realisation as a result of a dynamic process across generations rather than an isolated phenomenon.
Dolce Napoli: Approaches for performance
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Inês de Avena Braga
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
This thesis of Inês de Avena Braga examined two previously neglected topics, Baroque Italian recorders and the Neapolitan Baroque repertoire for the recorder, and then combined both aspects. First, information was collected on all Italian Baroque recorders currently known, including biographical references about the makers of these recorders, as well as technical drawings, measurements and photographs. The practical experience with the copies of a few of those recorders was described by the author. Second, the Baroque repertoire composed in Naples for the recorder was researched, uncovering a rich and forgotten corpus of music written and copied between 1695 and 1759. The Neapolitan recorder works were also listed with a brief analysis and further commentary on the recorder part, with a view of connecting the works with the instruments that might have once been used to play them. Furthermore, an overview of the social and cultural atmosphere of Naples in the early eighteenth century was offered as contextualization to the musical ambience, aided by iconographical references. Conclusions on performance practice are presented as a result of the combination of both research aspects. The artistic outcome of this study has brought together, also in performance, the two main aspects of the research: 'new' instruments and 'new' works.