Patrizia Bovi

Italy °1961
affiliation: Leiden University

research

activities

  • Doctor of Arts (2014) connected to: Polifonia
    Degree: Doctorate, Orpheus Institute (Belgium), recipient: Patrizia Bovi
  • Between oral and written tradition: reconstructing 'lost' singing practices of Quattrocento Italy
    Polifonia project, Principal Investigator: Patrizia Bovi
    The subject of my research will be to reconstruct the particular vocal style of little-known song forms of late medieval / early Renaissance Italy. Sources such as surviving music compositions of later periods, contemporary literary chronicles and court payment records give hints about a ‘lost’ style of singing, that is, ‘lost’ in the sense that music historians and singers today have no clear idea about how these performances were sung - they were normally not written down in music notation as compositions. Further hints are given by regional traditions of orally-transmitted music in areas of Italy today. By making a synthesis of modern and historical data, against a background knowledge of written medieval music, it will be possible to approach the singing styles of such fascinating song forms as aer veneziano, siciliane and giustiniane.