What ItalianOpera investigations are
When history does not add up
INVESTIGATIONS
Sources
Manuscripts, inks, attributions and documents. When the analysis of sources contradicts the traditional narrative.
Ink analysis
Inks as investigative tools
Study of documents through a new system based on colour triplets. An objective approach to identify later interventions and problematic attributions.
Mayr and Verter
Genesis and transmission
A case of double attribution and unstable editorial tradition. When the source tells a different story from the one transmitted.
Mozart in Italy
Documentary context
The Italian journey reinterpreted through letters, manuscripts and musical models. An analysis that reduces the myth of solitary authorship.
Palaeographic, philological and diplomatic analysis
Method and verification
The stages of source investigation: graphic examination, textual analysis and diplomatic evaluation. Method before interpretation.
INVESTIGATIONS
Music theory
Systems, models and abstract constructions. When theory emerges after practice and then claims to govern it.
Canons
Technique and ideology
From combinatorial play to academic norm.
Counterpoint
Rules and practice
Critical analysis of nineteenth-century rules.
Tables and models
Abstract systems
When mathematics clarifies more than tradition.
Systemic errors
Theoretical critique
Models taught in theory that do not work on historical repertories.
INVESTIGATIONS
Practice and pedagogy
How music was actually learned. Between workshop traditions, conservatories and practical teaching.
Partimenti
Neapolitan school
A practical system later transformed into abstract theory.
The Neapolitan school
Musical education
Real pedagogy versus modern textbook narratives.
Teaching music
Historical method
How musicians were trained before the dominance of treatises.
Exercises and practice
Learning
The role of imitation and repetition in musical training.
INVESTIGATIONS
Ideological constructions
Invented historical categories, national myths and retrospective readings. When music is bent to fit a narrative.
Viennese Classicism
Twentieth-century myth
A category that did not originate in Italy.
Periodizations
History and ideology
When historical periods serve schools more than history.
Musical nationalism
Cultural history
Music used as an instrument of identity.
The Academy
Construction of the canon
The mechanisms through which it is decided what counts and what disappears.
Pubblico dominio (Commons)
Works do not emerge in a vacuum. Discover how ItalianOpera organises musical history through an alternative periodisation based on the Italian context.
Go to historical periodisation →