The Academy and the Construction of the Canon: Who Decides What Matters (and What Vanishes)

The canon does not fall from the sky. It is not a natural list of masterpieces that humanity spontaneously recognizes as such. It is a construction. And like any construction, it has foundations, builders, and, above all, exclusions.

When you open a music history manual and find the same names, the same periodizations, and the same hierarchies over and over again, you tend to think that this is "history." In reality, it is a selection. And every selection implies a choice: what to remember and what to make disappear.

The problem is not that a canon exists. The problem is when the canon presents itself as neutral, objective, and inevitable. At that moment, it ceases to be a pedagogical tool and becomes a device of power.

Bibliographic laziness: When authority replaces analysis

One of the simplest — and most effective — mechanisms in the construction of the canon is repetition. One does not return to the sources: one cites the manuals. One does not verify: one refers back. One does not study: one compiles.

For decades, much of Italian musicology has imported German and, later, American models without questioning the ideological context in which they were born. Texts written between the 1920s and 1940s — in a cultural climate that was anything but neutral — were taken as solid foundations, without asking what categories they implied.

The result is that certain periodizations, hierarchies, and narratives have become dogmas. Not because they are indisputable, but because they are repeated. The authority of the manual replaces historical analysis. And thus, the canon feeds itself.

Periodization as an act of power

Let's take an apparently harmless example: "Baroque 1600–1750." A formula repeated naturally, as if it were an objective fact. Yet it is a precise historiographical construction, functional to a certain Northern European reading of music.

Periodization does not simply describe time: it organizes it. It decides where an era begins and where it ends. It establishes what is "preparation" and what is the "pinnacle." And, above all, it implicitly suggests which geographical area is the center of the process.

When categories born elsewhere are applied without verifying their adequacy to Italian history, a shift occurs: whatever does not fit perfectly into the schema appears marginal, backward, or secondary. Not because it is so, but because the grid was not built to include it.

Eurocentrism and the inferiority complex

Another mechanism, less declared but equally effective, is the preference for foreign sources. The foreign text is perceived as more authoritative by definition. The German or American manual is valued more than the Italian essay, even when it deals with music born and developed in Italy.

This attitude produces a paradox: the history of Italian music is often told through categories and priorities that were not born to explain it. Thus, the idea is consolidated that true "absolute music" belongs elsewhere, while in Italy, mainly theater, vocality, and entertainment were produced.

But one only needs to broaden the gaze to the sources to discover a more complex reality: instrumental music, marches, symphonic poems, autonomous piano writing, and repertoires for guitar and band. If these fields disappear from the manuals, it is not because they do not exist, but because they do not coincide with the dominant model.

The hierarchy of genres: "Impure" opera, "pure" instrumental music

Within this framework, an implicit hierarchy takes shape. Instrumental music is elevated as the paradigm of "purity": it does not depend on language, it is not linked to theater, and it does not need words. Opera, on the other hand, is considered less universal because it is anchored to a text and a national tradition.

This distinction is not neutral. It is the reflection of a precise 19th-century aesthetic ideology, retroactively applied to previous centuries. Thus, Italian opera, central for centuries to European musical life, is read as a secondary genre compared to the symphony.

But history does not work through pure categories. In the 18th century, genres dialogue, contaminate each other, and transform. Reducing everything to a hierarchical scale means projecting onto the past a sensitivity that did not belong to it.

Selection by absence: Guitar, mandolin, and what "doesn't count"

A very effective way to build the canon is not to openly forbid anything, but simply not to study it. The guitar and the mandolin, for example, are often dismissed as popular, marginal instruments, not central to the "great" history of music.

Yet those instruments were not confined to taverns. They were present in the salons, the courts, and the cities of Central Europe. They were part of that musical world today called "Viennese Classicism," as if it were a culturally homogeneous block.

The paradox is evident: if a repertoire does not fall within the evolutionary line leading to the German symphony, it is treated as lateral. But its exclusion is not a natural fact; it is a historiographical choice. When a field is not studied, it slowly disappears. Not because it doesn't exist, but because it is not legitimized.

Partimenti and compositional freedom: An inconvenient model

The tradition of partimenti represents one of the most interesting and least integrated nodes in the dominant academic narrative. It is a system founded on improvisation, flexibility, practice, and the internalization of rules through exercise.

In that context, composition is not a sacred and isolated act, but a shared competence. Vocal pieces can be played by instruments; lines adapt; the writing is a trace, not a monument.

The modern idea of "absolute fidelity to the text" — so central to 20th-century performance practice — is a later historical product. Applying it retroactively to the 18th century means misunderstanding the actual functioning of that musical culture. Rigidity becomes the norm; flexibility is read as approximation.

Baronies and the control of sources

Another less visible but decisive mechanism is the control of legitimate sources. Not everything that is written can enter the acceptable bibliography. Academic networks, schools, and chairs build systems of mutual recognition.

The problem is not the existence of quality criteria. The problem arises when legitimation depends on affiliation rather than content. In these cases, a source is not refuted: it is ignored. And what is not cited slowly loses weight.

The construction of the canon also passes through these dynamics: selecting which voices are worthy of being heard and which must remain on the margins. It is a silent process, but it produces lasting effects.

Minor, minimal, invisible

The classification into "major" and "minor" seems like a descriptive fact. In reality, it is a constructed hierarchy. Often, the label is assigned without a deep analysis of an author's complete work. The category precedes the study.

A mythology is built around a few names — a sort of musical Olympus — while everything else is arranged on a descending scale. It is not about denying greatness, but about recognizing that the exclusive focus on a few peaks alters the perception of the entire landscape.

When the canon narrows, history flattens. And whatever does not fit into the dominant narrative automatically becomes marginal.

Note: "Pop music" is a recent category, not an eternal judgment

The rigid distinction between "cultivated" music and "pop" music is historically recent. In the past, the boundaries between genres were porous, and quality did not depend on the label but on formal effectiveness, expressive capacity, and invention.

Elevating some forms of the past as untouchable symbols and dismissing others as mere entertainment means applying a hierarchical criterion that does not always hold up to analysis. A well-constructed song can possess coherence, thematic strength, and a capacity for synthesis superior to works celebrated only because of their canonical status.

The problem is not defending one genre against another. It is remembering that value does not coincide with the category.

Conclusion: The canon as a device, not a destiny

The Academy is not an abstract entity. It is made of people, choices, bibliographies, university programs, and habits. And every choice contributes to establishing what deserves study and what can be neglected.

The canon is not a sacred list; it is a historical device. It can be expanded, discussed, and corrected. But only if one recognizes that it was built.

Questioning the canon does not mean destroying tradition. It means restoring its complexity. Because the history of music is not an altar before which to kneel, but a field of research that requires method, courage, and respect for facts.