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The article looks at the various ways in which the Bolognese house of the Congregation of the Oratorio of San Filippo Neri modelled itself after the Roman motherhouse, and considers the institution from its early 17th-century beginnings... more
The article looks at the various ways in which the Bolognese house of the Congregation of the Oratorio of San Filippo Neri modelled itself after the Roman motherhouse, and considers the institution from its early 17th-century beginnings until the 1730s. From the start, the deliberate imitation of Rome was a factor that shaped the self-image of the new institution in Bologna. The article provides a sort of institutional history of the first century of the Bolognese house, focused on how it dealt with its Roman model. It draws on a range of archival documents and other sources to show how the imitation of Rome remained an important issue: Roman examples were repeatedly and explicitly cited in internal documents, and deviations from Roman practices gave rise to discussions. The article looks at various issues affected by these concerns: the details of churches and oratories, the suburban S. Onofrio hill, the visit of the seven churches, indulgences, the seasonal and temporal organisation of devotional gatherings inside and outside the city, and the choice for their exact form, location and starting times, among other things. While the imitation of Rome seems to have been a point of pride, its practical application led to continual anxieties.
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The article looks at theatrical life in Rome by analysing one local aristocratic family’s presence as audience members at the city’s theatres. The Bolognetti family came originally from Bologna but established itself (also) in Rome in the... more
The article looks at theatrical life in Rome by analysing one local aristocratic family’s presence as audience members at the city’s theatres. The Bolognetti family came originally from Bologna but established itself (also) in Rome in the 17th century. They were no major direct patrons of musical events, but did frequent the theatres as audience members. By looking at this aspect of the nobility’s involvement with operatic and theatrical activities in Rome, the article provides a different point of view on the well-known topic of music and theatre in baroque Rome. On the basis of 15 volumes of payment records from Ferdinando and his son Giacomo Bolognetti, spanning the period from 1693 until 1736, the article partially reconstructs the family’s presence at the city’s theatres. The payments show the different financial arrangements for hiring full or partial seasonal boxes, repairs and decorations carried out at the family’s boxes at the Tordinona and Capranica theatres, the buying of individual tickets, and other expenses. A singular cross-section of theatrical life in Rome thus emerges that, at one point or other, includes virtually all of the city’s theatres and a range of different theatrical genres.
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Although the circulation and revision of Italian opera librettos is a well-known aspect of musical life in eighteenth-century Europe, the practice has hardly been touched upon with regard to the Italian oratorio of the same period.... more
Although the circulation and revision of Italian opera librettos is a well-known aspect of musical life in eighteenth-century Europe, the practice has hardly been touched upon with regard to the Italian oratorio of the same period. Librettist Apostolo Zeno (1668–1750) worked in and theorized about both genres, yet his involvement with the oratorio has been little studied. This article addresses three editions of an oratorio libretto by Domenico Canavese. Following versions for Florence (1712) and Pistoia (1714), a third appeared in 1726 in conjunction with a Lenten performance at the Imperial Court Chapel in Vienna. An annotated copy of the 1712 edition from Zeno's library shows that he revised the text for the Viennese performance. His textual changes – some small, some radical – reveal practical, stylistic and dramaturgical concerns. A comparison of the annotated copy with the printed libretto for the 1726 performance and the principal musical source for the new setting by Giuseppe Porsile shows that Zeno's revisions were scrupulously followed.
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This article aims to draw attention to a set of fifty-three seventeenth-century French broadsides and other small printed items in the collection of Houghton Library at Harvard University. Like many other similar such sets, this one had... more
This article aims to draw attention to a set of fifty-three seventeenth-century French broadsides and other small printed items in the collection of Houghton Library at Harvard University. Like many other similar such sets, this one had so far not been described in detail and item per item. The article provides such an inventory for this set, and introduces it by discussing some of its more significant features, including the fact that at least 16 of the items appear to be unica. It also provides an overview of the various topics addressed by these printed ephemera.
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The article discusses a little-known copy of "Vanden leven der heiligher vaderen" printed by Geraert Leeu in Gouda in 1480, the only incunable in the collection of the Fondation Custodia in Paris. The copy is noteworthy for its early... more
The article discusses a little-known copy of "Vanden leven der heiligher vaderen" printed by Geraert Leeu in Gouda in 1480, the only incunable in the collection of the Fondation Custodia in Paris. The copy is noteworthy for its early coloring of the woodcut border on the first printed page of text, as well as for two early sixteenth-century provenances. The book was first owned by the Leiden town clerk Jan Philipsz and by 1509 donated by him to the female monastery of the Tertiary order of St Francis at Roomburg. The article also traces the presence of this copy of the book in nineteenth- and twentieth-century auctions and collections, including those of James P. R. Lyell, Albert and John P. W. Ehrman, and, finally, Frits Lugt.
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Between 1690 and 1693 Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj (1653–1730) held the office of Cardinal- Legate of Bologna. Although he is well known as a patron of music in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Rome, his time in Bologna has received... more
Between 1690 and 1693 Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj (1653–1730) held the office of Cardinal- Legate of Bologna. Although he is well known as a patron of music in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Rome, his time in Bologna has received virtually no attention. This article provides an extensive overview of these years on the basis of a large body of previously unpublished documents. Three appendices provide transcriptions of 74 documents from the cardinal's financial administration, 44 excerpts from a Bolognese institutional diary and a chronology of events involving the cardinal.
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The article discusses a number of Meissen porcelain objects on which fragments of arias from opera's by Johann Adolph Hasse are depicted. Some of these were sung by Faustina Bordoni. The article identifies the sources of some of these... more
The article discusses a number of Meissen porcelain objects on which fragments of arias from opera's by Johann Adolph Hasse are depicted. Some of these were sung by Faustina Bordoni. The article identifies the sources of some of these fragments and considers what these objects contribute to our knowledge of the celebrity of Hasse and Bordoni.
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The article makes a contribution to the reception of the influential sixteenth-century music treatise Le istitutioni harmoniche by Gioseffo Zarlino in the Low Countries. Specifically, it brings to attention a recently identified copy of... more
The article makes a contribution to the reception of the influential sixteenth-century music treatise Le istitutioni harmoniche by Gioseffo Zarlino in the Low Countries. Specifically, it brings to attention a recently identified copy of the 1588-9 edition of Zarlino’s complete works that once belonged to the organist Abraham Verheyen in Nijmegen, which is now at the Bibliothèque musicale François-Lang, Abbaye de Royaumont, France. It traces the provenance of the book and discusses various early annotations, its binding, and a series of underlinings of an early reader. Together these elements provide material for an eventual reception history of Zarlino’s writings.
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A previously unknown decoration programme for the great oval hall of the Palazzo Carignano, in Turin, provides valuable new information on the early appearance of this atrium, as well as more generally on the preparations for, and people... more
A previously unknown decoration programme for the great oval hall of the Palazzo Carignano, in Turin, provides valuable new information on the early appearance of this atrium, as well as more generally on the preparations for, and people involved with, the decorations of the palace. The long text, centred on the apotheosis of Hercules – the only such document known in relation to the decorations of palazzo Carignano – was written by the Bolognese nobleman Ercole Agostino Bero`. A comparison of the programme with other texts shows that he made use of iconographical handbooks and early treatises on painting. Although the evidence is circumstantial, it furthermore appears that the programme was never executed in the oval hall for which it was intended. This emerges, in particular, from a painted ceiling elsewhere in the palace, the main scene of which was based on Bero`’s programme. It seems therefore unlikely that the same topic was also depicted in the great oval salon.
On the basis of a large corpus of previously unpublished correspondence and other documents, this article focuses on an assortment of music type ordered by the printer Giuseppe Antonio Silvani in Bologna from the typefounder Bartolomeo... more
On the basis of a large corpus of previously unpublished correspondence and other documents, this article focuses on an assortment of music type ordered by the printer Giuseppe Antonio Silvani in Bologna from the typefounder Bartolomeo Falcone in various stages between 1716 and 1717. Two appendices provide samples of the type that are specifically mentioned and transcriptions of an extensive selection of documents.
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In contrast to opera seria, the study of the circulation and revision of the music and librettos of the Italian oratorio in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe is meager. An examination of the life of singer and composer Francesco... more
In contrast to opera seria, the study of the circulation and revision of the music and librettos of the Italian oratorio in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe is meager. An examination of the life of singer and composer Francesco Antonio Pistocchi and the circulation of his oratorio Il martirio di san Adriano provides an argument for the inclusion of work-centered, bio-bibliographical scholarship, alongside research on geographical centers, in the field of music circulation.
The article discusses two disputes that took place in Bologna in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century over the copying of Alessandra Tiarini's Rest on the Flight into Egypt and Guido Reni's Massacre of the Innocents.
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Full text online: https://books.openedition.org/efr/17562 This contribution takes two characteristics of seventeenth-century opera as its starting point: the constant process of revisions of the librettos and music that the works... more
Full text online: https://books.openedition.org/efr/17562
This contribution takes two characteristics of seventeenth-century opera as its starting point: the constant process of revisions of the librettos and music that the works underwent during their circulation, and the role of singers in this process and in audiences’ perception of the genre as actual performances. Instead of focusing only on changes in the text and music of various performances, the statement is made that, in order to judge these works as actual performances, the changes and continuities in the cast must be taken into account in a far more systematic way than has been done so far. This study looks at the case of the two operas that constituted the 1693 season at the Teatro Tordinona: Il Seleuco and Il Vespasiano. It traces the aria replacements and singers of a series of performances of these works during the years leading up to their performance in Rome, cross-referencing the continuities and replacements of arias with the singers that sang them. In so doing, a more nuanced view emerges of the correlation between singers and aria replacements, and of the ways in which the combination of those two elements shaped audiences’ listening experiences. The contribution focuses in particular on the castrato Francesco Antonio Pistocchi, who appears to have played a central role in the Roman season.
This contribution takes two characteristics of seventeenth-century opera as its starting point: the constant process of revisions of the librettos and music that the works underwent during their circulation, and the role of singers in this process and in audiences’ perception of the genre as actual performances. Instead of focusing only on changes in the text and music of various performances, the statement is made that, in order to judge these works as actual performances, the changes and continuities in the cast must be taken into account in a far more systematic way than has been done so far. This study looks at the case of the two operas that constituted the 1693 season at the Teatro Tordinona: Il Seleuco and Il Vespasiano. It traces the aria replacements and singers of a series of performances of these works during the years leading up to their performance in Rome, cross-referencing the continuities and replacements of arias with the singers that sang them. In so doing, a more nuanced view emerges of the correlation between singers and aria replacements, and of the ways in which the combination of those two elements shaped audiences’ listening experiences. The contribution focuses in particular on the castrato Francesco Antonio Pistocchi, who appears to have played a central role in the Roman season.
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This chapter in a volume of conference proceedings on the oratorio-like works of Charpentier calls attention to the fact that the composer's journey to Rome around 1667 provided him with direct, experiential, knowledge of the performance... more
This chapter in a volume of conference proceedings on the oratorio-like works of Charpentier calls attention to the fact that the composer's journey to Rome around 1667 provided him with direct, experiential, knowledge of the performance practice of Italian oratorio (as opposed to mere knowledge through scores), and it provides examples of oratorios and performance practices he could have witnessed not only in Rome but also in Bologna and Florence.