Solfeggi with the "Simplest Melodies" Helped Introduce a Grammar of Schemas

Abstract

Young boys in the conservatories of eighteenth-century Naples began their studies with solfeggi. Through solfeggi, they learned to read music and to name the notes of scales and the intervals between those notes. Although solfeggi were used as exercises in musical literacy, they also served as exemplary pieces of music written in the syntax and style of the times. In Naples, solfeggi were almost always in manuscript, being copies of origi nals written by the masters. That all changed in 1772, when a four-volume edition of Ne apolitan and northern Italian solfeggi was published in Paris. Entitled Solfèges d'Italie, it contained a complete course moving from the rudiments of music to the "simplest mel odies" ( le Chant le plus simple ) and then to progressively more difficult melodies, ultimate ly reaching the level of virtuoso opera arias. Almost all the solfeggi were provided with figured-bass accompaniments, probably intended to be played by a teacher. This article examines the schematic patterns between melody and bass that were introduced in the solfeggi with the "simplest melodies." It appears that the editors of this collection chose solfeggi for beginners that focused on a small set of simple melody-bass schemas.