The Governors’ Minutes of the Conservatory S. Maria Di Loreto, Naples

Abstract

Most musicians are aware that Naples was an extremely important musical centre in the eighteenth century. The reasons for Naples’ importance were twofold: it was, firstly, a major centre for the performance of music, especially of vocal music and opera; it was also an educational training ground for a large group of composers who, together with their pupils and others influenced by them, constituted what has been called the eighteenth-century “Neapolitan school” of composers. We are not concerned here with definitions of the term “school” and whether the Neapolitan one was, as some would say, a group united by the style and type of music it wrote, or was as others have claimed, a group whose members were all connected with Naples being taught by Neapolitans. It is a fact that large numbers of composers attached to the “school”, whichever definition one chooses, were trained at one or other of the four music conservatories in Naples. And this study, a case study of just one of these conservatories, may, amongst other things, contribute to a larger examination of the part played by Naples in nurturing or supporting this “school”.