Italian Musicians Research Articles

"Encumbered with useless graces": Ornamentation and Aesthetics in Eighteenth-century Scottish Music

Throughout the eighteenth century, a steady stream of Italian musicians travelled to Scotland, in search of artistic and commercial success. Inspired by the enterprise of their Scottish counterparts, many published collections of “Scots Tunes,” such that by the end of the century a rich body of repertoire had emerged. Italians and Scots alike valued this repertoire for various reasons: for some, these tunes represented an idealised vision of pastoral simplicity; for others, a fossilised record of the music of past generations; for others still, these tunes were a vehicle for the expression of nationalistic sentiment. This repertoire presents a challenge to Early Music practitioners today, who must contend with the fact that this music has been transmitted through textual sources and oral tradition. To this end, many musicians engage with elements of Scottish Traditional performance practice – a practice that often diverges from, and is at times incompatible with, dominant understandings of eighteenth-century performance practice. In this thesis, I summarise some of the ornamentation techniques employed by Scottish Traditional musicians, investigating their possible influence on Italian Scots Tunes sources. I contend that comparative analysis of these sources can inform performances of this repertoire, by revealing implicit relationships between notation, performance practice and aesthetic judgements. Further, I survey current trends in the historical performance practice of Scots Tunes, interrogating the ways in which this repertoire is framed by modern conceptions of “folk” music. I observe that this repertoire continues to be valued within a variety of aesthetic frameworks, which are themselves revealed, upheld, and reproduced through performance practice.

Mapping Artistic Networks: Eighteenth-Century Italian Theatre and Opera across Europe ed. by Tatiana Korneeva (review)

Reviewed by: Mapping Artistic Networks: Eighteenth-Century Italian Theatre and Opera across Europe ed. by Tatiana Korneeva Anna Giust Mapping Artistic Networks: Eighteenth-Century Italian Theatre and Opera across Europe. Edited by Tatiana Korneeva. (Music History and Performance: Practices in Context, vol. 5.) Turnhout: Brepols, 2021. [231 p. ISBN 9782503584959 (paperback), $157.] Illustrations, bibliography, index. Mapping Artistic Networks, the fifth volume of a series directed by Christine Jeanneret, contains eleven essays selected and revised from papers presented at the conference Mapping Artistic Networks of Italian Theatre and Opera across Europe, 1600–1800, held at the Freie Universität Berlin on 11–12 April 2019 (p. 21). The essays are organized in three parts: "Itinerant Italian," with articles by Melania Bucciarelli, Marc Niubo, Anna Parkitna, and Gesa zur Nieden (pp. 27–85); "Russian Italians," with articles by Tatiana Korneeva, Nadezhda Chamina, Anna Korndorf, and Bella Brover-Lubovsky (pp. 89–170); and "Translational Encounters," with articles by Javier Gutiérrez Carou, Piermario Vescovo, and Massimo Ciavolella (pp. 173–222). The volume opens with Tatiana Korneeva's "Introduction: Italian Theatre Reverberated" (pp. 11–21). Korneeva's research focuses on dramatic theater, opera, and cultural transfer and transmission in early modern and eighteenth-century Italy and Russia. Her choice of these two paradigms for comparative studies probably stems from her education in classical philology (MA from Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov) and in classical languages, linguistics, and history (PhD from Scuola normale superiore). In recent years, Korneeva has been gradually shifting her focus from classical to Russian studies and notably to opera and commedia dell'arte, which she views from the perspective of a literary scholar. She has produced a substantial number of publications in the field of Italian theater and musical theater in Russia in the eighteenth century, including the coedited critical edition of commedia dell'arte texts staged in St. Petersburg between 1733 and 1735, Edizione scientifica digitale e la traduzione italiana della raccolta degli scenari delle commedie dell'arte rappresentate alla corte di San Pietroburgo dal 1733 al 1735 (2021; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5802046, accessed 21 January 2023). Korneeva's volume offers a selection of case studies for a wide range of musical activities, from opera seria to opera buffa, following individuals and their careers from Italy to the rest of Europe. While the first part presents cases of actor–singers active in cities such as London ("Italian Singers on the Move," pp. 27–40), Prague ("The Italian Opera in Prague in the Eighteenth Century," pp. 41–52), and Warsaw ("Pursuing Enlightenment Delights," pp. 53–63), the second part is devoted entirely to Russia. This part maintains a heterogeneous character through a rich variety of perspectives, from the survey of biographical data on individuals ("Italian Operisti in Early Eighteenth-Century St Petersburg," pp. 89–110)—which is also present in part 1 ("Operatic Patchworks and Their Crossings," pp. 65–85)—to visual aspects ("The Scenographic Fantasies of Giacomo Quarenghi," pp. 111–24, and "Italian Stage Designers and the Staging of the First Russian Epic Drama," pp. 125–41), to the relationships between individual works and the political context in which they were produced ("Andromeda Rescued on the Banks of the Neva," pp. 143–70). In part 3, the discourse [End Page 625] turns back to the dissemination of works by prominent Italian playwrights and librettists, such as Pietro Metastasio ("The Textual Evolutions of Metastasio's Semiramide," pp. 173–202), Carlo Goldoni ("Carlo Goldoni's Repertoire in Dresden," pp. 203–11), and Giacomo Casanova ("A Mirror of Deceit," pp. 213–22), who is considered here in the context of his literary production rather than his notorious adventures. It is therefore difficult to give a synthetic account of the volume as a whole and to assess it from a specific point of view, apart from noting that thematic consistency may have been a challenge for the editor too. As one can see from the way the book is presented, the volume and conference were conceived as a contribution to research in music and theater mobility, a theme that has become à la page in the last decades. "The mobility of Italian musicians in Europe in the eighteenth century with the...

Writing Lives in the Eighteenth Century ed. by Tanya M. Caldwell

Reviewed by: Writing Lives in the Eighteenth Century ed. by Tanya M. Caldwell Mark Fulk Tanya M. Caldwell, ed., Writing Lives in the Eighteenth Century (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell Univ. Press, 2020). Pp. 250; 2 b/w illus., 1 table. $34.95 paper, $120.00 cloth. Tanya M. Caldwell's edited collection of essays focuses on life-writing in the circles of Samuel Johnson and Frances Burney. The six essays and Caldwell's introduction reach beyond the long eighteenth century to model vital practices for the reading of life-writing in a myriad of forms, including letters (original and edited/republished collections), journals, and family memoirs alongside the more traditional categories of biography and autobiography. One of the strengths of Caldwell's collection overall is its tracing of critical strategies across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in relation to the life writings of Johnson, Burney, and their circles. These essays also provide insight into the significance of works at the margins of the literary and the ways we can incorporate them into our discussions of how various texts shape the interpretation of the lives and the canons that comprise our scholarly and pedagogical concerns. Lisa Berglund's essay on Hester Lynch Piozzi's Letters to and from the Late Samuel Johnson LL.D. (1788) opens Caldwell's volume by examining the ways that Piozzi's editing shapes the publication of Johnson's letters in a way that offers an apologia for Piozzi's second marriage to a younger man, the Italian musician Gabriel Mario Piozzi. Berglund shows how Piozzi's ordering of Johnson's letters, like her other editorial practices (including some but not all of Piozzi's own letters to Johnson), "deliberately construct … from 'found' epistolary materials" the arguments that tell her story in a way that supports her second marriage (27). Berglund explores the reception history of Piozzi's work to highlight the way Piozzi's reconstruction of Johnson (and, indirectly, of herself) is still contested even today. Peter Sabor's continued writing on Alexander D'Arblay, the only son of Frances Burney D'Arblay and the Duke D'Arblay, offers in tandem with his earlier article "Creative and Uncreative Gloom: Frances Burney and Alexander D'Arblay" a fuller picture of a young man who would develop mental illness in later life than has previously been available.1 The essay Caldwell includes is valuable for its insights into the impacts of parental favoritism on child-rearing as well as the situation of an only son in the age of the French Revolution and Romanticism. Describing Alexander's childhood and years at Cambridge as a student and as a fellow, Sabor's essay traces with subtle and arduous detail Frances Burney's views of and concerns about her favorite and only child. Although Sabor determines that "Alexander clearly suffered from depression" even though it remains "difficult to [End Page 508] determine the source of his ill" or assess his parents' "responsibility" for them, Sabor's essay offers valuable insight into these tumultuous times and the case of one, perhaps average, young man of two rather exceptional parents (69). Marilyn Francus's article considers how the family biographies written by Frances Burney (of her father Charles Burney) and Alicia LeFanu (of the Sheridan family) play with the promise of private, secret information. Francus delivers a rich context for the epistemological questions that family biography even today exploits, arguing that these questions concerning methodology and reader expectation shape the ways that family biography is written and consumed. Francus provides the publication history, contexts, and receptions of these biographies, showing how Burney and LeFanu are writing against prevailing notions as well as other unauthorized biographies of their subjects. Through this combining of methodologies, Francus demonstrates that the reading of family biographies and their constructions of privacy create a vexing context for our own reading, ultimately raising profound questions about "knowledge, truth, accuracy, and authorial agenda" that go to the heart of how we read life-writing in this period as well as our own (101). Victoria Warren's detailed treatment of Isabelle de Charrière demonstrates the importance of the inclusion of this remarkable writer in the canon. Normally only considered in...

Техника многохорного письма в сочинениях Миколая Зеленьского

The heyday of the art of polychoral composition in European musical culture falls on the middle of the 17th century. The style originated in the churches of western and central Italy. It united a whole generation of young Polish composers educated in Venice and Rome. One of them is the famous Polish composer Mikolaj Zielenski. In musical style Zielenski follows the traditions of late Renaissance polyphony. His compositions mark the beginning of a long period of influence of Italian style on Polish music. Until today the question remains open, where the composer got acquainted with the Venetian technique of writing multi-choir music. The composer could master the polychoral style without leaving Poland. The polychoral style was then very widespread thanks to the activities of Italian musicians throughout Europe.All of Zielenski 's works known today were published in Venice in 1611. The first of these, Offertoria totius anni, includes multi-choir compositions similar to Giovanni Gabrieli's Sacrae symphoniae. The collection contains 55 compositions, the last of which is the Magnificat for three choirs. Mikolaj Zielenski 's Magnificat can be considered a classical composition for three choirs. In terms of stylistic and compositional features, it follows Italian traditions, in connection with which it is often compared with Giovanni Gabrieli's Magnificat.The history of polychoral style is one of the most interesting pages in the history of European musical culture. The Venetian style influenced the music of Central and Eastern Europe, including Russian musical culture.

«Italian in Аlgeria» J. Rossini in the context of the evolutionary ways of the development of the Italian music theater of the early XIX century

The purpose of the study is to identify the poetic and intonational features of the opera «Italian in Algeria» by G. Rossini in the context of general evolutionary paths of development of the genre of Italian comic opera. The methodology is based on a combination of culturological, historical and musicological, hermeneutic and art studies, which together significantly deepens the study of genre and style specifics of opera by G. Rossini, in particular, «Italians in Algeria» as a new stage in the development of opera-buffa. The scientific novelty of the work is determined by its analytical perspective, which takes into account both the manifestations of aesthetic and stylistic guidelines of Rossini's opera «Italian in Algeria» and its genre specificity, adjusted to the Italian cultural and historical tradition of the early nineteenth century. Conclusions. The plot-semantic indicators of G. Rossini's «Italians in Algeria», on the one hand, show contact with the typology of the «classic» opera-buffa, as evidenced by the traditional comedy plot; the correlation of most of the heroes of the play with the types of Italian comedy masks; appeal to oriental (Turkish) themes, interpreted in the spirit of the ideas of the Enlightenment, as well as analogies with the Mozart Musical Theater and the comedies of JB Moliere. On the other hand, the opera demonstrates the innovative approach of its author, as evidenced by the final rondo of Isabella with the choir, which both in text and in intonation language appeals to the ideas of Italian culture on the eve of Risorgimento. Generalization of the intonation specificity of «Italian in Algeria» by G. Rossini demonstrates the originality of the relationship between traditions and innovations. The poetics of opera-buffa is manifested here in G. Rossini's masterful mastery of the art of opera ensemble; in the wide use of timbre-performance capabilities of buffoon bass, patter techniques, etc. The novelty of the work is manifested in the complexity of the images of the main characters, the richness of their intonation characteristics, which were based on the traditions of belcanto. This is primarily related to the image of Isabella, who ultimately gravitates to the ideas of national patriotism and thus greatly expands the expressive possibilities of the typology of opera-buffa in line with the socio-political and cultural realities of Italy in the early XIX century.
 Key words: opera-buffa, G. Rossini Musical Theater, «Italian in Algeria», Risorgimento, Italian Musical Theater.

Synchronization as Musical Labor in Italian Silent Cinemas

Abstract This article examines a series of lawsuits that consumed Italy’s legal establishment between approximately 1924 and 1933. Resulting from a protracted labor dispute between instrumental musicians who worked in cinemas and the exhibitors who employed them, the lawsuits turned on a question of employment law: whether musicians ought to be considered full-time employees—entitled to various benefits and protections against unfair termination—or more precariously situated freelancers whom exhibitors could hire and fire at will. As a consequence of the vagaries of existing Italian labor law and new Fascist legislation governing labor relations, musicians were already at a disadvantage in this dispute. Unexpectedly, their situation was further undermined by the judiciary, as Italy’s highest court made their employee status conditional on the perceived aesthetic value of cinema and its associated music making. That is, musicians had to prove that their musical abilities were integral to the artistic outcome of any given film screening—a tall order in the context of silent cinematic exhibition, where musical accompaniment was materially distinct from the projected film. Precisely because the courts valorized the fusion of music and image, however, the Italian musicians’ lawsuits illuminate a fundamental parameter of cinematic aesthetics—synchronization—and reveal something significant about the nature of film music. Public recognition for effecting music-image synchronization in film conferred symbolic, but also literal, capital; thus I contend that synchronization ought to be understood as a form of musical labor, both in the silent era and beyond.

The show must go on: Pandemic consequences on musicians’ job insecurity perception

The purpose of this article is to analyze the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on Italian musicians’ perception of job insecurity. We collected the answers of more than 200 Italian musicians, and the data showed that musicians’ perception of job insecurity increased in the post-pandemic period. Furthermore, we analyzed the different impact of two objective indicators of job insecurity, the pandemic outbreak and contracts, on strains and resources. We found that contracts are a strong predictor of perceived job insecurity even after the pandemic. Social support is vital in buffering job insecurity perception, motivation is a powerful moderator of emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions, and job insecurity is strongly related to the intentions of leaving the profession. In addition, the analyses have shown that the most detrimental effects are due to subjective job insecurity rather than from its objective indicators. Finally, as this study arose from an Australian research, we provide a brief comparison of the findings.

Carmela Curto: The Story of One Italian Immigrant, the History of Millions

Carmela Curto: The Story of One Italian Immigrant, the History of Millions

The Polish Contribution to Central European Musical Culture in the Seventeenth Century. The Case of Marcin Mielczewski

The seventeenth-century Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania, embracing the lands of the Polish Crown (together with the territory of present-day Ukraine) and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, belonged geographically to both Central and Eastern Europe. It was a multiethnic and multiconfessional state, in which the Latin and Greek cultures were mutually interactive. With regard to the musical culture of the royal court, however, itwas the close ties with Italy that were of the greatest significance. The Polish kings of the Vasa dynasty (above ali Zygmunt III and Władysław IV) maintained music chapels consisting to a considerable extent of Italian musicians, among whom were Luca Marenzio, Giulio Cesare Gabussi, Asprilio Pacelli, Giovanni Francesco Anerio and Tarquinio Merula. Thanks to the Polish patronage, they not only composed newworks, but also trained musicians of various nations belonging to the royal ensembles. Among the composers trained at the Polish court was the Italian Marco Scacchi (d. 1662), chapel-master to Władysław IV, the composer of operas staged in the royal theatre, and also a music theorist – the author of a classification of musical genres which was produced during Scacchi's dispute over music theory with the Gdansk organist Paul Siefert. This dispute contributed to the popularisation across Europe of the works of Scacchi and also of other musicians associated with the court of the Polish Vasas. Extant handwritten sources of Silesian provenance (belonging to the Emil Bohn collection, currently held in the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin) testify the considerable interest in this region (now within the Polish borders, but in the seventeenth century constituting a dominion of the Empire) in the religious compositions of Marcin Mielczewski (d. 1651), musician to Władysław IV (until 1644) and subsequently, until his death, chapel-master to Karol Ferdinand Vasa, Bishop of Płock and Wrocław. Of Mielczewski's compositional output for the needs of the Roman Catholic Church, copyists from Lutheran circles in Wrocław chose primarily psalms that were universal to the Christian repertory, furnishing those works whose texts chimed with the doctrine of the Augsburg confession with more appropriate texts of German-language contrafacta. However, this method was not always successful in eliminating traces of Catholicism, which remained, for example, in the melodies of works based on pre-compositional material drawn by Mielczewski from Marian songs that were popular in Poland (e.g. the church concerto Audite gentes et exsultate, also preserved in a version with the text of a German-language contrafactum entitled Nun höret alle, based on the song O gloriosa Domina, which in the former Commonwealth was treated as a chivalrous hymn).

Made in Italy, tailored for Danes: Giuseppe Sarti and Italian Opera in Copenhagen

Abstract The institutionalization of a permanent Italian opera house in Copenhagen happened comparatively late for a European capital. The emergence of a new bourgeois audience, which for the first time shared loges with the aristocracy, created political and aesthetic turmoil linked to the politics of ‘Danishness’, Italophobia and anti-opera sentiment. This study focuses on Giuseppe Sarti, the first director of the opera in Copenhagen, and his strategies to adapt and translate opera for local audiences. The study examines connections between aesthetics, nationalism, and politics in Enlightenment Copenhagen. Bringing this perspective from the North into the study of opera in the age of reform allows us to understand not only the local context, but also the general processes by which Italian opera was adapted, produced, and consumed outside Italy—and the problems faced by the diaspora of Italian musicians to Europe’s Northern periphery.

The personality and the creative work of A. Pasculli in the context of the West European music art of the 19th century

The authors of the research focus on Antonio Pasculli, a famous Italian virtuoso oboe player and composer of the late 19th - the early 20th century, whose name had long and undeservingly been in the wilderness. In the last two-three decades, his legacy has been getting a new lease on life. Pasculli’s compositions are on the concert list of oboe players all over the world. Despite the performance popularity, the personality and creative work of the outstanding Italian musician are still on the periphery of the research focus of Russian musicologists. All valuable information is contained in rare foreign researches. Therefore, the purpose of the article is to reconstruct the artistic portrait of Antonio Pasculli in the context of time. This research is the first in Russian musicology to introduce into Russian scientific discourse the data from foreign sources revealing the peculiarities of Pasculli’s creative life. Based on the analysis of the collected data, the authors conclude about the necessity to revise the role of Pasculli’s work and legacy in the context of European music culture of the 19th century. It is believed that familiarization with the information about the Italian musician, unknown to the Russian audience, will help to not only dive deeper into the specificity of Pasculli’s compositions, but also to reinterpret his place and role in the evolution of playing woodwind instruments.

From street musicians to divas. Italian musical migration to London in the age of diaspora

ABSTRACT The history of Italian musical migration to London is rich and complex. From the beginning of the eighteenth century Italian musicians played a major role in Georgian society. During the Victorian era, despite a relative lack of scholarly research, new generations of Italian musicians moved to London, acquiring a recognized social status. Nevertheless, musicians and divas involved in London operatic market constituted just a small minority of the whole Italian community. Many Italians that came to the British Isles from the mid-nineteenth century were economic migrants, who in numerous cases made a living as street musicians. This introductory article, based on an archival research carried out mainly at the Royal College of Music and at the British Library, provides a brief social and cultural overview of Italian musical migration to London in the long nineteenth century. It also isolates cross-disciplinary questions that place in context the individual articles within this special issue. The latter is edited by Nicolò Palazzetti, Andrew Holden and Massimo Zicari.

К вопросу об авторстве трактатов из сборника «The Modern Musick-Master» (London, 1730)

In 1730, a collection of treatises on singing and playing various musical instruments was published in London. It included “A Brief History of Music” and a small musical dictionary. Neither on the title page nor elsewhere in the text do we find information about its author/authors. Today, both reference and encyclopedic literature as well as special scholarly works refer to Peter Prelleur as the author (very rarely the compiler) of the collection. However, when comparing the basic explanations of musical theory and the basic performing principles in each individual treatise, these explanations turn out to be contradictory. The article provides a comparative analysis of the materials in the collection itself and in the works published in England from the middle of the 17th century to 1730. Based on the results of the analysis and the data obtained from modern research, the authors come to the conclusion that all the sections of the collection in question represent a compilation of materials. The materials came from previously published manuals written by English, French and Italian musicians and were then supplemented by theoretical and performance guidelines relevant for those days. In general, the collection is a perfect example of pirate traditions of English book publishers of the 18th century. It is safe to say that “The Modern Musick-Master” was a collective effort and Peter Prelleur was not its only author or compiler.

Constructing an English identity in London: Albert Visetti and Anglo-Italian musical exchanges at the end of the nineteenth century

ABSTRACT This article explores the little-known, yet significant figure of the composer and Professor of Singing, Alberto Antonio Visetti (1844–1928). While his biography is still obscure and contested, his commitment to develop Anglo-Italian cultural relations was certainly pioneering. One of Visetti’s most remarkable achievements was to create a cultural exchange between the Royal College of Music and the Bologna Conservatoire by successfully bringing together the heads of the two institutions, Sir Hubert Parry (1848–1918) and Giuseppe Martucci (1856–1909). This connection led to the performance of British music in Italy and to the introduction of the Italian symphonic repertoire in England, which was then dominated by Italian operatic culture. My research further allows us to observe a specific case of the social integration of Italian musicians into London society and its effect on local policies and institutions.

Vocal pedagogy and Italian musical migration in London, 1664–1914

ABSTRACT The new Italian vocal style that arrived in Britain at the end of the seventeenth century with teachers such as Pietro Reggio and Pier Francesco Tosi – and which soon became regarded as the epitome of vocal expertise – was the sound of italianità as much as it was a pragmatic mode of vocal production. My intention in this article is to trace emerging patterns of Italian singing teachers who settled (sometimes only briefly) in Britain, and explore their impact and influence on ideas of singing. Beyond Reggio and Tosi, particular attention will be given to later prominent Italian musicians resident in London (Domenico Corri, Gesualdo Lanza and Giacomo Gotifredo Ferrari in the early 1800s; Alberto Randegger and Paolo Tosti in the early 1900s) and the degree to which they challenged or accommodated British vocal culture within their teaching of Italian style and technique.

Das Musikinstitut der Fondazione Giorgio Cini

Abstract In 2020, the Institute of Music of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini celebrated its 35th birthday. Its archive preserves 26 collections belonging to Italian composers and musicians of the 20th century: a significant quantity of sources encompassing several generations and aesthetic orientations (from Casella to Romitelli, from Rota to Manzoni etc.). The state of current discourse and new technologies are leading to a re-orientation of archival work. First, it can contribute to a more detailed picture of musical facts and personal interactions. Second, digital technologies create the conditions for new ways of evaluating the data found in different sources; and third, an archive is now increasingly conceived as a service and the use of its resources is not limited to historiographical research but also encompasses the dissemination of knowledge and musical practice. The book series „The Composer’s Workshop”, the online-journal „Archival Notes” and the workshop cycle „Research-led Performance” are examples of the wide range of activities connected with our archive.

‘They Fell Like Meteorites’: Avatars of the Andean Sound and Their Reception by Italian Music Groups (1973–1996)

AbstractDespite the attention given to the transnational circulation of Andean music, its reception and adoption by European musicians have been rarely researched. This article focuses on the specific case of Italy, where the Andean music boom blended with that of the New Chilean Song in exile (1973–89) and where, in addition, repertoires and practices of both musics were adopted by dozens of local groups formed by young Italians. Those Italian groups – with their performative strategies and their choices of repertoires – provide a privileged lookout about how different representations of the andeaneity (the Nueva Canción Chilena with its ethical and political connotations, the musique des Andes of the French matrix, the autóctonas indigenist currents) interacted in creating an Italian imagery of the Andes. They also suggest how the adoption of ‘someone else's music’ can act, with its transcultural complexity, in the elaboration of personal narratives of identity.

‘MUCH TO DELIVER IN YOUR HONOUR'S EAR’: ANGELO NOTARI’S WORK IN INTELLIGENCE, 1616–1623

It has long been surmised that the Paduan singer, lutenist and composer Angelo Notari (1566–1663) was employed as a spy after immigrating to England circa 1610. In examining Venetian counterintelligence papers previously neglected by musicologists, I here confirm that Notari was indeed an intelligencer. More specifically, he was a paid informant for the Venetian State Inquisitors between 1616 and 1619 and participated in a contentious international trial concerning the Venetian ambassador to England, Antonio Foscarini. I argue that Notari's work as a musician was inextricable from his identity as an intelligencer and former Venetian citizen and demonstrate that Italian musicians in Jacobean London significantly influenced international diplomatic relations. By identifying intersections between the two highly social practices of music-making and intelligence-gathering, I encourage greater musicological attention to political networks that transmitted music across borders and, conversely, musical networks that transmitted political intelligence. I thus situate seventeenth-century musical transculturation within its broader diplomatic, confessional and economic contexts.

From Parenthood to Tutto può succedere

In our article we propose an analysis of the Italian TV series Tutto può succedere, a remake of the American TV series Parenthood (NBC 2010-2015). The Italian remake precisely reproduces some Parenthood’s ready-made elements: the two series share the main plot, many storylines and characters’ personalities, dealing with the ups and downs of a large family, formed of four siblings, their parents and their children. We will focus on the differences and similarities of the two shows from several perspectives, such as formal and content divergences, and their cultural, social and production implications. On the one hand, the Italian remake loses the distinguishing style and the faster pace of the original series to adjust to Rai’s more basic aesthetics; on the other hand, Rai chooses to focus on specific plots and characters that match its own purposes. Indeed, we can assume that youngest characters are the means by which Raiuno tries to connect with younger viewers, and the same function is assumed by the role played by music in the series and by the on-screen presence of young Italian musicians.

On the History of Early Musical Groups: Instrumental Consorts in England at the Turn of the 16th—17th Centuries

Appealing to the stated topic is relevant because of the desire to concretize the knowledge of little-known in Russian musicology instrumental consorts (musical groups), as well as to expand the existing understanding of the court culture of Renaissance England and its musical and sound appearance. The main center of English consorts development was the Royal court of the Tudors — Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth I. Their heyday was at the peak of the “Golden Age” of English culture. Based on the results of scienti­fic research by Western scientists and visual and verbal sources available for study, the article outlines the milestones in the history of the main types of instrumental consort in England — the whole consort, consisting of instruments of the same family, and the broken consort, today often identified with the mixed consort, which connects heterogeneous instruments. The article notes that the early history of the recorder consort in England was closely connected with creative activities of the family of Venetian musicians Bassano. Extremely popular in musical circles of England, the consort of viol was originally formed thanks to Flemish and, somewhat later, Italian musicians. As for the mixed consort, which united performers of the viols da gamba and da braccio, lute, bandore, cistre and recorder, it started to be called “English” because of the stable combination of certain musical instruments. Analysis of consort music anthologies of the 16th—17th centuries made it possible to identify individual genre and musical-style reference points in musical groups’ repertoire, in which musicians improved the principles of instrumental polyphony and the stile concertante, topical in the Modern Period.