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3 - Instruction at the Conservatories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2023

Nicoleta Paraschivescu
Affiliation:
Universiteit Leiden
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Summary

In France, people write a lot about music today, but they don’t make music.

Here, instead, people make excellent music but don’t write about it.

The Conservatories in Naples

The first conservatories in Naples are mentioned as early as the sixteenth century. Founded by prosperous citizens, they served to educate destitute children—often street children or orphans of whom it was decided that they should learn a craft to support themselves in later life. Initially, the conservatories offered training in different artisanal professions, but later they were restricted to music education only. These institutions were the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loreto, the Conservatorio di Sant’Onofrio a Porta Capuana, the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo and the Conservatorio Santa Maria della Pietà dei Turchini.

The pupils studied for roughly ten years and had to play at various feast days, events at court, processions, and opera performances. These paid engagements enabled the budding musicians to apply in practice what they had been learning and make important contacts, while the income helped finance their studies. The pupils also had the opportunity to compose operas and to have them performed at their conservatory.

The Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo closed in 1743, and in 1797 the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loreto also closed, with its few remaining pupils being transferred to Sant’Onofrio. When Joseph Bonaparte ascended to the throne in Naples in 1806, only the conservatories Sant’Onofrio and Santa Maria della Pietà dei Turchini remained. As a result of reforms to the local education system, these were merged in 1807 to form the Real Collegio di Musica di San Sebastiano. Giovanni Paisiello, Fedele Fenaroli, and Giacomo Tritto were appointed to head the new institution.

Partimenti, Solfeggio, and Counterpoint in the Curriculum of the Conservatories

Teaching plans and contracts give us insight into the curricula and organization of the conservatories. The school regulations of the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loreto from the year 1684 include a brief section on the duties of the primo maestro that also provides information about the subjects he taught:

I hereby convey a decision by the Collegio di Loreto, which further explains everything.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Partimenti of Giovanni Paisiello
Pedagogy and Practice
, pp. 44 - 62
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2022

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