From 1680 to 1830, the period from Scarlatti to Bellini, professional music-making in Europe was dominated by Italians. Their traditions of composition, performance, and pedagogy were everywhere in vogue. By the middle of the nineteenth century, these traditions had been overshadowed by a new 'classical' music culture, to the extent that they were eventually forgotten in English and German-speaking regions. They survived elsewhere in Europe, however, well into the twentieth century (most notably at the Paris Conservatoire). The theory textbook still in regular use at the Athens Conservatoire in the 1990s consisted of eighteenth-century Neapolitan partimenti.

Carlo Cotumacci, Solfa exercise with mutations (1755)

Until recently, almost nothing was known about the historical traditions of compositional practice which underpinned the work of, among others, Haydn and Mozart. Professor Thomas Christensen, one of the world's leading scholars of eighteenth-century music theory, tells a story of long sessions at the Prussian State Library in Berlin, where, in the hunt for rare treatises, he had to leaf through hundreds of manuscripts containing what appeared to be useless exercises in thoroughbass and counterpoint. These exercises – called partimenti, solfeggi, or disposizioni – turned out to be the core documents in a mostly non-verbal tradition of apprenticeship.

Carlo Cotumacci, Solfa exercise in different keys (1755)

The past decade has witnessed rapid advances in our knowledge of these Italian traditions and their significance. Yet vast collections of archive material remain unexplored and many questions unanswered. This is why the project sought to uncover the sophisticated techniques of learning to sing and compose in Italian conservatories, with the help of solfeggi. The integral use of sol-fa syllables, derived from Guidonian hexachords, may have provided a key to unlocking many secrets of eighteenth-century tonality.

Nick Baragwanath's completed monograph is now available: 

The SolfeggioTradition: A Forgotten Art of Melody in the Long Eighteenth Century (Oxford UP, 2020) 

The network Historical Music Pedagogy is open to all relevant topics, from Baroque performance practice through Neapolitan partimenti, to modern Suzuki and Kodály methods. Its core aim is to contribute to a fundamental reappraisal and rebalancing of music history which is currently underway. Increased awareness of the importance of hitherto marginalised (mainly Italian) traditions serve as a counterweight against the universal claims of a romantic heritage. 

We welcome and encourage contacts with researchers, teachers, and performers interested in music pedagogy from the seventeenth century to today.

Cheltenham Music Festival: 
Craft Secrets of the 18th-Century Musician

Nicholas Baragwanath explored the 18th-century musical techniques that would have been taught to the likes of Haydn, Bellini and Farinelli. In the interactive workshop participants had the opportunity to learn some tricks of the trade, secrets of the schoolroom, and some surprising hidden meanings to famous melodies.

This event was held on Saturday 11 July 2015, 3:30pm-5:00pm, Cheltenham Town Hall, Pillar Room, 5GBP

Cheltenham Music Festival:
Maestro'sMusicSchool  (for children 7+)

School on a Saturday? No way! But did you know that being a student in an 18th-century singing school involved everything from angel wings and donkey skins to stocks and fishing rods? Audiences were welcomed into Maestro Nick's classroom for an afternoon of learning to sing like an 18th century superstar!

This session was held on Saturday 11 July 2015, 2:00pm-3:00pm, Cheltenham Town Hall, Pillar Room, 5GBP

www.tonaltools.com

Workshops, book, and app for an innovative approach to keyboard playing

Databases and online collections

Monuments of Partimenti (Robert O. Gjerdingen's edited and transcribed collection of 18th-century instructional music, hosted by Northwestern University)

Solfeggio (A comprehensive database of solfeggio sources compiled by Peter van Tour, hosted by Uppsala University)

Saggi musicali italiani (Andreas Giger's database of historical texts on music theory and aesthetics, hosted by Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University)

Internetculturale.it (A searchable catalogue of Italian research libraries, including many digitalised sources)

Museo internazionale e biblioteca della musica di Bologna (A searchable catalogue with digitalised sources, including material from Padre Martini's library)  

Conservatorio di Milano (Digitalised collections of pedagogical material)

IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library (International Music Score Library Project, digitalised sheet music)

Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Musikwissenschaft (A searchable catalogue of music libraries in Germany and Austria)

Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (Digitalised collections of German libraries)  

Related groups and network initiatives
The Art of Partimento (Facebook group dedicated to exploring historical Italian music pedagogy)

Pedagogy Study Group of the American Musicological Society  

Solfeggio group on academia.edu

Partimento group on academia.edu

Historical music pedagogy in the media
Educating Isaac (Nick Baragwanath's BBC Radio 3 Sunday Feature on the history of music pedagogy in the Neapolitan conservatories)

Find out how an eight-year-old girl, Alma Deutscher, learned to play and compose the old Neapolitan way, in The Sunday Times, 28 July 2013, p. 13.