Introduction

van Tour, Peter; Baragwanath, Nicholas

Abstract

The study of European music in the long eighteenth century has advanced rapidly since the publication in 2007 of Robert O. Gjerdingen's Music in the Galant Style, which not only consolidated the theory of stock patterns (or schemas) used in composition and im provisation during this period, but also highlighted the importance of contemporary solfeggio and partimento as ways of learning these patterns. In 2012, Giorgio Sanguinetti published The Art of Partimento, encouraging the revival of such techniques and enabling scholars and musicians to incorporate historical practice into curricula. Three years lat er, Peter van Tour's Counterpoint and Partimento provided the first in-depth study of the third phase of the traditional Italian apprenticeship by interpreting the surviving manu script counterpoint notebooks from the Neapolitan conservatories of the era. By 2018, Job Ijzerman was able to synthesize much of this knowledge into a new method of teaching music theory "inspired by old masters" in his Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento. The year 2020 saw the publication of Gjerdingen's Child Composers in the Old Conservatories, which described in detail how orphans became elite musicians, and Nicholas Baragwanath's The Solfeggio Tradition, which shined further light on the first stage of training. Many other scholars have also made significant contributions to the field.

Citation

van Tour, P., & Baragwanath, N. (2024). Introduction. Music Theory and Analysis, 11(1), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.11116/mta.11.1.0

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 11, 2024
• Publication Date: May 15, 2024
• Deposit Date: Jun 19, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 26, 2025
• Journal: Music Theory and Analysis (MTA)
• Print ISSN: 2295-5917
• Electronic ISSN: 2295-5925
• Publisher: Leuven University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 1-5
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.11116/mta.11.1.0
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/40552989
• Publisher URL: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/leuven/mta/2024/00000011/00000001/art00001