Child Composers in the Old Conservatories: How Orphans Became Elite Musicians

The Germanic ideology and the positivism that guided the emergence and development of musicology throughout the twentieth century were responsible for neglecting the relevance of Italian eighteenth-century music theory, and for this reason traditional historiography has reserved southern Italy—Naples, to be precise—no more than a marginal role. From the perspective of the history of music theory, it can be said Carl Dahlhaus's (1984: 23) statement that “no Italian musical theory has been able to exert any influence beyond the Alps, with the exception of the speculative treatises of Giuseppe Tartini and the erudite books of Father Martini,” has prevailed. However, thanks to several publications in the last two decades, it is possible to say that this situation has changed dramatically and 2020 may be remembered, beyond the tragic health crisis, for the publication of three books by some of the most influential researchers of Neapolitan music pedagogy: La...