El nacimiento de la historiografia musical en Italia durante la segunda mitad del siglo XIX y los problemas del metodo historico

The article explains the role, the scope and the methods of the 19th-Century music historiography in Italy in comparison to positivism, which fostered a scientific methodology to reshape history of arts and literature. Aiming to discover the value and the ideal place of musical oeuvre, some historiographers described the periodization by means of different paradigms and philosophies, drawn from the theory of evolution of Darwin and Spencer, and the positivism of Hyppolite Taine. Some essays, such as "L’evoluzione nella musica" (1898, 1911 enlarged ed.) and the monograph "Riccardo Wagner" (1890), written by Oscar Chilesotti and Luigi Torchi, are examined at the light of those philosophies. In these essays the focus of the research shifts from the biography of composers to the history of music, showing the relationship with national traditions.