Istarske glazbene teme i portreti od 16. do 19. stoljeca

The book “Themes and Portraits of Music in Istria from 16th to 19th Centuries” is a revised collection of essays previously published in Italian, Croatian and Slovenian. It can offer a comprehensive survey on various aspects of music history of Istria between 16th and 19th century. In a wider sense, it considers the role of music in different contexts examining the patronage of churches, academies and noblemen within the frame of a multilingual area, in which Italian and Slavic cultures co-existed, Divided between Venice and Habsburg government, and now between Slovenia, Croatia and Italy (with the small town of Muggia), the peninsula, till today, represents an unsolved issue if the historians watch to Italian music as the unique “national” model of music art. On the contrary, until 19th century Italian music was a supranational/cosmopolitan phenomenon that covered both the coastal towns, namely inhabited by Italians, and the inner cities, where Slovenians and Croats settled. The first chapter is devoted to Gabriello Puliti, a Tuscan friar appointed organist and chapel master in Trieste, Muggia, Koper, Piran, Labin, Pula. Puliti, the most representative composer who increased the 17th-century monody in Istria, worked as a protégé of some local noblemen and the Habsburgs, as Ferdinand archduke of Graz. His three voices “mascherate” (“Ghirlanda odorifera”, 1612), composed in honour of Tranquillo Negri, a nobleman and poet of Labin, are compared to the carnival masquerades described by the chorographer Giacomo Filippo Tomasini (cf. the 17th-century manuscript “Commentari storici-geografici della provincia dell’Istria”). The primary poetic source of “Ghirlanda” is Giulio Cesare Croce’s “Le ventisette mascherate piacevolissime” (1603), and the theatrical suggestion in these “Ghirlande” is frequently emphasised by the openings of the poems where the characters are represented by the motto “Noi siamo”. They represent an imaginary gallery of the Italian comedy based on parodies of several dialects and languages. Puliti’s approach to this genre is linked in various ways to musical painting. Almost every piece is marked by some distinctive features, whose purpose is to depict the characters in a very refined manner. To this end Puliti resorts to three different degrees of mimesis: onomatopoeic sounds, the imitation of human voices, and the abstract imitation of words through mensuration and the intensive use of the “coloured” notes (“Augenmusik”). Probably Puliti entered to the Palladia Academy of Capodistria (now Koper) with the nickname “Accademico armonico detto l’Allegro”. This academy was an important circle of intellectuals that in seventy years of activity (from 1567 to 1637) promoted some pastoral plays with music (cf, “Filliria” 1585, “Selve incoronate” 1590 and other pastorals) and published an important treatise titled “Dieci de’ cento dubbi amorosi” (posthumous, 1621). To demonstrate the extraordinary effect of music in human behaviour, this platonic dialogue contains a series of references drawn from Plato, Horace, Macrobius, Boetius, Ficino and Jewish theologians collected in Francesco Zorzi’s “Harmonia mundi” (1525). In choosing different sources from the classic and medieval philosophies, Giambattista Zarotti, one of the authors of the dialogue, exceeds the lavish quotations, which are used as a tool for a new proposal. He aimed at giving a modern commentary on the debate on music and feelings, evaluating the ancient theories on the basis of modern music. Another study focuses on the unknown book “Ghirlande conteste” (1588), a set of intermedi staged in the island of Cres and published by Stefanello de Petris in honour of Sebastiano Quirini. These mythological spectacles, with chorus, consort and singers, exalt the benefits in behalf of the island, given generously by the cleaver count Quirini. The accuracy of description lets us acquire a detailed reconstruction of the sceneries and performances of musicians, even though, as it is custom in theatre, the score was not printed. The following chapters deal with Antonio Tarsia’s monodies written for the Koper’s cathedral, which are compared with the contemporaneous work of Giovanni Legrenzi, and two treatises written by Gianrinaldo Carli during his stay in Padua (1740/50), on the concepts of genius and “sentimental music” applied to Giuseppe Tartini’s instrumental works (“Dell’indole del teatro tragico”, “Osservazioni sulla musica antica e moderna”). Influenced by the English Enlightenment, on the example of Richardson’s “Pamela”, Carli developed a revolutionary idea of “sentimental theatre and music” inspired by nature. He promoted both a simple music and a simple stage upon realistic performances, without any implication with the cultivated tragedies of the conservative Italian writers of his time. Finally, the author analyses the operas “Pittori fiamminghi” (1893) and “Nozze istriane” (1895) of Antonio Smareglia, in which the technique of the Wagnerian leitmotif appears. Smareglia, educated in Milan and Vienna, as an Italian-Croatian-German speaking rejected the national ideas of his time. Involved in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Central Europe, he did not accept the fall of the Habsburg Monarchy and, as a consequence, he developed a special feeling for a supranational drama based on the Italian librettos translated into German. Alike some artists and writers, after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Smareglia experienced and shared the unhappiness of the so-called “Austrians without Austria”.