Andrea Basili (1705-1777). La didattica della composizione nel secolo XVIII fra teoria e pratica

Recent musicological studies have focused on historical music pedagogy and particularly on the teaching methods in use during the eighteenth century. Most of these researches have concentrated on formal music education, given in specific institutions such as the Neapolitan Conservatori. Less attention has been paid to the methods followed by teachers in private music tuition. Andrea Basili (1705-1777) is an interesting case study to investigate the teaching methodology of an eighteenth century Italian “maestro”. Basili is primarily known for the Musica universale armonico pratica (Venezia, 1776), a collection of lessons in composition and performance at the keyboard. This work, who represents his sole publication during Basili's life, consists of 24 exercises in all the keys. Each exercise is a complete music course in four steps: a scale, to practice the “rule of the octave”, a partimento, to apply the different “movimenti del basso”, a partimento-fugue or a fully-fledged fugue, and a keyboard piece in sonata form or in free form. However, the Musica universale constitutes only the final outcome of Basili's music teaching method. My research documents and analyzes several unpublished manuscript sources of his didactic activity, testifying a complex and fascinating development. This dissertation tries to reconstruct the evolution of Basili's methodology and to situate it in the Italian musical pedagogy of the eighteenth century. The first chapter outlines Basili's biography, trying to connect his musical training with his subsequent didactic choices. The second chapter furnishes a review of the manuscript sources related to his teaching. The third chapter is devoted to analyze the content and the implicit methodology of the Musica universale. The appendix presents the edition of Basili's correspondence with Giambattista Martini and Gianandrea Bellini.