Nick Baragwanath has received a prestigious Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Research Leadership Fellowship, for a project entitled ‘Haydn, Solfeggio, and the Art of Melody: A New Approach to the Classical Style’. The Fellowship, which is worth £140,000, will allow Nick to write a monograph on the subject, to establish an international research network, to contribute to an online database of source materials, and to undertake workshops at schools and conservatoires. The project will end with a major international conference.
Solfeggi, or studies in melody, were central to the training of European musicians c.1670-1850. The method originated in Italian conservatoires for disadvantaged children, especially at Naples and Bologna. The presence of large manuscript collections in European archives (almost 300 in Italy alone) testifies to the importance of this kind of exercise for composition and performance in the 18th and 19th centuries, including for the ‘Classical Style’ of Haydn and Mozart.
Nick’s book will be the first monograph on the solfeggio tradition. It will reconstruct a forgotten art of melody, drawing on primary source material not available elsewhere, to provide scholars with a framework for further studies, and performers, teachers, and learners with new insights on the music of the classical style. Find out more about Nick’s research.
Posted on Tuesday 9th July 2013