Epilogue

The chapter provides a brief survey of alternative solmization systems, which arose largely as a result of Protestant attempts to break free from Roman oversight, followed by an account of the rise of French seven-note solfège and its role in the demise of the great tradition. Owing to its simplicity, this “natural way” to solfège turned out to be ideally suited to the needs of a rapidly expanding amateur market, which demanded readily performable sheet music and the ability to read it rather than onerous craft training. It also provided simplified teaching methods and classroom materials for the new public music schools that emerged from the upheavals of the Napoleonic era. The chapter ends with suggestions as to how the solfeggio tradition might once again find a place within a living culture of music making.

Speaking Solfeggio

The chapter begins the lessons in the eighteenth-century art of melody, involving practical engagement with real historical solfeggi. It provides instruction in the first year of study: how to name notes in the eighteenth-century manner by a process known as “reading,” or “spoken solfeggio.” The lessons cover the simple scale, hard and soft melody, the compound scale, minor keys, accidentals, and key signatures and modulation. In keeping with the original method, the instruction covers not only note-naming but also basic aspects of theory. The method applies to melodies from the era of Arcangelo Corelli to that of Vincenzo Bellini, or roughly 1680–1830. In an appendix, seven supplementary guidelines are put forward to deal with ambiguities and complexities in the primary sources.

Canto Fermo and Canto Figurato

The chapter surveys the rudiments in their original medieval notation. These were the first (and often only) music lessons taught to choristers in Catholic Europe. Scholars of early music will find few surprises here, although they may be taken aback to discover that these lessons were written centuries after the Guidonian system is commonly presumed to have disappeared from history. Giacomo Tritto’s Rules (1759) are taken to represent elementary music lessons in general, covering the gamut, the Guidonian hand, mutation, basic liturgical conventions, and the application of ficta accidentals. Sharps and flats were essential for correcting dissonant intervals, desirable for enhancing cadences, and useful for rendering tunes more fitting for contemporary taste. Canto fermo was later adapted to produce a more versatile type of notation known as canto figurato. This enabled apprentices to read any staff effortlessly, regardless of its clef or key signature.

Accompanied Solfeggio

The chapter provides a survey of the history of accompanied solfeggio from its origins in late sixteenth-century monody and basso continuo to flamboyant rococo arias and nineteenth-century exercises in composition. Three case studies provide an overview of the main didactic functions of the Type 3 solfeggio: (1) an expert critique of Italian bel canto in the form of a parody by Mozart, (2) a typical object of its mockery in the form of a bravura study by the castrato Farinelli, and (3) a lesson in composition by Zingarelli. The chapter then investigates the closeness of the relation between the contrasting solfeggi that made up multi-movement lessons by comparing slow-fast pairs by Leo and Cafaro. Did they record alternative renditions of the same underlying cantus firmus?

The Church Music Industry

The chapter details the daily routine of an apprentice, which involved singing and playing for an interminable round of church services as part of the enormous liturgical music industry in Italy. Such services included the hours of the Divine Office, daily Masses, saints’ days and feast days, religious processions, and other events in the liturgical calendar. Some performances by choristers took place outside churches, as well. Attempts by religious and secular leaders to rein in overly ornate or ambitious Italian church music making are described. Drawing on the accounts of travelers to the region, the chapter also highlights the role of church music as a lucrative tourist industry.

Sepperl’s Story

The chapter employs the true story of a little boy who undertook a standard apprenticeship in music, Joseph Haydn, as a case study to explore the social background of participants in the Catholic educational system and the importance of the church in musical life. It details the long years of training undergone by church music apprentices who usually had little chance of musical success thereafter. The predominance of the Italian training system over the German—and the relative ease of obtaining the best positions for graduates of the former—are examined. The chapter shows how the prominence of this system explains the continued reliance on an archaic solmization system.

Solfeggio and Partimento

The chapter outlines the way solmization has been described as a “vocal” system at odds with the “keyboard” system of figured bass (partimento). It investigates the relation between melody and bass in solfeggio, especially in terms of imitative counterpoint, and proposes a synthesis between them. It surveys the historical evidence for solmizing figured and unfigured accompaniments and asks what this might tell us about the functions of the bass. Two solfeggi by the celebrated partimento master Fedele Fenaroli are examined in an attempt to shed light on this obscure feature of eighteenth-century practice.

Solano and Sabbatini on Modulation

The chapter completes the overview of lessons by outlining the main ways to modulate in solfeggio by singing fa as mi and vice versa. Its discussion of two important sources, Luigi Sabbatini in Italy and Francisco Solano in Portugual, provides supporting evidence for the reconstruction of solmization put forward in earlier chapters. It also documents how maestros would set didactic traps toward the end of solfeggi to test the singer’s ability to recognize the altered fourth and seventh. These ruses probably provided a welcome moment of light relief toward the close of a lesson, as well as hammering home the essential rules of key and modulation. They went on to form the punchline of many a musical joke in compositions for the chamber or theater.

Unaccompanied Solfeggio

The chapter recounts the history of unaccompanied solfeggio from the eleventh century to the eighteenth. This includes plainchant and Renaissance-style contrapuntal ricercars of the sort that continued to inform liturgical music in many churches. Archaic Type 1 solfeggi were used for canto fermo lessons throughout the eighteenth century, whereas more up-to-date examples were used for the study of theory, for scales and leaps, and for exercises in melodic composition. The earliest known collection of Type 2 solfeggiamenti (1642) derived from vocal ricercars and sung counterpoints. This tradition persisted in Bologna but in Naples the solfeggiamento adopted the latest fashionable styles, as seen in examples by Pergolesi and Durante. The chapter ends with a discussion of the solfeggio fugue with examples by Zingarelli and Haydn.

Defining Solfeggio

The chapter offers an interpretation of the primary sources concerning eighteenth-century solfeggio, classifying solfeggi into four main types and outlining their historical origins, characteristic features, and pedagogical purposes. Both syllables and didactic function must be considered essential to any workable definition of solfeggio. Ambiguities arise, however, because the term was (and still is) applied to other types of pedagogical melody by extension, convention, or analogy. Cutting across the four types are the two broad traditions of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century solfeggi: one essentially contrapuntal, with roots in the ricercar, and the other essentially cantabile, stemming from opera and cantata. Various types of keyboard accompaniment and their purposes are outlined.