Towards Historically Informed Teaching. Two Partimento Collections in Terra d’Otranto

Abstract

The partimento was a basic training tool among Naples area composers. This essay opens with a general discussion of its 18^th-century sources to then focus on one collection, Lezzioni del Sig.r D. Francesco Durante, now at the Lecce Conservatory Library. As our analysis showed, it attests to a possible teaching path, as it sports exercises of various styles and difficulty. Its concordances are identified; speculative attributions are given for exercises that are unique to this source. Another manuscript, hosting 46 already made partimenti, now at the Gallipoli Municipal Library, is also discussed. Here we attempted to reconstruct some aspects of 18^th-century composers’ training that do not emerge from other written sources, as these only partly reveal teaching methods mostly entrusted to orality and performance.