Author: GERVASONI (Carlo):
Title: Nuova Teoria di Musica Ricavata dall' Odierna Pratica, ossia Metodo Sicuro e Facile in Pratica per ben Apprendere la Mousica, a cui si fanno precedere varie Notizie storico-musicali.
Description: Parma Dalla Stamperia Blanchon, 1812 FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. Large 8vo, 215 x 140 mms., pp. 455 [456 author's note, 457 - 458 Index], engraved portrait of Gervasoni as frontispiece, contemporary quarter calf, gilt spine marbled boards; a very good copy with a contemporary bookseller's stamp on the recto of the first two leaves. Gervasoni's new theory of music is based on the musical practice of the day, and he adds advice on learning music, and gives accounts of a number of the main figures in the contemporary music scene. Much of the work is indeed given over to short biographies of living or recently deceased composers and performers, most notably Paganini, on whom this book is a key source. The Italian music theorist, historian, organist and teacher Carlo Gervasoni (1762-1819) is best known for La Scuola della Musica (1800), which, as Grove notes, is "a basic instructional manual containing much informative material on theory and performing practices." Of the present work, Grove records that it "provides an interesting picture of the musical scene in Italy during the late 18th century and the early 19th, as well as a useful biographical dictionary of musicians, mostly Italian, of the same period." Grove also singles out Gervasoni's Nuova Teoria di Musica as an informative source on "women musicians (especially singers)". This useful work is rare in the English-speaking world, with Library Hub, for instance, finding only one library that holds it beyond BL and Oxbridge: the library of the University of Glasgow. Notably, there is no copy in the libraries of such great musical institutions as Juilliard, New York, and the Royal College of Music, London.

Keywords: music biography prose


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