Act 2: The Neapolitan flute school in the first half of the 19th century
Scene 1: The instruments
Following the more general Italian trend,1 Neapolitan flutes from the first years of the 19th century were still one-keyed and based on a late 18th-century design. A noteworthy example of this is a boxwood flute by Andrea Venbacher (ca. 1785 - after 1836) held in Francesco Carreras’s collection,2 as well as Giovanni Panormo’s surviving instruments.3
Later on, probably around 1810, local makers gradually introduced additional keys.4 While the political situation in Milan oriented the market towards Viennese-style instruments, the main inspiration in Naples - the capital of the homonymous Napoleonic Kingdom from 1806 to 1815 -5 seems to have been Paris: four-keyed flutes by Custodi & Schulz6 and Michele Monna7 present the typical features of French instruments, such as the G-sharp hole on the player’s side. Monna, however, made also six-8 and eleven-keyed9 flutes that reveal a rather Austrian influence—a testament to the organological complexity that is typical at this time.
Nevertheless, the quality of such instruments was probably not always satisfactory for local players. The abovementioned Italian inclination to import the best Austrian, English, and French instruments was well established in Naples, at least until the rise of the maker Gennaro Bosa. In fact, as an anonymous author remarks in 1834, his “clarinets and flutes are recognized by competent judges to be of such accomplished manufacture, such precise and elegant workmanship, that to want to have them provided from Vienna, London or Paris would be for a Neapolitan nowadays a whim, while before it was needed.”10
Gennaro Bosa - for which no biographical information is available - was in fact highly regarded for his craftsmanship. In 1832 he was awarded a silver medal by the Royal Society for the Promotion of the Natural Sciences of Naples,11 which two years later nominated him for the small golden medal, since he “offer[ed] work of perfect workmanship, and at a price, if not far less, at least equal to those [from Vienna and France].”12 He received this award “for the new and ingenious construction of a flute” in 1836,13 after which date no further record of his activity is known.
Bosa’s surviving instruments demonstrate his interest in experimenting with different flute styles. Such experimentation might have been born by the will of creating a local competitive market against the newest and most often imported foreign models. For example, Carreras’ collection holds a French-style, four-keyed boxwood flute,14 as well as an ebony flute with 10 shell-shaped keys similar to those by Stephan Koch,15 while another private collection holds a conical flute after Theobald Boehm’s 1832 model.16 Sources reveal that he also made five-, seven-, and thirteen-keyed flutes,17 as well as his own model of a Panaulon18 with 16 keys and curved foot.19
Moreover, among the flute-making experimentations made in Naples in the early 19th century, it is worth mentioning Paolo Anania De Luca’s attempt to obtain a bass flute.20 Since no such instrument was available in Naples, in 1814 De Luca - a Neapolitan scholar, celebrated for his researches in musical acoustics - tried to collaborate with Cristofaro Custodi. The maker, however, refused to share too much information with De Luca since he was scared that he would learn the secrets of his flute-making. The latter, then, decided to place the responsibility for the completion of the task entirely upon Custodi, who provided him with a poorly sounding instrument where “the notes were all out of tune, very weak in the central scale and almost non-existent at the bottom”.21 Although such a flute was probably never played, it is interesting to note that it was built not after an existing measurable model, but partially according to the drawing in the Encyclopédie:22 as De Luca explains, “its shape and the materials from which it was made corresponded to those indicated in the Encyclopédie”.23
It is fascinating to notice a rather bizarre correlation between instruments and drawings also concerning the above-mentioned four-keyed flutes by Custody & Schulz, Monna, and Bosa in Carreras’ collection. In fact, all of them have the F-key hole on the opposite side of the player as represented in Hugot-Wunderlich’s method, while this feature is not actually attested in French four-keyed instruments of the early 19th century, which have such a hole on the player’s side.24
Scene 2: The methods
Gasperini-Gallo’s Catalogo mentions the presence of two copies of Hugot-Wunderlich’s Méthode in the library of the Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella.25 One is the original French print 26 and the other one is the Italian translation.27
As Florimo reports, the French print was donated to the library of the Real Collegio by Napoleon’s brother-in-law, the King of Naples Gioacchino Murat, in 1811, together with other eight methods in use at the Parisian Conservatoire.28 The goal was probably to promote a cultural uniformity with France, as it happened with the creation of the Conservatory in Milan three years earlier. However, it seems that the school board officially recommended the use of Hugot-Wunderlich’s Méthode only in 1816,29 one year after the fall of the Napoleonic Kingdom.
Moreover, three other flute methods from the late 18th and early 19th centuries30 are held in the library of the Conservatorio. The first is the first edition of Devienne’s Nouvelle Méthode,31 originally published in 1794 and written for a one-keyed flute. It is possible that it reached Naples before Hugot-Wunderlich’s one, perhaps during the government of Joseph Bonaparte from 1806 to 1808, but no historical record is available. The use of one-keyed flutes at the beginning of the 19th century is in any case confirmed not only by the above-mentioned surviving instrument but also by sources reporting how multi-keyed flutes were unknown in Naples at the time.32
Another method kept in the Neapolitan library is the third edition of A New and Enlarged Edition of Monzani’s Instructions for the German Flute,33 published in or after 182034 for a nine-keyed, English-style flute.35 However, no organological evidence seems to corroborate an actual preference for such type of instruments, which are not attested among the extant creations of local makers. Therefore, the book might have been acquired simply for its numerous systematic and stepwise exercises, which are “equally applicable to a Flute with a lesser number of Keys”, as Monzani himself explains.36
The same could be said for the last attested method, Rabboni’s translation of Berbiguier’s Méthode,37 meant for a Viennese-style flute with 13 keys,38 but with explanations in Italian and several practical exercises.
A possible confirmation of the practical nature of the local didactic and of the French influence in the Real Collegio can be found in the collections of etudes held in the conservatory library:39 Dorémieulx’ Etude,40 Gebauer’s Soixante leçons méthodiques,41 Hugot’s Vingt cinq grands études,42 and Vogel’s 14 passages et préludes.43 Furthermore, around 1818, the catalogue of the copy shop in Strada Trinità degli Spagnoli published an Italian edition of the “18 Exercices ou études dans yous les tons” from Berbiguier’s Nouvelle Méthode.4445
However, following the 18th-century tradition, most of the performance practice indications were probably given orally to the students by their teachers.46
Scene 3: The teachers and the players
Not surprisingly, also in Naples flute teaching was part of the oboe class in the 18th century and until the merge of the four conservatori in 1807.47 Although there is no evidence that an autonomous flute class was created in this year, it is plausible to assume that Marcello Perrino, director of the Real Collegio at the time, decided to split the joint classes during the reforms he introduced to develop the instrumental studies in the institution.48
It seems then that the first emancipated flute class was held by Giosuè Fiore, “teacher of the said instrument in our Real Collegio di Musica, where he was the founder of the flute school, although he played a one-keyed instrument, and educated many good pupils.”49 Fiore was also principal flautist in several Neapolitan orchestras (Reale Cappella, Reale Camera Palatina, Teatro San Carlo, and Teatro del Fondo)50 and composer (as witnessed by his Sei Capricci, published posthumously by Girard).51
When Fiore died in 1823,52 the oboe player and teacher Giovanni Battista Belpasso became principal flautist in the Reale Cappella and the Reale Camera Palatina, while Pasquale Buongiorno took over his teaching position at the Collegio.53
Buongiorno, dedicatee of several of Mercadante’s works, was admitted to the conservatory in 1810, but already then and again in the following year, the administration remarked that he did not pay the tuition fee. It is not clear what happened then: perhaps he dropped out of the Collegio without graduating, which would explain the definition of “gran dilettante” found in Mercadante’s dedications and some journals until 1820; or perhaps he received an exemption to the payment and received a diploma anyway, as the appointment as a flute teacher a few years later would imply.54 During his forty years of teaching,55 Buongiorno trained several pupils that became well known in the Neapolitan and international scene, among which Nicola De Giosa (player at the San Carlo)56 and Giovanni Scaramella (soloist in Naples and later principal flautist and teacher in Brazil).57
However, his most successful student was certainly Sergio Nigri.58 Born in 1804 in Bisceglie (Apulia),59 he entered the conservatory in 1816,60 studying with both Fiore and Buongiorno.61 Two years later - at only 14 years of age - he became the principal flautist at the Teatro Nuovo, and later at the Real Teatro del Fondo, the Real Cappella Palatina, and the Teatro San Carlo.62 He was so highly regarded that Prince Leopold of the Two Sicilies, brother of the king, wanted him as his flute teacher.63 Unfortunately, due to an illness, he was forced to stop playing in 1837, moving back to his native town, where he died two years later.64
His eulogy seems to confirm that indeed a French influence (as witnessed by the surviving instruments and the library methods) has taken place in Naples. This, however, had allegedly been overcome by Nigri’s teachers Fiore and Buongiorno:
The flute was truly emancipated from the slackness of the French school and educated in more varied and dignified discipline, first by Mr Fiore and then by Mr Buongiorno, master of the now deceased Nigri, who can rightly be said to be the founders of the difficult but beautiful Neapolitan school concerning the aforementioned instrument.65
Nevertheless, the passage does not clearly explain whether this concerns the instrumental technique and aspects of the performance practice or a mere change in the compositional style of flute music, intended perhaps as more operatic and/or virtuosic. The latter hypothesis (also put forward by Lazzari)66 might find confirmation in Panzanese’s affirmation that Zingarelli, Nigri’s composition teacher, “endeavoured to protect the purity of Italian music, and sheltered his brave pupils from the torrent of the Rossinian school”.67 Rossini’s style was then considered too French and not connected to the Italian tradition of the Neapolitan school.68
Furthermore, the fact that such change was promoted by Pasquale Buongiorno for the flute playing and Nicolò Zingarelli for the composition is very interesting since they were respectively a fellow student and the composition teacher of Saverio Mercadante during his study years at the Real Collegio from 1808 to 1820.
[To Intermezzo]