Marina Toffetti
Introduzione alla filologia musicale

Lucca, Libreria Musicale Italiana - Roma, Società Editrice di Musicologia, 2022

Musical philology is in many ways an elusive research field. It escapes musicians, accustomed to conceiving music as mere practice, at best corroborated by ultra-specialized theories for professionals only. It also escapes the literary philologist, who resists the “musical text” concept, and also that music, this ephemeral art par excellence, can be subject to philology scrutiny. This book tackles complex issues in a plain and easy way to clear out old clichés and tricky misunderstandings, despite its smooth and sometimes irreverent tone. It also makes a safe guide for those who want to approach musical editions (scholarly or practical, anastatic or Urtext) so that they can choose and use them with awareness and competence. As Paul Badura-Skoda noticed, what good would good music editions do if nobody bought and used them? First, the book addresses some general questions: what is meant by “musical text”? What does a musical philologist do? The second part delves into specific problems: How do you edit music? What types of editions are on the market? How to choose among these, given your needs? Finally, an anthology of writings tackles case studies concerning problems arising in different repertoires—early 17th-century voice-and-continuo, Romantic organ and piano, late-Romantic clarinet and strings, 18th- to 20th-century opera, 20th-century guitar, thus allowing reflections on sundry eras and instruments. This book is an indispensable training tool for both musicologists and musicians due to its clear articulation, selected readings, reading tips, and glossary.

Marina Toffetti teaches Musical Theories and Analysis of Musical Forms and Compositional Techniques at Padua University. She taught Exegesis of musical texts (SILSIS Pavia-Cremona University), Musical Philology (Jagiellonian University, Krakow), Critique of musical text (Milan Conservatory), and Musical Philology (Monopoli Conservatory). She graduated in piano, choral conducting, composition, and modern Italian literature, has a  Ph.D. in Musical Philology, won musicology competitions and research grants, held conferences, seminars, and masterclasses at multiple Italian and European institutions, and regularly took part in national and international meetings (in Croatia, England, France, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA). She penned essays, dictionary and encyclopedia entries, and edited scholarly editions of Marc’Antonio Ingegneri’s Liber secundus hymnorum (Lucca: LIM 2002), Giulio Cesare Ardemanio’s Musica a più voci (Pisa: ETS 2012), and Girolamo Frescobaldi’s Liber secundus diversarum modulationum (Milan: Suvini Zerboni – Società Italiana di Musicologia 2014). She is in the committees for the publication of the complete works by Marco Uccellini (Lucca: LIM) and Tomaso Cecchini (Zagreb: MIC – Ministry of Culture of the Croatian Republic) and is a referee for Fonti Musicali Italiane, Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology, Jagiellonian Music (acting as guest editor in 2017) and the Musicalia Istropolitan series, Comenius University, Bratislava. In 2013 she received the international Italian Heritage Award for “Research, education, and innovation in the protection of cultural heritage” for her scholarly edition and reconstruction of a missing part in the first musical composition for the theater ever published in Milan.

 To buy: www.lim.it