Solfeggi in Their Historical Context

 Solfeggi , or studies in melody, were central to the training of Europeancourt musicians from the late 1600s until the late 1800s. They had theirgreatest influence first in Italian conservatories, especially at Naples, andthen later at the Paris Conservatory, where the principles of the "Italianschool" continued to be taught far into the twentieth century. Becauselearning the Italian style of music was a priority for almost any eighteenth-century musician, many well-known non-Italians also studied or taughtsolfeggi. This was especially true for famous singers or teachers of singing,

 but seems also to apply to instrumentalists and composers. Mozart, forexample, wrote a small number of solfeggi for his wife Constanza.

The oldest Italian conservatories were not established to conserve music.They were charitable religious institutions for the conservation of orphansand foundlings. Different conservatories specialized in the teaching ofdifferent crafts or skills, one of which was music. In a society where familyconnections and social rank were all-important, an orphan needed amarketable skill in order to make his way in the world. It was not enough tolearn "about" music. The child needed to become fluent in the courtly styleso that he could eventually perform at church, in an aristocratic chamber, orat the opera theater. Thus training in solfeggi was practical, not theoretical.By the eighteenth century, the best conservatories found that they couldsupplement their income by hiring out their well-trained young musicians.This income made possible the recruitment of ever more illustriousteachers, with the result that the Italian conservatories became magnets fortalented students and teachers from all over Europe. The conservatories

 began accepting paying students, and slowly transformed into institutionsmuch like the music conservatories of today.

Though manuscript collections of solfeggi were centerpieces in the trainingof musicians in the days of Bach and Mozart, today the outlines of thistradition have faded and most modern musicians will be surprised at howdifferent solfeggi were in comparison with modern "sight-singing" books. Ina sense, solfeggi and partimenti (instructional basses) were two sides of thesame polyphonic coin. Partimenti provided a bass to which the studentadded one or more upper voices in a keyboard realization. Solfeggi providedexemplary melodic material, always in the context of a bass (and mostprobably a harmonic accompaniment). Thus the melody-bass duo at theheart of eighteenth-century music was taught and reinforced from both thetop and the bottom. Collections of solfeggi were thus like a lexicon ofstylistically favored melodic utterances. For the future improvisor, whetherof whole compositions or merely of ornamented reprises and cadenzas,

 

solfeggi provided a storehouse of memorized material from which theperformer or composer could later draw.

Neapolitan solfeggi have been preserved in manuscript collectionsattributed to various great maestros who taught in the conservatories. Insome instances these maestros were famous composers and in otherinstances they were famous singers. Among the singing masters were retiredcastrati who had been among the most admired performers of the century.In Paris, several Italian musicians became established as teachers. The

 vogue for learning the Italian style led to the Parisian publication of a thick volume of  Solfeges d'Italie (Italian Solfeggi) in 1772 (reprinted severaltimes, each time with additions). The masters included in this volume weremostly selected from the Naples conservatories. With the founding of theParis Conservatory in 1795, the Naples methods were taken up by the newinstitution. The standard collection of Italian-style solfeggi later used at theParis Conservatory, the Solfège des Solfèges in various redactions byDannhauser and Lemoine, has remained in print to this day.

 According to the renowned violin master Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770), the"usual Italian solfeggio," meaning the way to sol-fa a scale, was Ut-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-Re-Mi-Fa ascending (in major) and "Fa-Mi-La-Sol-Fa-Mi-Re-Ut"descending. This is rather different from today, and reveals the heritage ofhexachord systems in use in earlier centuries, where half steps are alwayspronounced "Mi-Fa." Already in the late seventeenth century "Do" wasreplacing "Ut," and many eighteenth-century sources questioned whethermultiple syllables should be used at all in complicated and modulatingmusic. Many Neapolitan solfeggi feature such elaborate and rapid melodicornamentation that note-for-note syllabification seems unlikely. Theeighteenth-century editors of the Solfeges d'Italie recommendedabandoning syllables for those solfeggi.

The Paris Conservatory adopted the modern usage of "Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Si-Do" for the notes from C up to C an octave higher, regardless ofchromatic inflections or key. This was but one of many options in theeighteenth century. Nineteenth-century teachers, faced with the newphenomenon of music classrooms filled with dozens of students (who might

 be talented amateurs or members of newly formed choral societies) adopteda simplified sol-fa that tied syllables to scale degrees, something foreign tothe world of Bach and Mozart. One of the motivations for this new system,and especially for certain syllabic inflections intended to represent sharps orflats, was the need for cheap music printing for the masses. By avoiding anyduplicated initials of the syllables (the French Sol and Si, the two S's, werechanged in England to Sol and Ti, two different initials), it became possibleto print music without the need for special music fonts. Frère Jacques could

 

thus be printed as D R M D, D R M D, etc. Variants of this "tonic sol-fa"remain dominant in North American colleges and universities, whereteachers face the challenges of teaching large classes of young-adultlearners.

Neapolitan students studied solfeggi as part of their six-day-a-weekcurriculum, and the second master (secondo maestro) of each conservatoryappears to have been assigned the supervision of this study. Boys oftencame to the conservatories as young as seven years old, so they would growup singing solfeggi. Their level of accomplishment with syllables may thushave been similar to students today who begin French-style solfège at a

 young age. Yet even with the facility that early training permits, manyNeapolitan solfeggi are florid to a degree that would make syllabificationmore humorous than impressive. We are thus left with the irony that today

 we ask adult learners to perform feats of sight singing (singing with syllablestied to scale degrees and chromatic inflections, free of any harmonic andcontextual support from a keyboard instrument) that seem not to have beenimagined in the eighteenth century. Perhaps, with the evidence of actualeighteenth-century pedagogy before us, we can envision the emergence of a"historically informed" style of instruction, one that focuses on theaccumulation of stylistic knowledge rather than on a gymnastics of syllables.

 A Beginner's Guide

Collections of solfeggi copied in the early nineteenth century sometimes begin with elementary exercises of simple intervals in long note values.Presumably those exercises, often titled Scale e Salti   (Scales and Leaps)

 were intended for rank beginners. Other collections from that periodcontinue the progression of mechanical pattern-based exercises to a level ofgreat difficulty. Presumably those exercises were intended as drills foraspiring professional singers. In the eighteenth century, however, the greatmajority of solfeggio collections contain neither primers for beginners norpattern exercises for professional warm-ups or drills. Instead thesecollections begin and end with relatively difficult lessons in style, floridmelody, and contrapuntal imitation.

 As far as is known today, the boys in the Neapolitan conservatories sang themelodies of solfeggi, and either they or more likely a maestro played the

 bass and accompaniment at the harpsichord or other keyboard instrument. We do not know if solfeggi were sung solo or by a group. In fact we knowhardly anything about the performance details of solfeggio practice. If we

 judge by eighteenth-century performance practice generally, then we couldinfer that a light, supple voice with little or no vibrato was the ideal. One

 

should not attempt these exercises with the full operatic chest voice thatdeveloped in the nineteenth century, or with the wide, slow wobble of

 vibrato that became common in operatic singing since the 1940s. Malesingers may need to use a falseto voice for the many high passages, even

 when singing an octave lower than written, since most solfeggi were for boysopranos. Actual tenor solfeggi are a late development.

MIDI files are given for each solfeggio in this series. One MIDI file plays justthe bass, and the other plays both bass and melody. A goal of solfeggio studyis to become fluent in this melodic language, which became better knownas bel canto (fine singing). To that end, it may be useful to approach aparticular solfeggio in three stages. First, listen to the simulatedperformance several times, mentally singing along. Second, listen again tothe simulated performance, this time actualy singing out loud. At first singsoftly so that you can still hear the MIDI melody clearly. Third, sing themelody accompanied by only the MIDI bass performance. You are welcometo download the MIDI files to your own MIDI program, in case it would helpto change the tempo or key.

 As a concession to modern students, the solfeggi melodies are herepresented in the treble clef. The original clefs corresponded to the vocalrange specified in a collection's title. Thus, for instance, a collectiontitled Solfeggi di soprano would have had its melodies written in thesoprano clef.

Solfeggi change key frequently. Try to be aware of the key for each phrase ina solfeggio. As exercises in style, solfeggi require careful attention tointonation, phrasing, articulation, and an understanding of the import of

 written-out ornamentation.

For instrumentalists interested in acquiring an insider's knowledge ofeighteenth-century style, the vocal study of solfeggi can be mixed withinstrumental performance. There were eighteenth-century collections ofsolfeggi for violin, and C. P. E. Bach's  Solfeggietto (Little Solfeggio,originally titled just Solfeggio) was written for the keyboard.