Some is true other emotional written, If you search the forum you see that Italian composers are well represented.

All those famous opera writher's, after all Verdi is the king. 👍

 

I couldn't agree more about Italy's contribution to the art of music and you've named some of my favourite composers. I'm not sure about the ignorance you are railing against in your post but note that even an advocate for Italian music like yourself has missed out, or maybe even under appreciates, the high achievements of the last 100 years or so in Italian art music.
Scelsi
Nono
Maderna
Einaudi
Berio
Sciarrino
Castelnuovo Tedesco
et al..

 

Italy is very underappreciated? Along with Austria/Germany and France, it is considered one of the main countries for classical music.

However, the reportoire is dominated by Romantic era music, and by that time Italy was less important. If the focus was on Early and Baroque music, Italy would be considered more important than even Germany.

 

I agree. It is one of the main countries for classical music. But I also think that Italian music focused more on vocal expression, whereas in France and Germany, instrumental music was more important. Even among classical music fans, vocal music seems less important than instrumental.

 

I don't think that these historical facts are unknown or underappreciated, maybe a few details are not well known but the general gist is. Some things are also not mainly Italian; early chant has several sources (eventually byzantine/syrian/oriental) and similarly the "birth of the classical forms and styles".
Many Italian renaissance and baroque and 19th/early 20th century opera composers are well known and often have hugely popular works.
(There is a bit of bad luck that the best late baroque "Italian" composer was Anglo-German and the best Buffa composer of the late 18th century Austro-German )
If anything, I'd say French music after the "Franco-flemish polyphony" and before the late 19th century is underappreciated (certainly by me and I also think there are good reasons for the relative underappreciation). The French style was considered as important as and distinct from the Italian style in the baroque but Lully or Charpentier are rather niche and French opera of the 19th century (both Grand and Comique) has mostly fallen from favor compared to Italian opera and Wagner.

 

Music requires instruments to be heard.
Which countries invented or perfected the instruments used since the Middle Ages?

 

I was surprised to learn, that even ballet originated in Italy. At least wikipedia says so:
"Ballet originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Under Catherine de' Medici's influence as Queen, it spread to France, where it developed even further.[4] The dancers in these early court ballets were mostly noble amateurs. Ornamented costumes were meant to impress viewers, but they restricted performers' freedom of movement.[5]

 

Well, Italy has been important in the music history when it was rich as a land: Renaissance and first Baroque phase.
With the discovery of America the centrality of Italy decreased; also for this reason many of the Italian composers of the eighteenth century sought their fortune abroad (the "brain drain" from Italy to foreign countries meant that the "know how" was transferred to richer countries).

An example (by no means exhaustive) is the large number of Tuscan musicians (Boccherini in primis) who found their fortune in Paris, London and Vienna in the second half of the eighteenth century. The "Tuscania Serie" record series deals with this topic.

Here some Boccherini's music:

• Notturno G.472 Op.38 No.6, composed in Madrid in 1787 (from CD "Rumbling Divertimenti")
• Quintet op.55 No.6, published in Paris in 1800 (from CD "Little Things in Odd Shapes")
• the Sonata for Viola, composed in 1767 before travelling to Paris (from CD "Tuscania")

 

I don't think Italy is underappreciated musically. I think that label would apply more accurately to French composers from the Renaissance to the modern era, as the commenter above said. In particular I'd single out composers like François Couperin and Rameau.

 

In what way did French composers contribute and influence classical music, as Italian composers did, apart from impressionist movements during the romantic era?

 

I'm not sure I get what your saying.

Italy gets a lot of credit for the history of European music and is still the undisputed home of Opera and Italian is the language of music with music notation usually being in Italian.

I'm not what you mean about France getting to much credit,up until the early 20th century when did France get any credit.
Before the impressionist movement with Ravel and Debussy and the teaching career of Boulanger the only big name in music from France was Berlioz.Until the early 20th century France was all but forgotten.

BTW During Mozart's time Salieri the Italian was the composer in residence for the Holy Roman emperor not Mozart or Haydn.

In Beethoven's time Rossini's opera's where tens times as popular than Beethoven ever was

 

I hate it when people think Germany or France contributed most to Western classical music while neglecting Italy's contribution. People who still believe this are clearly very ignorant of the history and development of Western classical music.

While this a good starting post about the Italian influence, as far as I can see it is unnecessarily based on a lame strawman argument. First, I don't know who thinks that France contributed the most to classical music (probably someone whose mother dropped them on their head when they were babies). I think that case can easily be made in the medieval period, but that's about it. Second, I don't think anyone who knows anything about opera doesn't appreciate the Italians' tremendous contribution to it unless they think Mozart invent it. So I will skip that genre entirely.

For this discussion, I will say there are three categories of classical music fan: 1) those that own a dozen or two classical CDs and go to a handful of concerts a year, 2) those who are very serious about classical music, listen to dozens and dozens of composers, read books on the subject and often belong to a forum like this one, and 3) those who are in category 1 and are moving towards category 2.

Those in category 1 don't know about practically any country's influence in the development of music and they really don't care. Most think classical music started in 1700 and if they do like Renaissance music they certainly know who Palestrina was. They don't know anything about Clementi but they also don't know of the importance of C.P.E. and J.C. Bach in the mid 18th century or Schutz, Sweelinck, Biber, Froberger, or Purcell in the 17th century . For them it is a general issue, not an Italian issue.

Category 2 people already know about everything you said (although I am not that interested in film music so I only know a little about that) and they recognize you left out Gabrieli and Frescobaldi in the development of keyboard music. They also know about the influence of Italian music on Bach, Handel, Mozart and many more non-Italian composers and that Cherubini was Beethoven's favorite contemporary composer.

So that leaves the category 2 people who are in the process of learning about the history of music and I think it is very helpful to post about this subject. But I really don't think it helps to label them "very ignorant." All of us were "very ignorant" of everything about classical music at some point in our lives. Why would anyone want to read posts by someone who acts both snooty and snotty towards them?

So, this is a good topic for discussion, but if you want to influence people, think honey rather than vinegar.

 

Along with Italy’s retrrat into opera during the 19th century, Italians were not considered fully white by Americans and Brits, whereas Germans were. So that impacted the musicology of the period.

 

I'm not sure about that. Was it ever illegal in the US or the UK for a "white" to marry an Italian?

 

The only way Italy can be underappreciated in classical music is if you never heard of Vivaldi, Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, Monteverdi, Donizetti or the greatest conductor in history Toscanini.

Though Paganini wrote violin concertos in the Romantic period it is true there was not otherwise a great Italian writer of orchestral music in the age ... but a German -- Mendelssohn -- wrote the "Italian" symphony for them in the vein of Dvorak's American "New World" symphony.

In the 20th century few writers of orchestral music were as fecund or original as Respighi who composed a dramatic symphony and concertos for both piano or violin. And few composers of any type became as well known or beloved as Ennio Morricone whose Concerto No. 1 (a concerto for orchestra) is a wonderful piece of modern classical music.

 

I don't think Italy is under-appreciated. What with composers from Palestrina to Monteverdi to Vivaldi to Verdi to Berio, each century has great Italian composers. For opera alone, Italy ranks very high with me.

But I think with cliches such as "the three B's" Classical music institutions have promoted the German/Austrian school above all others.

 

We could change the identities of the 3 Bs to Beethoven/or Bach, Bellini, and Berio. Or even Berlioz, Bellini & Berio. The possibilities are enormous.

 

-the birth of the modern symphony and the forms of musical classicism, thanks to composers such as sammartini, brioschi

Whatabout F.X. Richter, F.I. Beck, I. Holzbauer?

(1760)

(1762)

 

Forget the composers...look at conductors. The center of gravity in the conductijng world shifts. For a long time it was Hungary (Szell, Ormandy, Reiner, Solti eg), then a lot of top talent came from Germany/Austria. Now it seems to be Finland. But Italy! Toscanini, Serafin, Cantelli, Muti, Abbado! I play with a conductor trained at the St Cecilia Academy and he had a great career in Italy before retiring but still has incredible ears and a phenomenal stick technique that he credits to his Italian training. And there are some brilliant young Italian conductors out there. Like in Detroit. Jader Bignamini.

 

I also don't see any field where the Italians are obviously unduly neglected. Sure, some Italians of the baroque or later 18th century are neglected. But often less, certainly not more so than the lesser know French or Germans or whatever of such time periods.
Italian opera totally dominates overall, although some of the best was written by non-Italians like Handel, Hasse and Mozart. Even in the period with strong German opera, as the mid-19th-early 20th century, Italian opera clearly holds its own.
And to claim that Italian non-operatic music in the 19th century where most the standard symphonic and a lot of chamber repertoire comes from would be equal to Austro-German or Russian or French or Bohemian would be deluded.
One might argue about 20th century Italian composers being neglected. Maybe, I don't really know if Respighi, Malipiero, Casella, Nono etc. are neglected.

 

Andante, Adagio, Allegro, Presto, Moderato, con brio, con spirito, Maestoso......all Italian words and phrases. That alone speaks volumes on the Italian influence in music.

Piano, Pianoforte and Fortepiano are also Italian names. If I'm not mistaken, the piano itself was invented in Italy.

 

Even among classical music fans, vocal music seems less important than instrumental.

Not for me. Most of my listening, of any genre, is vocal music. But then again, I'm Italian; Sicilian to be exact.

 

Same here. I probably actually have a preference for vocal music, although I'm not very knowledgeable at all about 19th and early 20th century Italian opera.

 

I think you are totally wrong as to what concerns music before the second WW. 78 of the 400 composers in my archives are Italian (nearly 20 %). On the other hand after the second WW it drops severely as only 15 of the 400 listed are Italian. This is due to the enormous rise of American music and the strong numbers of French and English composers who benefit from better institutions.

 

I hate it when people think Germany or France contributed most to Western classical music while neglecting Italy's contribution...

Germans and Austrians rightly deserve to take almost all the gold medals in classical music. This is not to say that they weren't aware of other styles or cultures as Bach had the French Suites, English Suites, and Italian Concerto; Mendelssohn had the Symphony #3 "Scottish Symphony" and Symphony #4 "Italian Symphony"; Beethoven had the Irish Songs; and Mozart had most of his operas composed for the Italian language. Bach admired Vivaldi enough that there are one or two Bach concertos (I forget which ones) that were adapted from Vivaldi concertos. Still, the Germans and Austrians deserve rightful credit as the culture that has given the world it's most beautiful and (apart from Stravinsky) most influential music with Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wagner, Bruckner, Johann Strauss, Richard Strauss, Mahler, and Schoenberg, being the real heavy-hitters. I think though that every country in Europe has it's niche; it's own little handful of good composers and even a few great ones, if not at least one that comes to the fore.

With the Italians opera is the genre where they surpass them all and even the Germans depending upon how you look at it. Since the 1980s Monteverdi and especially L'Orfeo has been rediscovered and has justly taken it's place as the first of all modern operas. The Rossini operas have yet to be given their full due. Those who enjoy Verdi and Puccini seem to be atracted melody and very fine singing. Just as Germany and Austria's central location may have contributed to it (and especially Vienna) becoming a musical hub; it may be that the Italian language with it's clarity and it's abundance of vowels has made it so that Italian is the most beautiful and musical of all languages most given to opera. Italianas comes straight fro the gut whereas German (and maybe English) which are heavy on consonants seens to some more from the throat, and French from the nose. Russian is also very beautiul but seems more inclined to favor the bass as opposed to Italian which seems to favor the tenor.

People who are like Verdi and Puccini are different from from those who are devoted to Wagner. With Verdi and Puccini everything is straught-forward, the passion, the spectacle, and the beauty. The Wagnerians remind me more of the Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, or JRR Tolkien fans; not just because it's a world or an alternate universe that is teaming with magic and endless varieties of humanoid creatures such as elves, dwarves, giants, mermaids, etc, but also because they find all sorts of musical as well as extra-musical meanings in Wagner's world that are mystifying to the rest of us.

 

Germans and Austrians rightly deserve to take almost all the gold medals in classical music.

Not after 1900, when Russia and Eastern Europe begin to dominate.

 

I hate it when people think Germany or France contributed most to Western classical music while neglecting Italy's contribution. ...

I think the whole premise of the thread is off. I don't think in terms of nation-states when it comes to music but rather about individual composers. Their "national environment" may be interesting to think of as it relates to the influences it might have had on their creative processes, but I really don't think "France vs Austria" or "Germany vs Italy". That sounds 19th century.

 

Bach admired Vivaldi enough that there are one or two Bach concertos (I forget which ones) that were adapted from Vivaldi concertos.

I agree with every post in this thread with just one minor correction. JS Bach borrowed from 12 of Vivaldi’s concertos. Mostly converted them to keyboard concertos but also organ concertos. He also borrowed from Alessandro Marcello and his brother Benedetto Marcello.

 

The most famous is the 4 harpsichord concerto Bach arranged from Vivaldi's op.3,10 for 4 violins. I don't like much 4 keyboards together and prefer the ones arranged for solo harpsichord or organ...
While most forms and genres between around 1600 and the 1740s first appeared in Italy, they were often adopted and developed in almost no time by foreigners.

Because someone above mentioned American late 19th century racist stereotypes against Italian, I think this not relevant to Europe. In fact, quite the opposite was true from the middle ages until the late 18th century: Italy was usually both the artistic forerunner and highly admired by all northern Europeans, for a mix of lifestyle (probably mostly wine, food and girls), climate, Roman heritage and the actual high culture of the respective time period.

Of course, this led to tensions because in some periods Italians abroad dominated some fields (especially music in the 18th century) to such an extent that there were ressentiments by locals and also the feeling that Italian dominance impeded the development of the own culture. This is what we find at the end of Meistersinger (although it was probably less of a problem in the early 16th and mid-19th century than in the 18th...) where the true German Art (that would remain despite the eventual Fall of the Holy Roman Empire) is pitched against the "welscher Tand" (Italian (or French) baubles or frippery). The American WASPs of the late 19th century might not have considered Italians racially equal but for at least 600 years before that (northern) Europe mostly suffered from a (often justified) minority complex wrt Italy in the fields of art and culture.

 

Because someone above mentioned American late 19th century racist stereotypes against Italian, I think this not relevant to Europe.

I doubt it was relevant to any great extent in the U.S. either. Although there was a lot of anti-Italian sentiment in the U.S. back then, most of came from middle and lower class WASPs who didn't give a hoot about classical music from any country, including their own. Verdi was very popular in the U.S. in the 19th century as was Caruso in the early 20th century.

Until I see some actual evidence that anti-Italian sentiment hurt the popularity of Italian music in the U.S., I am going to sick to the advice of the great Italian composer Antonio Salieri: "Don't believe everything you read on the internet or see in the movies."

 

I should add that there was probably some difference between the longing for Italy and the attitude towards Italians abroad that could be perceived as dominating local culture and artists (and of course there was also a difference between foreign musicians or architects and foreign low skill workers or panhandlers...)
The reverence and longing for the land can be found even in 20th century literature, e.g. Death in Venice (admittedly, a bit twisted there).
But I think that the trope of Italy as land of longing compared to the cold and "barbaric" North and artistic paradigm and influence can hardly be exaggerated.
And while it's true that northern Italy (Venice, Lombardy and Tuscany) was both richer and more artistically fecund, Rome and Naples ("the kingdom of both Sicilies" where the Scarlattis came from) were also quite important and distinct from the Northern styles. Although in the late 19th and early 20th century the economical differences were devastating, the North being more like Austria or Germany, the South totally underdeveloped and dirt poor. (And the ethnic heritages are also different, the north having more Germanic (lombards and goths) heritage, the south being very diverse with Greeks, Saracenes, Normans mixed in).

 

I hate it when people think Germany or France contributed most to Western classical music while neglecting Italy's contribution. People who still believe this are clearly very ignorant of the history and development of Western classical music.
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I've never been aware that Italy's contribution to Classical music has been neglected. Certainly Italy is well represented in my CD collection. It has holes in it, of course. I'm not all that keen on the 19th century (which I'm well aware is the world's most popular) and can't stand anything after.

 

For what it's worth, I recently discovered that my favorite "school" of American (US) composers (Barber, Menotti, Walker, etc.) were students of Rosario Scalero. I think he taught at Curtis, among other things. Learning that has made me more interested in looking into Italian music of that time in general.