Diminution and Harmony-oriented Counterpoint in Late Eighteenth Century Naples: Vincenzo Lavigna’s Studies with Fedele Fenaroli

Schenker's criticism of traditional theory focused mainly on its inability to represent the way in which tonal composers thought in music, and the way in which they were instructed to think musically. Recent studies in the pedagogy of composition have shown the principles on which music was taught in the 18th- Century were significantly different from late 19th- Century pedagogy, and closer to Schenker's ideas. Very little - if nothing - is known, however, about the teaching of composition of the most important music school in Europe during the Settecento: the four Naples conservatories. A manuscript in the library of the Milan Conservatory allows us to follow the entire course of a composition student from the beginning to the full mastering of the fugue. The pupil was Vincenzo Lavigna, a quite successful musician who later become the teacher of Giuseppe Verdi. Lavigna studied in Naples with Fedele Fenaroli -one of the greatest Neapolitan masters - and his assistants between 1790 and 1799. His book of exercises show how the principles of the Neapolitan school were fully compatible with Schenker's ideas.