Description
Music-theoretical works have long not been a specific subject of research in Croatia. As Stanislav Tuksar (2008) once concluded: «the proportions and then-contemporary needs for such music titles, both for education and for all other purposes, still remain a closed book for today’s researchers.» As we will see, this is certainly due to cataloguing issues, but also to historical separations of people and territories. Francesco Antonio Calegari OFMConv (Venice, 1656–1742) is, therefore, the actual author of three sacred works first composed for Padua in 1718 (I-Pca) and later copied for St. Domnius (HR-Sk). Calegari was maestro di cappella at St. Antonio in Padua, before changing back to St. Maria de’ Frari in Venice (1727–1742). The re-attribution of these works could make it necessary to revise previous conclusions, especially concerning repertory building and further relationships of the Split Cathedral in earlier centuries (Tuksar 2000–2014, RISM catalogue). Carlo Antonio Nagli OFMConv (Rimini, c.1680 – Venice, 1756) served as maestro and organist at St. Domnius in the early eighteenth century. After studies on his sacred works (Tuksar 2004, Stipčević 2013), I will propose a first reading of his «Principij Primi» (Split 1742, I-Vc) that has ties both to Calegari’s peculiar teaching of harmony and to local customs in Coastal Croatia. Shortly after, Nagli succeeded Calegari at Frari (1743–1756). A thorough analysis of the Martini correspondence (I-Bc) sheds new light on this issue, and especially on the criteria for hiring a maestro on both sides of the Adriatic Sea under Venetian domination: Was it more about the Franciscan order, personal relationships or even ethnicity? Such questions go even beyond the matter of decentering music history. A «common history» is, indeed, not only a task for historians, but it remains also important for the European integration and long-term pacification of these territories.
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