Sean A. Curtice: Phil. Trajetta and the American Conservatorio: Solfeggio, Thoroughbass, and Partimento in the Nineteenth-Century United States
In 1799, Filippo Trajetta (1776, Venice – 1854, Philadelphia), son of the celebrated opera composer Tommaso Trajetta, fled Naples as a political refugee aboard a ship bound for the United States of America. A pupil of Fedele Fenaroli and Niccolò Piccinni, Trajetta would spend the rest of his life cultivating Neapolitan musical traditions in the New World. He founded three successive schools of music, each called the American Conservatorio: in Boston (1800-1802), in New York (c.1812-c.1820) and in Philadelphia (1828-c.1850). Trajetta’s teaching employed Neapolitan exercises that he himself had studied (including the Duetti of Francesco Durante), as well as numerous newlycomposed exercises (including progressive solfeggi and practice pieces for choral ensembles). As in Naples, composition students received lessons emphasizing thoroughbass and counterpoint. The merits of Trajetta’s methods were proven by the premieres of his original oratorios, in which he performed with students and colleagues to enthusiastic public acclaim. While the Conservatorio eventually faded without establishing an enduring “American partimento tradition,” Trajetta’s influence nevertheless rippled across musical life. A dedicated and charismatic teacher, he inspired lifelong devotion in his pupils, who pursued careers as composers, organists, professors, music journalists, and even the first conductor of the New York Philharmonic.
Nearly fifty years after Trajetta’s death, his student Albert Emerick continued to advocate “a returnto the Regola d’Ottava[…] and its treatment as practised in the four Conservatorios of Naples,” the“admirable Partimenti[…] by Fedele Fenaroli,” and “that system which was studied and practised by[…] Phil. Trajetta, my beloved master.” Trajetta’s career sheds invaluable new light on the dissemination of solfeggi and partimenti beyond Naples, on the famously esoteric Neapolitan oral teaching traditions, and on the early development of American musical culture.