Italian Concertmaster School: The Process of Formation, National Specificities

The relevance of the study lies in the development of stable ideas about the process of formation and the essential content of national concertmaster schools. The object of the study is the piano concertmaster school. The subject of the study is the Italian concertmaster school in the aspects of its creative and pedagogical activity. The aim of the study is to present the process of formation and development of the Italian school of pianists-concertmasters, as well as to show its current state. The objectives of the study are to present the main characteristics of collaborative performance with basso continuo; to summarise information about the specific skills and knowledge that the maestro al cembalo should possess; to identify the role of the maestro al cembalo in the work on musical performances; to present portraits of the most authoritative representatives of this profession; to analyse the specifics of the concertmaster work of outstanding Italian composers of the XIXth century and to assess their contribution to the development of this type of creativity; to outline the current state of the Italian concertmaster school. Anthropological, hermeneutic, comparative-historical and theoretical-analytical methods have been used as the most important ones in order to clarify the subject. The author’s particular contribution is the search, analysis and systematisation of the archival resources of Italian theatres and city archives, on the basis of which the information on the life and specifics of the creative and pedagogical work of Italian maestro al cembalo and pianist- concertmaster has been introduced into the scientific circulation.