Stephen Mark Shearon, Ph.D. 1992

Advisor: Howard Smither

Dissertation Title: Latin Sacred Music and Nicola Fago: The Career and Sources of an Early Eighteenth-Century Neapolitan Maestro di Cappella

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Dissertation Abstract:

Nicola Fago, “il Tarantino,” was the first of three generations of maestri di cappella to work in Naples during the Settecento. He arrived in Naples in 1692, studied with Francesco Provenzale, and was an active professional there from ca. 1700 to 1745. As maestro di cappella of the Conservatorio Sant’Onofrio a Capuana, the Chiesa San Giacomo degli Spagnuoli, the Cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro, and the Conservatorio Santa Maria della Pieta dei Turchini for 3½, 9, 29, and 32 years, respectively, Fago was highly regarded as a pedagogue, contrapuntist, and composer of church music. Indeed, during the years 1708-1725 he was one of the most frequently mentioned musicians in the Gazzetta di Napoli. His students included Leonardo Leo, Francesco Feo, Giuseppe de Majo, Niccolo Jommelli, Nicola Sala, and likely Michele Falco, as well as his son Lorenzo. Giuseppe Sigismondo described Fago as the catalyst behind Sala’s Regole del contrappunto pratico (1794), which was later incorporated into Choron’s Principes de composition des ecoles d’Italie (Paris, 1809). Fago was also the brother-in-law of the great castrato Nicolino and worked closely with such singers as Nicolino, Matteuccio, and Farinelli. He clearly was an integral part of the Neapolitan music scene in the early eighteenth century. 

Source studies form the core of this work. Part I discusses Fago’s biography, legacy, and standing in the Neapolitan musical environment. Part II treats, in detail, at least 107 sources containing his Latin sacred music and establishes the autograph and other hands (while exposing a heretofore unrecognized Leo autograph), establishes the original (versus later) instrumentation of several of his works, and corrects several misattributions (one of which was to Domenico Scarlatti). Part II also includes 137 hand samples. Part III is an overview of Fago’s Latin sacred works, which include a Requiem Mass, Mass Ordinaries, litanies, psalms, canticles, hymns, sequences, responsories, motets, and miscellaneous works. Appendices include diplomatic transcriptions of twenty early documents; transcriptions of early historiography concerning the composer; a works list consisting of 99 titles (approximately 25% of which are new) with incipits and detailed source information; 216 watermark tracings; and 196 rastra measurements. 

Dr. Shearon is a Professor of Musicology at Middle Tennessee State University, where he teaches both graduate and undergraduate students while pursuing research on Christian sacred music cultures, including shape-note and convention singing.