RECONTEXTUALISING FRANCESCO PAOLO TOSTI’S ITALIAN ART SONGS WITHIN LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY VOCAL CULTURE

Abstract

Francesco Paolo Tosti's Italian art songs have long remained marginal in musicological discourse or merely often dismissed as sentimental salon repertoire or treated merely as elementary material for vocal pedagogy. These categories are inclined to obscure their aesthetic significance and historical value in the late nineteenth-century vocal culture. This article recontextualises Tosti’s Italian art songs within the stylistic, poetic and performative language of the Belle Epoque, with special emphasis laid on the connections to the bel canto tradition and contemporary salon practices. The study employs close readings of selected musical scores and poetic texts to discuss musical repetition, text—music interaction, vowel treatment, dynamic nuance, legato phrasing, and declamatory style. Instead of the pedagogical reading of the works, the analysis focuses on the way they function as micro-dramatic structures that convey intimacy and expressive nuance within a compact musical form. The article reestablishes Tosti’s songs within a historical vocal context, advocating for their reassessment as Italian art-song repertoire and as vital evidence of turn-of-the-century performance practice.