Advanced scientific methodology plays Rossini

Abstract

A musical score provides the essential instructions for its performance while containing indications - at times implicit - regarding the composer’s intentions. The presence of authorial variants, and even more so complex series of revisions associated with a single text, presents a challenging path for analytical study. This research, situated within the application of scientific methodologies to music philology, proposes a methodological approach oriented toward the structural analysis of one of the many settings composed by Gioachino Rossini on the same Metastasio arietta “Mi lagner`o tacendo”. Through computational analysis - incorporating parsing, data mining, and graph theory - the melodic, harmonic, and textual compositional choices have been rigorously explored. The results constitute a significant unicum in the field, laying the foundation for a systematic study that supports philological research and paves the way for the use of generative models to investigate the creative process.