Mauro Mastropasqua (Piacenza, 1961 ) graduated 1987 in
Disciplines of Music at the University of Bologna, with a work on
Alban Berg's harmonic language (rel. Loris Azzaroni) . At the same
univeristy he attended to his doctoral studies (1997 PhD in
Musicology) on Schoenberg'a atonal and Hindemith's neotonal music
(Rels. Mario Baroni and Giovanni Morelli), then held post-doctoral
research fellowships for studies on the concept of musical
logic.
He collaborated with the chair of Fundamentals of Harmony and
counterpoint (1988-996) and held (1997-2001) that of Fundamentals
of Music Theory (Bologna-Ravenna: Faculty di Cultural Goods) and
History of Music Theory (Faculty of Letters and Philosophy at
University of Bologna, DAMS).
Since 2001, as lecturer at the same University, he teaches
Theory of Music and, in the 2nd degree musicological courses, Music
Analysis (/Musical Languages in the modern and contemporary
ages).
Member of the editorial commitee of the review “Analisi”
(Ricordi) in the years 1993-98, of the “Gruppo per l'Analisi e la
Teoria Musicale“ and, since 2007, of the Archivio Maderna –
institutions joined to the Departement of Music and the performing
Arts of the University of Bologna. He took and takes part in
several academic research groups (40%, 60%, RFO), to national and
international congresses, and published essays in Italy and other
countries.
His main research fields are music analyisis and theory, history
of musical composition, the relationships between musical thinking
and the history of ideas.
He worked out a theoretical-analytical model for a stylistic
definition of atonal, tonally suspended and neotonal music as ideal
types (1995), which he then exemplified on Schoenberg's music
(2004), main result of a reflection began in the mid 80s. These
researches also occasioned the author's essays concerning the
epistemological status of analysis, trying to give it some
foundations on the basis of a phenomenological approach. This
tendency is some ways a source for the author's attempts to
elaborate criteria of analytical plausibility, related to
compositional logic and cognition or perception and to
evident/latent textual data (1998 and 2001). This applies in
particular to the definition of degrees of atonality in terms of
‘oppositional' textures contrasting virtual tonal effects (2002),
and the remarks on what is a melodic archetype in European musical
tradition (2002).
