Advanced Scientific Methodology Plays Rossini
For music philologists, it offers a novel computational method to analyze authorial variants, but the contribution is incremental as it applies existing techniques to a specific musical corpus.
The paper applies computational analysis (parsing, data mining, graph theory) to study structural variants in Rossini's settings of a Metastasio arietta, providing a foundation for philological research and generative modeling of creative processes.
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 lagnerò 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.