LesMu - Lessico della letteratura musicale italiana 1490-1950 (review)

LesMu represents a remarkable corpus of sources in musical literature, stretching from the fifteenth century to the twentieth, from the invention of printing to "before the development of electronic music, before the mass spread of popular music, and before the enormous proliferation of musicological publications" (User Manual, p. 69). In addition to the above-mentioned issue of the journal Musica e storia, which collected the proceedings of the Twentyfifth Study Seminar of the Levi Foundation La musica fra suono e parola ricerche sul lessico musicale in Europa (Venice, 26-28 October 2000), I would like to draw attention to more recent Italian research on the history of musical concepts (see the research project directed by Gian Mario Borio) that focuses on words, their use and meanings over the centuries (the first three volumes on armonia, tempo [Roma, 2007]; espressione, forma, opera [Roma, 2007]; and melodia, stile, suono [Roma, 2009] have been already published).