And that of «conservatory»? The origin of the term

«Conservatory» versus «music school»

After years and years enclosed within the walls of these institutions, of these buildings full of instruments and sounds, how many of us have asked ourselves why we study in a “conservatory” and not in a “high school of music” or “university ”, As in other countries? Why are these schools so called? It’s so usual, we start so soon in the «conservatory», that we don’t even think about it.

It is true that this is not the case in all countries. In some there are music schools, and only when a student decides to professionalize his vocation enters a conservatory. In others, directly, there is no such terminology, but higher studies are studied at the University or at a Higher School of Music with an equivalent degree.

Well, we assume the ethereal condition of the sound. And so?

We, precisely we who dedicate ourselves to ancient music, can say that we preserve music from other times. Well, we actually learn to master our instruments in order to give life to these musics. Music that the man tried to transmit by means of notes in a score. Well, yes, we keep scores of ancient music and books that help us find a way to interpret it closest to its moment of creation.

But it turns out that conservatories with specialties of ancient music are very few in proportion to all who bear that name in general. In addition, we could argue that not only what is known as «ancient music» but any other music of the nineteenth, twentieth or twenty-first centuries is preserved in conservatories. The downside is that there is also the specialty of Composition and Improvisation subjects. That is to say: new music is created and, to a greater or lesser extent, one learns to improvise.

Let’s face it: when a young man decides to enroll in a conservatory he does it because he wants to learn to make music and play an instrument, not to conserve I don’t know what.

Some of these centers, already historical, certainly collect valuable collections of scores, books, documentary files and recordings (the only way to pack the sound!), As is the case of the Library of the Royal Higher Conservatory of Music in Madrid , which treasures important historical-administrative documentation, manuscript backgrounds, printed music and sound records.

Let’s be realistic again: it’s not usual; and in any case all this responds to the functions of an institution, the library, within another that is the Conservatory.

A review of dictionaries

The Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy does not doubt us: its definitions still do not explain why the term «conservatory», and the «fish nursery» referred to in etymology gives us a strange feeling …

Let us, then, do a small search – focused only on nouns – in some dictionaries of the nearest European languages:

Convents, hospices, orphanages … and music

Musicologist Adelmo Damerini offers the explanation in his entry «Conservatory» of the Italian Encyclopedia (1931):

The word «conservatory» originally has the meaning of «asylum», «hospice», «orphanage». That, in reality, is what the first conservatories in Italy were: places where young people without parents were «kept.» There they were taught to read and write and they looked for ways to provide them with some trade. Those who showed a special disposition were also offered a musical education.

Among the numerous Neapolitans, we can mention the Conservatory of Poveri di Gesù Cristo, the Conservatory of Santa Maria di Loreto, that of San Onofrio, the Conservatory of the Pietà dei Turchini …

With the same purpose, musical institutions called «ospedali» emerged in Venice: della Pietà, dei Mendicanti, degli Incurabili, dei Ss. Giovanni e Paolo.

In these institutions the most famous composers of the moment worked, such as Francesco Gasparini, Johann Rosenmüller or Antonio Vivaldi, whose names are absolutely linked to the Ospedale della Pietá in Venice.