Associated Professor in General Linguistics – Historical Linguistics, Department of Humanities at the University of Palermo. She is a coordinator of Degree Course in “Modern Languages and Translation for International Relations” and a coordinator of Master post-lauream in “Subtitling for Deaf and Audio-description for Blind”. She teaches “Linguistics of the XX and the XXI century”, “Acquisitional Linguistics”, General Linguistics”. President of the Electoral Committee of the Scuola delle Scienze umane e del patrimonio culturale. Member of: Società Italiana di Glottologia, Association International des études Arméniens, Padus-Araxes (Associazione degli Armenisti Italiani), Onomastica & Letteratura.

THE LANGUAGES OF MUSICAL TERMS IN KOMITAS’S PIANO WORKS

The agogic indications in art music are generally indicated in Italian language. However, at the end of the XX century, other languages stared being employed as well. The agogic indications are not always in line with those commonly used.
In the VI volume of the edition of Komitas’s piano works edited in Yerevan in 1982, we can find agogic instructions both in Armenian and Italian (sometimes also in German). Whereas Armenian instructions appear correct and coherent, Italian instructions are not always grammatically and semantically correct but they don’t follow often common standards. It is commonly known that a staff of people intervene to modify a musical text: editor/editors, music teachers, new editors; so it is not always easy to understand whom inadequacy should be ascribed to. I think that the initial instructions belong to the author whereas the agogic indications inside the text can belong to a variety of people. However, it can be useful to put emphasis on the relationship between Komitas’s Armenian and Italian and which Italian is employed “in” Komitas.
Finally, it is important to take into consideration that initial instructions of the authors and the agogic indications of, probably, editors belong to the same historical time of other works by other authors that leave those who were the most frequent models; for instance, in Scriabin we can find agogic indications that are similar to those of Komitas’s works; the double language is found, e.g., also in Debussy (in this case, Italian and French). It is therefore necessary to investigate the reason for this specific innovation in the language of the music.